In Search of the Alter Dom by Jack Challis

a present from his doting mother. He sat in a zombie like trance – eyes blank, fixed on a flashing screen. Suddenly the images on the screen began to distort – to his horror the face of a Tartarus Hob appeared! Caddoc quickly switched the game boy off; then jumped out of his skin when his new mobile rang.
    The call came from his stolen mobile! Caddoc thought he recognized the voice – it sounded like Myfanwy Jenkins – but impossible!
    ‘I am waiting for you Caddoc!’ the voice announces. ‘A Hob is at your window.’ The grinning face of Bulrus Khan peered in at him through the open window! Caddoc slammed the open window shut. ‘I can’t come – I am too scared to leave my room, see,’ Caddoc pleads.
    ‘You should be scared to stay in your room!’ the voice answers.
    Caddoc realized the voice was no longer coming from his stolen mobile but from inside his own room! Caddoc’s small pig-like eyes widened and fixed themselves on a dark corner. Something big was moving in a flowing motion; like a stack of patterned car tyres – a giant python! Glassy lidless-eyes in a large, triangular scaled head mesmerized him. A flickering tongue tasted the air. The giant constrictor hissed! Caddoc Morgan, the heartless bully picked up his new trainers and shot out of the door – like a rat up a drain pipe.
    Two Tartarus Hobs – Bulrus Khan and Bellbinder waited in the shadows. They pulled and tugged Caddoc across the ford and up the lonely mountain path; his second ordeal was about to begin.
    Nearing the big rock Caddoc heard mad laughter, accompanied by grunts and squeals of pain! He saw an old hook-nosed Hag riding nimbly on the back of the Tartarus Hob Bunderhund. The old hag was biting the Hob’s ear to make him run faster. She agilely leapt off the Hob’s back at Caddoc’s approach and regarded the shaking bully. A large purple mole with hairs sprouting stood proud on the hag’s big hooked conk; at the tip of which, a long silvery dewdrop clung – defying gravity!
    Caddoc watched the elastic dewdrop rise and fall: horribly fascinated. The Hag’s eyes were deep set and dark ringed; yet sparkled emerald green! Her wrinkled skin seemed to be decaying and was ingrained with dirt; her rotten teeth black and broken.
    And worst of all the – old Hag stank of puke and pee – it turned his stomach! ‘It’s Caddoc Morgan – is it,’ says the old Hag in a very pronounced Welsh accent. ‘Have you ever snogged a weasel Caddoc?’
    ‘No – way José!’ answers the bully Caddoc: trying to sound brave.
    ‘Now then,’ says the old Hag, ‘I am going to ride you over jumps see – or as your old dad “Morgan the Milk” would say – “over the sticks.”
    She then pinched Caddoc’s thick legs with her skinny, clawed hand. ‘Ah, good strong legs boyo isn’t it.’
    ‘I have started pumping iron,’ says Caddoc: puffing out his chest to look bigger; an attempt to intimidate the grotty and gruesome old crone.
    ‘Are you sure it’s Iron you are pumping Caddoc – and not wood!’ the old Hag asks with a snigger.
    Caddoc looked sheepish! The three Hobs started to laugh – then stopped and scratched their shaggy heads – not understanding the joke.
    ‘Now Caddoc,’ continued the horrible Hag, ‘if you shy at the jumps I will stick my lovely fingers in your little pudding-hole and larrup and lampoon you with this stick see – while biting your little fat lug-flaps.’ She then pulled back her thin wrinkled lips and chomped her black rotten teeth in a biting demonstration. The old Hag noticed Caddoc’s new jacket and felt the material with boney hand. ‘A lovely bit of smutter my dear,’ the old Hag announces in a Fagin accent. She then wiped the over long dew-drop on the horrified Caddoc’s new jacket.
    ‘Now then Caddoc,’ the old Hag croaked, returning to a strong Welsh accent, ‘how would you like to see my lovely legs cariad – for a fiver? Or alternatively, you can snog me – but if you use your