Chapter 55: The Professor
Corporal Herb Alford stared downwards at the floor of the army truck. It was eleven o’clock at night and he had been asked to partake in a routine mission along with several other members of his unit. His superior officers called it a reconnaissance mission but he always referred to it as “shit detail”. His job was to explore the sewers underneath the city streets, to ensure that there were no rebels located there. This was the fifth time in four months that Herb had been assigned this task and every time he assigned the same section of the sewers and every time he felt like throwing up. He was given an oxygen mask, but even that did not help him very much.
The truck stopped four times to let soldiers off. Six of his colleagues always got to stay above ground and patrol the streets while eight unfortunate soldiers got to go on an underwhelming reconnaissance mission.
Finally it was Herb’s turn. He and a colleague named Hudson got off the truck and proceeded to remove the manhole cover that led to the sewer. Hudson never revealed his first name to his colleagues. Some of the other soldiers took bets as to what it was. Instead all that was revealed was that his initials were BH. Herb’s money was on Bartholomew, but even he didn’t have the courage to ask his colleague who was stubborn and cantankerous most of the time.
The two soldiers descended, down into the sewer. The water was filthy and was four inches deep. The one small mercy Herb was thankful for was the fact that he could barely smell anything outside of this oxygen mask.
Another annoying aspect of their mission was that the tunnel was little more than five foot high and they had to stoop over while trying to shine a flashlight in front of them. Herb always had to take the lead. This meant he was the first to get attacked by rats or any other creatures that lived down there. There was little else that Herb disliked more than rats or snakes attacking him. Normally he would wake up in the middle of the night on successive occasions having nightmares about these creatures biting lumps out of him.
If Corporal Alford didn’t go first Hudson would not be happy. There was nothing more annoying than an unhappy Hudson. They were forced to partner up on almost every mission. If the grumpier officer didn’t get his way he would repeatedly give out with no let up. The verbal abuse could last for hours. It wasn’t that Hudson was physically imposing, it was just that he was relentless. Herb, being the most easy-going of army officers always drew the short straw.
“What was that?” Herb said aloud at the slightest sign of movement in the water in front of him. In truth it was difficult for Hudson to hear him with an oxygen mask on
Both soldiers continued their journey nervously through the tunnels for several hundred yards. Eventually they came to what appeared to be a dead end. The only thing was that according to their map, the tunnel was to continue in a straight line. Herb shone a light on the obstructing gateway in front of them. He examined it for a lock or a door handle, but it was hard to identify one. They had gotten this far before but no further.
Tentatively, the army Corporal, approached the gateway. He was now in a position whereby he could reach out and touch the gate but part of him didn’t want to. Part of him wanted to be at home with his wife on the couch, watching a movie. Slowly Herb pressed his hand against the door and pushed with a degree of force. This action resulted in absolutely no sign of movement or weakness in the gateway.
Suddenly four small hatches in the doorway opened. They were all located at the base of the door. As soon as this happened several rats scurried through. This was what Herb had been dreading. He had seen this before. Normally rats were afraid of humans but not these ones. Some of them tried to bite into his boots and clothing. Some of them also tried to jump up at him with their mouths open. Only one thing occurred to Corporal Herb Alford and that was to run as fast as he could in the opposite direction.
Hudson was already well ahead of him. Herb was relieved that this time he had held onto his flashlight. On a previous occasion he had dropped it and ended up banging his head and shoulder on multiple occasions.
Corporal Alford ran for about a minute until he could no longer feel the rodents on him. He stopped and called out to his colleague who was barely visible. As he moved through the sewer, he was conscious of returning above ground too soon. He was afraid that his superior officer would question both of the subordinates and the task they were supposed to fulfil.
Hudson walked back to his colleague and they waited for 12 minutes before returning to the surface.
“Well?” Captain Stoddard addressed both of them when they reached the truck, “Did you find anything?”
“Nothing Sir, except for a lot of rats,” Corporal Alford replied, as he tried to calmly lie his way out of the situation.
The Captain looked down at Corporal Alford’s footwear and trousers.
“How is it Corporal, that every time you go down there, the army has to buy you a new set of boots and trousers? This will be coming out of your wages Corporal. Climb on board. We’re going back to base.”
Corporal Alford couldn’t care less about his pay packet at this point in time. He just did not want to go back down into that sewer again.
Wilfred Hoskins otherwise known as the Professor, held a rat in his hands and caressed it. He smiled as he did so. Yet again they had done him proud. Wilfred had managed to engineer a device to control the minds of vile creatures according to his will. This was done by attaching a small electronic apparatus to the rat’s head and directing pulses from a mechanism in the Professor’s profession.
Wilfred Hoskins was not officially a Professor. He quit school before progressing to college but his inquisitive and hungry mind always thirsted for knowledge. Wilfred was largely self-taught. It started with his apprenticeship as a mechanic. Within a year or two he knew more than the vast majority of his peers about what made these vehicles work and in most cases not work. In his spare time he studied a wide variety of subjects, from Law to Religion to the different aspects of science.
Wilfred was almost always the smartest person in the room yet always retained his humility. No question was too daft that didn’t deserve an answer. He never tired of questions. Instead it was something that excited him no matter how trivial.
The all-round genius was now in his sixty third year. His initially dark hair had mostly turned grey. He had hardly lost any follicles and liked to allow it to grow more than five inches in length. Wilfred had light blue eyes, was of average height and had a thin frame. He didn’t eat much. He preferred to leave as much as he could for his companions.
More than eight years previously, when his wife was diagnosed with cancer, the Professor, expended most of his time trying to discover a cure. Her illness lasted eighteen months. In that time, Wilfred worked with little sleep. He devised several methods, some of which slowed Agatha’s decline but none of which worked comprehensively. When his wife died, the intellectual, was shattered. Part of him was exhausted from the lack of sleep and the stress associated with it. Another part of him was disappointed, that he didn’t spend enough time, cherishing Agatha’s last hours on this planet, instead of spending hours, slaving away in the garage.
Wilfred didn’t have any children of his own. After Agatha’s passing he felt somewhat depressed and devoid of his usual abundant energy. He rarely left the house and he quit working.
After three years, the bank served an eviction notice on him. He had four months to vacate the house. Two weeks passed by and there was a knock on the door. Most of the time, Wilfred refused to answer. On this occasion it was a young boy with a young Labrador puppy in his arms.
He had seen the young boy, who must have been about six years old, hanging around in the neighbourhood. Most of the young kid’s in the neighbourhood seemed to think the Professor had gone crazy or at least that is what Mr Hoskins thought.
“What is it?” the old man asked a little more abruptly than he had intended.
“Please sir, will you take care of my puppy. My mother wants to get rid of him. We’re going on holiday for two weeks and she says she can’t afford to have anyone look after him.”
“So, why should I take care of him? I don’t even like dogs,” the Professor responded, more abruptly than he had intended once more
“Don’t you think he’s cute, mister,” the polite kid said as he petted his young labrador.
Inside in his own mind Wilfred Hoskins, began to realise that he was becoming the very man he didn’t want to be. The last three years had been a steady decline. While he didn’t enjoy all the effort that went into raising a dog, Wilfred did think that most dogs otherwise were adorable creatures. The old Wilfred would want to help this young boy out. More importantly, it was something that Agatha would have wanted her husband to do.
Wilfred accepted the dog and started to look after it. The boy whose name was Atticus frequently came to visit. In the following months, the Professor became attached to the canine and found Atticus to be a breath of fresh air. The young boy was so open, enthusiastic and honest that he made the old man feel better and better with each passing day.
Three times a day he brought the dog who he called Agatha for a walk. He had rejoined the outside world and didn’t feel as apathetic as he had once been. His life had been transformed from a downward spiral into an upward one. Each day seemed brighter than the previous one.
Mr Hoskins found a part time job and persuaded the bank to renegotiate the terms of his loan. He also spent much of his spare time working on inventions in his back garage.
Almost a year passed by when one Saturday morning, the abrupt sound of an army van coming to a halt could be heard. Wilfred had heard a similar sound to this once before and rushed to his front door. He saw three tall men wearing black robes exiting the rear of the van and approaching a house four buildings to the right of Mr Hoskins house.
What scared him most, was that this particular house belonged to Atticus and his family. Desperately, the Professor wanted to help in whatever way he could, but he was also very afraid. The Reapers scared him. They were above the law and their methods were brutal.
Instead of leaving his home, the Professor stayed inside, listening and observing as much as he could. He heard gunfire and screaming. After a while he could see Atticus limping towards Wilfred’s house. An armed Reaper was slowly following him on foot.
Atticus knocked on Wilfred’s door. He could see that Atticus had been shot in his upper left thigh. Part of the old man wanted to hide from view but compassion overcame him. Quickly he opened the door, let Atticus in and locked the door. The Reaper in pursuit, started to shoot at the front door. The old man and the kid got down on their hands and knees. They crawled down the hallway and into a room at the back of the house. Once there, the Professor asked Atticus to climb into the closet. The young boy was evidently very afraid and upset. Clearly he didn’t have total confidence in Wilfred that this was the best hiding place.
Mr Hoskins closed the door of the closet and reached up with his right hand to press a concealed button at the top of the closet. Quietly and steadily, the floor of the closet started to go down. Atticus was relieved to see that they were being brought down into a concealed basement.
“I built this in the event of intruders coming into the house,” the old man whispered.
The basement was dimly lit by three lamps. It was about seven metres by seven metres in length and width and ten feet in height. On one of the walls were several tv screens that showed each room in the house as well as outside it. In the middle of the concealed basement was a worktop and to the back of it were two six foot long couches. There was no bed or other furniture located there.
As Atticus observed the tv screens in front of them he could see two Reapers enter the house.
“We’d better look at that, wound of yours,” the Professor suggested before raising the young by up onto the worktop and lying him down horizontally. He examined the wound before declaring that the bullet had gone straight through his leg. Atticus kept an eye on the TV screens as the Professor examined him. The young boy remained anxious whereas the Professor was behaving as if it was just another day.
Mr Hoskins located a roll of white cotton and wrapped it tightly around his leg after wiping as much of the blood away from the wound as he could. “They took my parents and my little sister,” Atticus said in an upset manner with tears in his eyes.
The old man tried to console the young boy but it seemed as if all the consoling in the world would not relieve him of his traumatic experience. To make matters worse, Agatha started to attack one of the Reapers and was shot dead. The Professor wished that there was something he could do to thwart the power and influence of the Reapers but it seemed futile. The reality was that they were too formidable and too barbaric in their methods. There didn’t appear to be anything that could be done to stop them.
Mr Hoskins watched as the Reapers placed trip-wires and their own cameras in each room of the house. Less than an hour after they had first entered the house, they left.
The old man looked at his lifeless dog, lying in the middle of the kitchen floor. He willed the dog to get up and to fight his way back to life, but nothing happened. Mr Hoskins felt like crying but knew that tears would do him no good. He had to be strong.
“We only have enough food to last for five days and after that we will have nowhere to go. There’s no guarantee anyway that we can outsmart them. We certainly can’t outrun them.”
“I heard my Father talking,” the boy declared. “he said that he heard stories of a group of fugitives hiding in the forest about five miles from here. He said, he heard that they had a secret hiding place and that their numbers had increased over the years. We could go there.”
Suddenly Atticus seemed to have a sparkle in his eye and a sense of optimism in his heart. No matter how many times the Professor said within his own mind that his life was effectively over, he wasn’t inclined to dampen Atticus’s spirits.
After a full day of resting and waiting in the basement, the young boy informed Wilfred that he had something important to say.
“Is there anything that might make you hate me, Mr Hoskins?” the young boy asked.
“Of course not,” the old man replied.
“I’ve never said anything of what I am about to tell you to my parents. I trust you more than them, but I am afraid that I will scare you Mr Hoskins.” Atticus had the appearance of a young boy who was dreading what he was about to say.
“You have nothing to be afraid of young man,” the Professor reassured him.
Atticus took a deep breath. “I am a changeling,” he said. “I can take the form of any human. I’ve never told anyone until now and I’ve only changed form on a handful of occasions. I have always been afraid that my friends and family will disown me. I’m afraid that maybe my family were arrested because of me.”
Even in the dim light Wilfred could see the tears welling up in Atticus eyes.
“Atticus,” the old man said with his arms open wide, “You look like you could do with a hug. There is nothing to be afraid of. If anything, if I were a boy again I would rather be a changeling. I could look like anyone be anyone. I struggled with women until Agatha came along and she changed my life. You have a gift Atticus, but more importantly you are a great boy and that is more important than anything. You would walk through walls for your friends and you are about the most honest individual I could hope to meet.”
Atticus held Wilfred even more tightly. “Thank you,” Mr Hoskins he said in a loving manner.
At 3am on the third night, the two fugitives decided that they should make their move. They took the lift back up to the closet and avoided the tripwires on the way to the front door. Once they opened the front door they knew that this would alert the Reapers to their presence. Their plan was to hotwire Atticus’s father’s car. They hoped that it hadn’t been towed away. Neither fugitive was in a position to run very far and driving away in that car appeared to be their only hope.
Both of them moved as quickly as they could. As soon as they reached the car, they could hear sirens in the distance. The Reapers’ siren was rather distinctive in sound. The vehicle was a station wagon and was about fifteen years old. The Professor managed to open the drivers door in a matter of seconds. He climbed in and opened the passenger door. Wilfred was conscious that the sirens were getting louder and louder. The task of hotwiring a car seemed to be easier in his youth. After much fumbling he managed to start the engine. The old man then drove the car calmly down the street. He believed that if he looked like he was in a hurry it would only draw attention to both of them.
Both fugitives were halfway to their destination when they could see a police car approaching them from behind. The police officers appeared to be trying to communicate to them to pull over. Calmly, Mr Hoskins pulled into the hard shoulder. “Remain calm Atticus,” the old man advised his companion. Inside the Professor was incredibly nervous but he tried desperately to appear confident and relaxed in his exterior.
Mr Hoskins rolled down the window.
“What is the problem officer?” he asked.
“You’re rear brake light is smashed in. You really shouldn’t be driving with a damaged brake light.”
“It must have been vandals. Myself and my grandson are just on our way back from a late night at the movies and a take away. I’ll get that brake light looked into tomorrow.”
The police officer had a suspicious look on his face.
“Where are you headed?”
“121 Brookbridge Lane.” That was the address where Wilfred had been raised. He didn’t even know if it had been knocked down.
“What is your grandchild doing with a blanket. It’s hardly that cold is it.”
“Kids these days can be quite sensitive. He’s always complaining that the heating system in the car doesn’t work. You have to put up with these minor complaints when dealing with children nowadays.”
Atticus sneezed, thinking that now was the appropriate time to do so. The professor was trying desperately to remain calm in appearance at least.
“Yeah, I’ve got two of my own,” the officer replied before pausing to think.
“Can I see your licence?” the police officer asked.
“Why sure,” the old man responded. Luckily, Wilfred’s licence was still in his possession and in date. He reached into his wallet and handed it over.
“Says here,” the officer replied after shining his flashlight on it, “that your address is Cherryville Lane. Is that correct?”
“Well we moved three years ago. Downsizing you know. My wife then passed away. I live on my own with only the odd night to look forward to when my Grandson visits. Nights like tonight mean the world to me.”
The police officer seemed a little indecisive. It was as if he was considering running the licence through his system or just letting the old man go.
“Alright,” he said after moving the licence back and forth in his hand, “ you’re clear to go.”
The Professor gratefully took back the licence and tried to conceal his relief.
They drove away and reached their intended destination three miles from the forest. From there they entered the woods. They found a comfortable, sheltered location deep into the forest. They had only a blanket each to help them keep warm and enough provisions to last for no more than two days.
“What are you doing here old man?” an unshaven shabbily dressed man asked with a knife firmly held to Wilfred’s throat.
The old man did not know who this thug was but he thought there was an even chance that either he himself was a fugitive or he was an informant. His only option was to tell the truth.
“This young man with me was shot by the Reapers. He is recovering from the wound in his leg. We came here to seek the help of the group of fugitives who we believe reside here…”
“Liar,” the roughly dressed man sneered. “You’re here to stoke us out.”
“I’m telling the truth. What do you think I’m lying about?”
“He isn’t. He’s telling the truth,” the young boy replied.
“Let him go, Clayton” another voice called out from behind the man with the knife.
Later the Professor would discover the identity of the leader, a man named Stanislas. In the following years the Professor’s admiration for Stanislas would increase by the day. The Professor could not ask for a more honest, fair and inspirational leader. The Professor on the other hand would prove his worth and become every bit as important to the group