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Michael walked into the room he had only ever heard of from the mouths of drunken fools who lives had been wreaked by their involvment with the likes of Mr Shanks. His mouth felt dry and his hands dripped wet, he was going against all that society labelled him.

Peter was dead but his death was a mystery, Michael didn’t know the Locals had any involvement but he knew and he knew well enough to confront those he blamed but then he was still worried because knowing didn’t necessarily mean he knew.

The room was lit by a single candle balanced precariously on the edge of the mantelpiece opposite him. It bowed and flickered as he entered, casting ugly shadows across the whitewashed walls. A tiny man with silver-blue hair and a narrow grey face looked up from the table.

"You came, then," he hissed.

Michael felt the bile rise to his throat. His mouth gaped and shut like a goldfish in its bowl, but no sound emerged. Mesmerized he stared at the dwarfish figure at the table. He watched as the thin lips parted in a chuckle.

”Yes, you came. They all come to me in the end.”

The room stank of drink and smoke, though behind these familiar smells, was another odour, strange and sinister, an odour Michael had once known but pushed to the outer edges of his consciousness; but which was now teasing, testing his memory.

[u]Two years earlier[/u]

“Just another boring day” thought Michael as he stared down the narrow damp concrete passage he had guarded for the last five years. The eyes in his head rolled to the dirty water soaked floor before turning to his left once again to stare at that door. For five years he had sat at the end of the empty hall with only the infrequent mutters emerge from that red door and for every second, minute and hour he had sat guard there he had always dreamt, wondered and hoped to know what was happening in the secret room he was guarding for the army.

The boredom would shortly pass because his watch was soon up, Michael was due his annual break and Tommy was coming home from his mysterious holiday; the drinks would be flowing swiftly before long down the Flying Bomb bar.

“Hey Mikey” roared the bartender “Its great to see you”

“And you Lordy” replied Michael in his quiet voice with a smile he couldn’t hide if he tried

“Whey, how you’ve been stranger, can you tell us what you’ve been you to?”

“You know I can’t Lord”

Lordy passed Michael his favourite drink without even being asked for it and continued with his joyous probing

“So how you doing these days, are things better now?”

Michael took a sip from his lager and his smile slipped a little but by no means dispersed

“I’m good… in fact I’m really good mate”

“Good, that great” said Lordy in a softer manner “you deserve it”

Lordy raised his own little whisky glass and clinked it with Michaels pint, they both nodded efficiently before parting, Lordy to the next customer and Michael to his favourite corner of the bar

Michael sat down alone at a chipped wooden round table on a stool that had probably been in creation for a decade longer that himself had, as he waited for his friends to arrive he would have tapped his foot in anticipation if it had not been stuck to the grubby floor it so firmly stuck to.

He waited only shortly, his glass not even half empty before his first pal briskly ran through the bar door with heavy snow swiftly following him in with the strong wind that raged outside.

“Hey Peter” howled Michael

Almost immediately Michael knew something was wrong, there was no massive hug, no punch to the ribs followed by a childish laugh, nothing, of course Peter smiled when he greeted his oldest friend but something was amiss but then if Michael knew what his friend was about to tell him he wouldn’t be so happy himself

Peter had always had a sub-conscious belief that the human race was an infection of the Earth, he had not always been this way inclined but something he did while away on his secret journeys churned the idea in his head a little more each time and the paste was turning very thick now