The Berserker
Chapter 9

The darkness of the cupboard had formed a blanket of warmth that comforted Clive as he slept in the makeshift bed that Stephen Owen had made up for him last evening . The fact that trolls didn’t really form family bonds meant he wasn’t missing the elder trolls, but he was missing the cave they lived in.

He had gotten used to the blankets made of sheepskin and the mattress made of rock, which somehow warmed with his body heat, and it was those comforts that he was missing.

Clive opened one eye as the scrapping of tiny claws on metal went past his head, and he sniffed the air deeply as he lay motionless on the towels, only moving his eye to follow the scurrying.

The tiny mouse, with its honey-golden fur, stopped to rise up on its hide legs, sniffing the air in the direction of the troll, as it wondered what the new scent was in the janitor’s cupboard.

The dormouse should have been hibernating, as it was mid-November, but the strange odour that the troll was giving off had woken it from its winter sleep, as though the scent was to attract food to him.

As the mouse reached the corner behind the troll it stopped again and rose on its back legs to follow the scent that was so alluring, but, quick as a flash in the pitch darkness, Clive had spun around and grabbed the mouse in his chunky hand, holding it tight as it squeaked hopelessly against him.

He grabbed the mouse by its tail and held it in the air, sniffing at it with his massive nose, and drooling slightly as the warm blood that pumped through its body gave off its essence that filled the troll’s airways, causing him to quake gently in excitement.

Clive opened his lipstick circled mouth and dropped the mouse into to it, crunching it between his teeth and swallowing it with a gulp.

The blood from the mouse seeped into his throat and Clive closed his eyes as though he thrilled to the taste of it. The gentle shaking that had happened before began again, but it seemed more violent, more intense, and the seeping flow of saliva crept from his mouth.

Stephen Owen had gotten up especially early to get into the school and check up on the troll that he had left sleeping in the janitor’s room.

He thought to himself how ridiculous that sounded as he scrapped the ice from the windscreen of his vintage Volkswagen Scirocco, and he laughed lightly as he breathed a cloud of breath into the morning air.

The trip to the school took the usual 40 minutes, 30 minutes longer than when he lived in the village until he was 50.

He moved away after he split from his wife of 28 years, as he said he needed to have a clean break from everyone, and he bought the rundown shell of a house that he had spent the past 15 years renovating.

His friends would ask him why they had split up after such a long time, and he would always give the excuse that he had had the 7 year itch 3 times before, but the fourth one was enough.

The real reason was that he was sterile, and the strain on a marriage that was devoid of tiny feet had taken its toll on Daphne Owen. They parted amicably, but there would always be an air of regret that she had not been able to produce a child for him, even though it was not her fault, (was it really anyone’s?).

He pulled into the car park of Blaise Comprehensive and paralled himself between the sparkling white lines that was next to the main entrance, killing the engine and sitting there for a second. He grabbed his tin from the glove box and clicked it open in his lap, being careful not to spill any of its contents into the car, as it had a tendency to stink for weeks, and it wasn’t a smell that would fall favourably with the headmaster if he had ever poked his head into the Scirocco.

Stephen rolled his joint of weed and lit the end, inhaling the contents and holding it in so its relaxing toxins could work their magic within him. He kept his eyes closed for the duration of the joint, only opening them when a tappity-tap on his window made him sit bolt upright and blow in a pointless attempt to dissipate the smoke that was already hanging stratospherically within the car.

“Roll ye window,” Bob Campbell said as he tapped on it again.

Stephen did as he was requested, and the smoke attacked Bob as it rushed from the warm car and into the cold morning air.

Bob stood back from the car and coughed as he waved at the smoke in an attempt to clear the air into his body.

“What is that shite,” he asked as he coughed again.

“Sorry,” Stephen said as he wound it fully open, allowing the car to clear in a couple of seconds. “It’s for medicinal purposes only, you know.”

“Aye,” Bob responded as he approached the car again. “There was a strange noise comin from your lab this morn,” he said as he wafted at the fumes that were now coming from the interior of the car. “Sounded like a wee baby,” he added, as he turned away and walked to the entrance of the school.

Stephen checked himself in the rear view mirror, noticing that his eyes were bloodshot and his skin a little pasty.

“What time was he here if he heard it earlier?” Stephen said to his reflection, glancing down afterwards to see the time was 06.10.

A thought suddenly occurred to him that changed the pasty colour of his face to a brilliant white.

What if Bob had opened the door to the cupboard marked Janitor, and the troll had somehow gotten out.

Stephen opened the car door and clumsily ran to the main entrance of the school, his face now full of panic and his head full of dread. He didn’t look behind to see that the car window was still open and that the car door was flung wide, giving it the look that it had been abandoned in the middle of the car park.

For a 65 year old man, Stephen was relatively fit. He always made sure that he was fit enough to run for a bus if ever he needed to, and his 5 mile run once a week, was enough to keep that level up.

As he turned into the doorway of his classroom, his heart calmed and he breathed a deep sigh of relief. The door marked Janitor was firmly closed in the far corner of the room, and the light coming in from the window gave it an eerie, shadowy look.

Stephen looked down the hallway to check that Bob Campbell was not within visiting distance, and he crossed the room, clicking the key that he had kept overnight in the lock.

The door opened with a slight squeak, which made him grimace and look instantly to the entrance of the room, sure that Bob would come storming in to check what the noise was, but the doorway was clear and Bob was nowhere to be seen.

He swung the door open fully and peered into the darkness, closing his eyes slightly as though that would have made any difference.

“Clive,” he called out quietly, “Are you in there?”

He took a couple of steps in to the cupboard so he could get a better look into the corner where he had left the troll, but the darkness from outside was making the darkness inside even more severe.

As Stephen knelt down at the corner where he had made the temporary bed the evening before, he noticed the heavy air of heat that had filled the cupboard. He sniffed the air to try to recognise what it was that was hovering with the heat and realised it was meat, like fresh meat that you would cook for a roast.

He reached to the dark corner, expecting to feel the back of the troll as it slept there, but his hand kept going forward until it hit the wall behind.

“Clive?” Mr Owen questioned, as he waved his fingers in the area that he had left him.

A scrapping noise from behind him grabbed his attention, and he spun on his heels as he remained in a crouched position.

The first thing he felt was the wash of blood that spurted out of the fresh hole in his cheek as Clive swiped him with his huge hands. The nails, that had been small dots at the end of his fingers, had now become long talons that would look more at home on the paw of a wild cat that would hunt the open expanse of the African plains, and it gouged a hole from one side of Mr Owen’s face to the other, causing his cheeks to flap open and reveal his teeth.

He attempted to say the name of the troll, more in shock than trying to get his attention, but the word just gargled in his blood filled throat.

The second thing that he felt was his shirt falling open to reveal his bare chest, which slowly began to ooze with blood as the three diagonal slices opened as the flesh separated to show the ribs that had the deep scores from the claws.

Mr Owen hit the floor with his head as Clive stormed from the corner behind the door, his claws bared and his mouth opened wide to show the spiked teeth that dripped with the saliva that he had been holding in, the saliva that he had to hold in to stop the excitement of the warm blood that surrounded him ever since he had been taken from the island.

The crazed attack on Stephen Owen lasted no longer than a couple of minutes, but it was enough time for the Berserker to consume most of his internal organs, and even clean a few of his bones of the delicious tendons, that he stripped off of them between his spiky teeth.

Clive let out a wailing noise as he snapped one of Stephen Owen’s ribs, a noise that sounded like a baby crying.

Bob Campbell Switched off his polishing machine and looked in the direction of the cry. His ears were pricked as he waited to hear the noise again.

“Whose there,” he called out in his deep accent.

The halls of Blaise Comprehensive had fallen silent in the darkness, apart from an echoing sound that could have been a ceramic cup falling onto a floor.

He left the main hall and walked towards the hallway that led to the history rooms, standing at the end of it while he listened intently.

“Mr Owen, is that you?” he called out, waiting for an answer to come from the silence. “Are ye pissin about man,” he said angrily. “I don’t take kindly to folk pissin about.”

Another wail came down the hallway and Bob Campbell screamed a little.

This was a burly man from the Govan area of bonnie Scotland, so for him to be afraid, something had to be very wrong. He was the type who would purposely walk through a graveyard at midnight, just to prove to himself that he was brave.

“If that’s you kids playin a joke, you’ll be for it when I geet me hands on ye,” he warned them.

Bob took a step into the hallway as he prepared himself to investigate what it was that was making the crying noises, but he stopped again when a low scream, that sounded as though someone had a mouthful of milkshake, came down the hall.

The thought that Stephen Owen was in danger took over his emotions, and so he ran down the hall towards his class. He turned into the room and skidded to a stop as the stench of warm meat hit him. He looked around the room, which was still in a shroud of darkness, trying to see where the strange scream had come from.

“Mr Owen, are ye in here?” he called out, to which there was no reply. “Stephen,” he called out, with the same result.

A bang in the corner pulled his eyes toward the cupboard on the other side of the room, and Bob was sure he could see a pair of legs sticking out of the doorway.

“Jesus, shite,” he said as he covered the distance between them. “Mr Owen, are ye okai?”

Bob knelt down next the carcass that used to be the history teacher, and he had his mouth open in shock. He looked the body up and down, unable to take in what he was seeing as he gasped horrifically.

“What the hell did this,” he said quietly. “It looks lyk a werewolf attacked ye.”

The noise in the shadows of the cupboard made Bob snap his head to that area, just in time to see the six claws reaching out and slicing through his throat as though a warm knife was passing through butter.

His scream stopped at the top of his chest and feebly escaped from the new hole in his throat, as Bob Campbell fell face down on top of Mr Owen, bleeding profusely from the gashes that the Berserker had inflicted.

The troll, which had grown to three feet in height, slit the fresh meat from his buttocks to his head with a single swipe of his increasingly bulging hand, and then proceeded to ravage Bob Campbell in a wave of excitement, until his carcass was as empty as Mr Owen.

The wailing cry that Clive let out echoed around the halls of the school, vanishing unheard into the aging paintwork, and then the cool morning air became quiet again, waiting for the bustle of children and teachers to start their daily routines; but this day would be different to any other that they had ever experienced before at Blaise Comprehensive.