Elisa Felix is a darkly comic and surreal novel that observes English small-town life disintegrating into murder and magic when two policeman erroneously arrive to investigate a crime that has not happened.
Extract from Chapter One
On occasion, the air would tremor with the droning rumbles from a nearby quarry, other times the unearthly screams of rutting foxes would sometimes break the eerie silence with a surreal and magical clarity.
Gupsy wiped his hands clean of petrol in his hair and, taking a half smoked cigarette from behind his ear, began searching for his lighter. Chuffer made himself useful and got another carton ready to swap with the first when it was filled. Gupsy sparked his lighter and brought the flame towards his lips. As if to demonstrate the density of his brain, the flame leapt upwards onto his unwashed mane and engulfed his head as if it was being drawn into a vacuum. Gupsy yelped with shock and flapped his hands against his burning head. The petty crime scene assumed an unearthly glow from the dancing flames and Gupsy s flailing arms cast monstrous silhouettes against the car park wall. It was more like a shadow play by deranged prison inmates being directed by the Marquis De Sade in his gaol than the silhouette of a bumbling small time criminal with his head on fire.
“Bloody hell, his heads on fire,” squawked Oneball grabbing his crotch and moon-walking in a circle. “I’m bad, you know it!” Oneball did his best Michael Jackson yelp before bending over in stitches of laughter.
“Put your cap on,” Chuffer hastily suggested. “It’ll put it out. Me Dad’s always throwing a tea towel over the chip pan. It’s just the same. Probably.
Gupsy had a rare and brief moment of clarity and pulled his cap from his tracksuit pocket. He stretched it over his flaming tresses, wincing in pain as he did so. As rapidly as they had started, the flames then stopped. Gupsy was left motionless, his mouth agape and eyes tightly squeezed together in silent agony.
Oneball struck a pose, his fist clenched in the air and the other hand cupped between his legs. “Thriller!” He yelped, pursing his lips. He looked across at Chuffer who, having been distracted by Gupsy’s fireball display, was allowing the second carton to overfill. “Chuffer, take the pipe out, we’ve got enough. And put the fuckin’ lid on it, there’s still embers falling off his head. Waste of pissing time if that catches alight, you thickhead!”
Chuffer promptly obeyed and took the hose from the car, replaced the fuel cap, and screwed the lid back on the carton.
“Thanks for helping, tosser. It s not funny, it fuckin’ hurt.” Gupsy said to Oneball.
Extract from Chapter Three
In his mind s eye, Feltcher saw himself on the stage at Woodstock. He was bathed in moonlight and whipping his band into a musical frenzy. He contorted himself into wild shapes to a deafening applause as the wall of sound built behind him. He punched the air as the guitarist led a mystical journey through the highest scales, each note that bent and wailed seemed to strike him like lightening bolts of pure energy straight from the ether. The drums rolled behind him, the hi-hat and snare guiding him into a wild dance. The audience screamed in fervour, encouraging him into further contortions.
“Yeeeeeahhhhhhh, come on!” He screamed into the microphone. He grabbed a bottle of wine from the stage floor and gulped down mouthfuls as he span in circles yelling, “I’m fucking Dionysus, man!”
The bassist put his foot onto the flanger and a dub pulse washed over him like a tsunami of sound causing Feltcher to wave his arms in spirals as if he was trying to surface above it. The crowd were mimicking him and hollering with delight. He watched them, a tangled nest of arms, faces and bare breasts. He imagined he was staring into space, each face became a star and Feltcher looked up to the moon, raising his arms as if in worship.
Feltcher watched as a drop of liquid fell from the moon like milk into the writhing mass before him. The droplet grew upwards until it was the height of the people in the crowd and it then began to form a human shape. White, marble like arms emerged from the fluid and slender legs formed before him. A mane of jet black hair framed a perfect face, it was divine symmetry personified. He saw a delicate sadness creep into her deep brown eyes like cataracts and forming a tear on the lower lid of her right eye.
“I am not afraid,” he blasted into the microphone. His voice rose above the cacophony like a cathedral choir praising the heavens. Suddenly the moon goddess melted away like ice. Amidst a pungent aroma of cedar wood and afterbirth arose a mighty fungal mass of eyes, flung into the atmosphere like spores. Blue and green globes darted around him like angered hornets. A cloud of dust formed a pyramid around him and spun like an Egyptian sandstorm. It picked Feltcher off the stage and ploughed its grains into his skin like burrowing mites. Furrows etched across his body like hieroglyphics, ancient symbols, and the long forgotten words of ancient gods, scarring his torso. A falcon’s eye marked itself between his eyes; its lines black like Indian ink.
“Yog Sothoth,” he screamed in unison with the rapturous worship of the audience.
Extract From Chapter Four
“Look sergeant,” Carraldo ran an exasperated hand through the greying roots of his long shaggy hair. I know it s early, but Scotland Yard have sent us to investigate a murder in Gillingham. This is Gillingham, right?
Carraldo was short, fat and the unfortunate bearer of an enormous face that resembled something unpleasant from an abattoir waste bin. His skin was pasty from hours of Internet poker and poor diet, but the heaviest toll on his complexion was his lack of interest in personal hygiene. His cheeks were pocked with dark pores like craters and unsightly blackheads created a lunar landscape of peaks and troughs. His eyes were dark, sunken and framed by flabby lids that hung like dead skin.
“Can you just get the Sergeant, please?” Andy interjected coolly to abate the rapidly boiling tempers of his colleague and the desk clerk.
“I’ve told you, press button B. The phone’s there, there’s a button on it that says B. Press it,” the desk clerk persisted, his voice rising as his patience rapidly diminished.
Carraldo had never seen a man in uniform that so looked like a drunken hobo. The desk clerk’s stained police tie hung limply around his incorrectly buttoned collar and his blazer hung from shoulders as if it was trying to escape and find someone who it would fit. His clothes wore him and displayed terrible taste.
“We’re from bloody Scotland Yard!” Carraldo proclaimed again desperately. He was used to this statement obtaining him some respect, misplaced though it was despite being true, when he visited local constabularies. However, here he was being talked to like dirt by a desk clerk, who appeared to be inebriated, with a dirty bandage around the top of his head that had blood soaking through over his left ear.
“You could be James Bond for all I care, rules are rules. BUTTON B!” The desk clerk, clearly exasperated, was beginning to twitch uncontrollably as if a current of electricity was passing through him. His cheek began to spasm and his pursed lips were starting to form undecipherable utterances as his temper surfaced in quiet grunts.
Andy gaped in disbelief and shuffled with unease. He feared he was about to be subjected to an embarrassing display of Tourrette’s syndrome obscenities and urged Carraldo to dial as requested in the vain hope that this might diffuse the situation.
Carraldo glared at the desk clerk and, with a frustrated sigh, he picked up the phone. He held the receiver to his ear. There was only one button on the unit as the rest had been taped down. It had the letter B painted untidily above it in Tippex. He considered questioning where button A was, but to Andy s relief he thought better of it. He pressed the button and to his dismay was met by the rhythmic beeps of the engaged tone.
It’s engaged, Carraldo smugly announced to the desk clerk expecting him to now go and get the sergeant. No such luck.
“Imagine you’ve won the lottery and you’re calling Camelot. What would you do if it were engaged? Just put the receiver back and say, What a shame, oh well!”
“Look sunshine, you re getting on me tits now!” Carraldo growled angrily causing white spittle to bubble at the corners of his mouth. Then, before the desk clerk could repeat the instructions again and bring their altercation to boiling point, Sergeant Dyke strolled into the reception area...
