Jen Air: Springheel Read online



  Jen Air: Springheel

  By John Coutelier (with additions and changes to one paragraph by my cheerleading niece Rebecca. See if you can spot which one it is. Also proofread by my nephew, Alex, neither of whom were supposed to read the thing, but I let them use my laptop to play online games and they did anyway).

  Copyright 2015 John Coutelier

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Springheel

  Notes: Spring-Heeled Jack

  About John Coutelier

  Other books by John Coutelier

  Connect with John Coutelier

  Introduction

  Jen lives in a lighthouse on top of a hill. The story of why there is a lighthouse on top of hill but miles away from any sea or ocean has been told elsewhere. For now, we’ll just have to accept that there it stands, strange and out of place just like it’s occupant.

  For a long time, Jen had lived there alone, with the occasional checkup from Doctor Jana Sarkis being the most contact she normally had with the outside world (other than occasionally watching TV or browsing the internet of course), but recently that had changed.

  Jen hadn’t always been lonely. As a child, she had been very close to her friend Kaya Cade, but as they grew older many things happened and they drifted apart. Until, that is, the punk guitarist Kaya was sleeping in her car and was attacked by a creature she at first believed to be a faerie, angered by the fact she had happened to glance it. Battered and confused and not knowing who could help, she found herself at the gates of the lighthouse. Jen did eventually help, but not before the two of them getting battered a lot more.

  During their adventure, they found a girl who was also alone but also felt enormous anger at how the world had treated her. That girl, Tenley, had been changed by a woman named Titania so that she might enact her revenge on the people who had wronged, but she quickly became very tired. Jen and Kaya were able to help her as well, just by being the first to ever have shown her any thought or kindness.

  And now, the three of them live in the lighthouse on top of the hill, and there they all feel safe from the cruel world beyond the stone walls.

  But the world doesn’t really ever care how anyone feels, and although you can have sanctuary for a time it will always find a way in.

  Springheel

  Twelve-year-old Henry was having a miserable day. As he had yesterday, and the day before, and knew he would again tomorrow. Nothing in Henry’s life ever changed. Each day he was woken by his alarm. He got up, dressed, brushed his teeth, had some cereal and got on the bus and went to school. He went to his classroom and sat behind his desk at the back where no one would ever talk to him. They did talk a lot about him, always sniggering behind his back about how chubby and smelly he was, or slow and clumsy at sport, or just the fact that his name was Henry.

  The teacher asked him for his homework. The cat had died and mother made him bury it, so he hadn’t done any. The teacher thought he was lying and the children all laughed. He was told to come back during his lunchbreak and do it, which was fine by him. He hated being outside anyway.

  He spent the next hours or so only half listening to the teacher talk about China and the great wall while he dismantled his pen and fidgeted with the spring. The bell rang for morning break and the children started to run out, all still laughing about his dead cat. Except one.

  “Don’t be mean!” She told the others, putting her little foot down. Alice was a popular, athletic girl and was almost certain to be a future cheerleading captain. The reason she was so popular and always surrounded by lots of friends was… well, she was actually just really nice to everyone in the school. Even Henry.

  “Don’t you remember how sad you were when your parrot died?” She admonished one of her friends before sighing and turning to him. “Are you all right, Henry?”

  He couldn’t look at her. Doing so always made him feel funny. And, in truth, he hadn’t really been that sad about the cat dying. It was a fat old cat and hadn’t long for this world anyway. But Alice always tried to sympathize with people and he was too embarrassed with her standing over him smiling so kindly to tell her that she was wrong. So he just blushed and nodded.

  “Well,” she said, Henry involuntarily shuddering as she gently placed a hand on his shoulder, “you try to feel better, okay?”

  Behind her, some of the other children still sniggered. But she left with them, leaving Henry alone. She was the only thing that made his days bearable. The only person who was ever kind to him and the only reason he ever bothered to get up each morning. He wished she hadn’t gone so soon.

  *****

  “The Roses are back and were better than before you better watch out cause we’re tearing up the floor! GOOOOOO ROSES!” Teisha and Angelina practiced their cheers, which would have been fine but for the fact they were doing so in the back of their dad, Steven’s, car.

  “Save it for the field,” he winced and groaned and silently cursed god for inventing song. They did pipe down, a little, but continued to giggle and refuse to sit still for any more than a nanosecond at a time.

  He must have closed his eyes for a second because suddenly a dark figure appeared in the middle of the road, glaring at him through the headlights with bright red eyes. The brakes screeched and the car swerved, accompanied by the surprised and startled screams of the girls in the back. The chassis shuddered and the front crumpled into a brick wall. For a time, there was a silence. And then the father groggily lifted his head, asking, “Is everyone okay?”

  There was a sore neck and one of the girls had somehow hit her nose, but otherwise they were fine. “Wh-what was that?” The eldest stuttered. “Was that a deer? Did we hit a deer?”

  “I don’t know,” the father answered. He didn’t think they’d hit anything apart from the wall, but there had definitely been something there. There had to have been, because otherwise he’d have crashed for no reason which wouldn’t look good on his insurance claim. But he didn’t think it was a deer… he’d only seen it briefly but it looked human in shape, dressed in a black coat and wearing some kind of mask or helmet. Peering back down the road he saw it was empty, which was a relief. But he supposed he should go back and check.

  “Where are you going?!” The unsettled girls asked as he opened the door to get out. He assured them he was just going to take a look and would be back in a moment.

  The girls waited impatiently for a long time, looking back through the window as their father glanced back and forth between both sides of the road. “Should we call the police?” One of them asked, already reaching for her phone. The other had no idea what to do, or even if they should do anything yet. Suddenly there was a thud. The girls jumped at the sudden shaking as something banged the side of the car three times. Then silence for a moment, and then more rapping, tapping, and scratching at their door.

  “Something’s there…” the younger girl observed although it was obvious. The eldest looked back again over her shoulder. The road was empty. “Where is he?!” The young girl suddenly screamed. “Where is dad? Where did he go?”

  The older girl shushed her as they felt another judder. She slowly leant to the side, pressing her nose against the cold glass of the window as she tried to look out and down. She couldn’t see anything and fought back the urge to open the door. The urge to know, even though the answer might terrify her. She leant back, away from the window, and then her sister screamed. It was at the other window, staring at them. A man with pale skin and dark lips twisted into a cat-like grin. He wore a black cap and metal goggles with round, red lenses and what looked a clock face etched on each of them. He craned his neck back, and then jerked it forward smashi
ng it through the glass, the grin never leaving his face.

  The girls screamed again and crawled back, but the younger one who was nearest to the intruder still had the presence of mind to grab the nearest weapon, which turned out to be a baseball bat rolling across the floor. There wasn’t room to swing, but she jabbed and hammered him with it. But all that did was make him laugh, and he continued to tick and turn and slither his head and shoulders in through the window, leering over them.

  “Who are you?!” The eldest demanded desperately.

  The attacker ticked and twitched, his turning around as he spoke broken words. “Call me… J-J-Jack… Jack… Springheel… Jack…” he suddenly broke into another strange manic laugh. He suddenly clamped his hands either side of the door and bent back, pulling it from its hinges as he stepped back and did a twirl, the car door bumping and rotating round his long black coat.

  While that was going on, the girls opened the other door and crawled out, starting to run toward the nearest building which seemed to be some kind of office building that had closed for the night. Jack laughed, and then in a single bound leapt to the roof of the car. Then he leapt again, further this time, over the heads of the girls as they ran. The man paused, panting as he landed in front of them, the eldest girl taking the bat and attempting to shield her sister as Jack stalked forward, slashing at her with steely claws.

  She jumped back, pushing her sister out the way as she tried to fight him, but she never stood a chance against this thing. She swung at him, and Jack laughed, catching the bat in his claw and splintering it. He then twirled as if in a dance, facing her again with his palm flat under his lips. He puffed and a pale blue flame erupted from his hand, the girl screaming once more as her clothes, hair and skin were engulfed and she fell.

  The remaining sister whimpered, falling as well and crawling on her back as Jack twitched toward her. She cried and pleaded, “W-what do you want?!”

  Jack ticked and twisted his head. “W-w-want? I want…” he chuckled. “Want you…”

  As he was leaning over the crying girl, salvation for her arrived in the form of a police car. The officer stepped out, at first just seeing the crash, but then he saw the girl and her attacker with his clawed hand raised and instinctively cried, “Freeze!” Which of course almost never worked, and Jack just seemed irritated. He moved his hand to cover the lower part of his face as the officer fired on him. Again he just laughed, as the officer radioed for back up, and then he ran and jumped and leapt onto the roof of the building. He paused a moment, looking down on the startled policeman before dancing a little jig and disappearing into the night, leaving only the echoes of his laughter.

  *****

  In the hilly landscape outside of Irongate, there stood a lighthouse. It had been moved here, away from the ocean, many years ago in order to guide travelers out of the darkness of ignorance and superstition into the light of knowledge and understanding at the town’s then new and very expensive university and library facilities, which also had cupcakes. But people had forgotten about it and now it just seemed strange and out of place to any who happened to see it. Much like its occupant, Jennifer Airhart, who was busy hammering the side of a computer in an effort to unfreeze its aging hard disk.

  Kaya Cade groaned, stretching out her arms and removing the pillows from the sides of her head. “Jeez… do you have to make such a racket?”

  Jen glanced at her from the workbench, tilted her head and thought for a second and then decided, “Yes!” She then took another swing at the case.

  “Why?” Kay moaned again, getting up and stomping over to where Jen was. “What’s so important on that thing that you have to cause us all a migraine to get at it?”

  “I don’t know,” Jen said. “It’s my dad’s old computer from Stag Corp. Doctor Sarkis was able to retrieve it for me. It might explain why…” the blonde swallowed, her words running into and over each other. After a breath, she steadied herself and said, “a-anyway, you don’t have to be in here. You can go back to the house.” That was, the round workshop they were in was the ground floor of the lighthouse. The actual living house was detached from it.

  “It’s cold in there and you have a hole in your wall,” the punk sighed, “there’s also an owl that stares at me when I try to sleep, and you have rats running around everywhere. How have been able to live like this?”

  “The rats are fine,” Jen insisted, “I have an understanding with them. They don’t chew the wires, and I don’t go near their rosebush. It’s worked well so far,” she said, banging the thing again and listening to the drive click and whir. “Hull?”

  Green rings around sealed up portholes on the walls pulsed as the computer spoke. “Accessing… it will take some time to transfer and decrypt all of the data.”

  “How long?”

  “I estimate… two days.”

  The blonde wrinkled her nose and stepped back, resting the hammer on her shoulder. “All right,” she sighed, looking to a robot set up on the table next to the computer, “you know what to do?” It nodded its single appendage, and when the computer made a horrible grinding noise, it swung itself into the case until it whirred again.

  Kaya shook her head. “Seriously, Jen, I think you’re gonna have to get some actual people out here to fix up this place.”

  But Jen did not like that idea at all. It was one thing to have Kaya here… that was someone she already knew and trusted, to some degree… but she did not want a bunch of strange people poking around and interfering with her things. “The bots will fix the wall,” she insisted.

  “When?”

  “Give them time. They just have to learn… they’ll figure it out.”

  “They’ve been trying to figure it out all week. So far, the most any of them has done is lay a few bricks down, but they didn’t use cement. Then they tried to mix the cement and one of them just got its head stuck inside the barrow. Since then, they’ve done nothing.”

  “But you see, they’re learning. I’m sure they just have to think about the problem a little while longer.”

  “Or maybe they’ve thought about it and decided not to bother. I mean, the cold doesn’t really affect them very much, does it? Why should they care if we all freeze to death?”

  “They’re not ‘bad’,” Jen grumbled, heading toward the door. “I mean machines aren’t good or bad. They’re what you make them. Just give them space and room to grow and I’m sure they’ll do the right thing eventually. Like children.”

  “Yeah…” Kaya couldn’t do much more than sigh and shake her head, before heading outside as well. “Speaking of which…”

  Jen ducked as soon as she opened the door, a pot shattering against it just above her head. Outside, Tenley Tych was stomping angrily around the courtyard, thrusting her finger in the air and screaming, “I’ll KILL you!”

  “Ten,” Kaya said gently. The little girl snapped her black eyes toward her. “What’s wrong?”

  Tenley huffed, standing straight as she pointed up at the garage roof. “That stupid bird stole my bracelet,” up above, a magpie was screeching in terror.

  “What bracelet?” Jen asked.

  “My bracelet. It was in a dog’s mouth, but I got it out so it’s mine. But then I took my eyes off it for a second and this feathered fiend decided to just help itself. I’ll kill it!” The girl spun, a small throwing knife suddenly appearing in the hand she’d had tucked inside her jacket. She launched it, the bird skittering and flapping away as it was narrowly missed.

  “Ten!” Kaya screeched, running out and catching the girl’s wrist. Tenley looked at her, obviously annoyed but thankfully too surprised to do anything about it. “Calm down… we’ve got plenty of other bracelets.”

  Jen stepped forward as well, saying, “i-it’s time for your check-up now, anyway…”

  Tenley snorted, pulling her arm free from Kaya. She folded her arms in front of her chest again and glared up at the bird, n
arrowing her eyes. “This is not over,” she grimly assured, and then marched off into the lighthouse.

  “You sure it’s a good idea to let her stay here?” Kaya asked. “She… she did kill six people.”

  Jen sighed sadly, but said, “She helped us. She’s not a bad person.”

  “Maybe not. But next time she throws a tantrum it might not be so easy to settle her down. She could seriously hurt you, or me, perhaps not really meaning to, but…”

  The blonde shook her head. “I can’t abandon her. Besides, none of the usual channels are prepared or equipped to deal with a child like her. We at least know what she’s capable of.”

  As Jen picked up her hammer and headed to the lighthouse as well, Kaya warned her, “just be careful. Okay?”

  From inside the tower, Tenley’s voice suddenly echoed out at them. “I can hear you, you know.”

  *****

  Almost all the cells in Tenley’s body had been replaced with synthetic ones that had come from Titania. The retro-virus Jen’s father had engineered was able to halt and in a lot of cases even reverse the changeling process, but not in Ten. Jen could only guess that was because she had been made into a queen and therefore was different, somehow, although she wasn’t sure exactly how. She knew that Titania used other queens to amplify and extend the range of her control over the drones, or in Tenley’s case because she needed skills the girl only had by leaving all her memories intact. But how the queens were physically different from the drones Jen couldn’t yet say. It might be easier if she had another example to compare Tenley to, like Lilian if she was still alive, but for now all Jen could do was keep an eye on things and watch over Ten as she grew.