The Unexpected Occurrence of Thaddeus Hobble by Gareth Wiles Page A

could not read playing on her spotty face.
    â€˜Your father is a cruel murderer of umpteen women,’ Peter pleaded, ‘only you can stop him.’
    She looked up at his lips as they moved, but didn’t seem to register the words bursting forth.
    â€˜Futile, my friend,’ Hobble called from across the room, ‘although my daughter
is
taken with you.’
    â€˜I sense an unused body,’ she suddenly said in a deep whisper. ‘All human desire held back and wasted…’ her hand rubbed at Peter’s chest, moving up to his throat, ‘or put aside and saved for the right woman.’ Her boney pink fingers came to rest on Peter’s face as she caressed his sunken cheek. ‘Father,’ she let go of Peter and turned to Hobble, ‘I want to keep this one as my husband.’
    â€˜Very well, you may keep his body; but I require his brain.’
    â€˜Tis the brain I wish to possess more than anything else of his,’ she called back. Hobble did not look pleased. ‘Father, I think it a little peculiar that you wish my new mother to have a male brain.’ She folded her arms and smirked. Peter just stayed fixed behind them, withdrawn and aghast at these weirdos.
    â€˜A man’s brain is far superior to a woman’s, my dear,’ he said softly as though speaking to a child, coming to her and placing an arm across her shoulders.
    Willemina’s face scrunched up as she gritted her teeth, but she did not vocally disagree with her father. Instead, she wriggled out of his clutches and turned back to Peter. Hobble grinned with apparent victory and moved back over to his new wife, taking the bucket with Molly’s head in with him. His back now turned to the pair, he lifted off his sword from a hook on the wall and pulled a cloth off a large stone. He made himself busy sharpening his weapon as Willemina stared intently into Peter’s eyes. He looked back, at first seeing nothing but warm brown eyes that felt icy and evil. As he continued, and time seemed to freeze, she in turn did become warm and full of something Peter couldn’t quite get to. He briefly flicked his eyes over to Hobble, whose movements had frozen in a mist and appeared much further away now.
    He thought about Darren using The Space for his own ends, and now threw his mind into Willemina’s. She stood still, as before, looking back at the man she wanted as her husband. Her mind was sectioned in ceaseless layer upon layer of conflicting behaviours and motives, but, her hopes and desires were singular and focused in one area – the want and need for love and acceptance from her father, and the willingness to do anything to maintain that. And yet, there now came a new spark, one which Peter knew instantly represented himself. There stood the two opposing sides, one for Father and one for the new man in her life, the merest of space still just separating the two. Father’s side had advanced, ready to quash Peter’s. It was up to the latter to arm his own in her mind and destroy the opposition. He pulled from her mind, put aside The Space and realised he could do this alone.
    â€˜I am your future,’ he whispered to her. She leant closer, their faces almost touching. ‘I will be the new man in your life. I love you.’
    She kissed him and he reciprocated, wishing he could reach out were his body not bound. Suddenly her hands reached around to the lock keeping his chains fixed. She pulled a key from her pocket and winked, sticking it in the lock. Before she could turn it, her head shot away and Peter found himself covered in blood as it squirted from her exposed neck. Behind her, with his sword, stood Hobble. He put the weapon down and went across to pick up his daughter’s head as her body dropped against Peter. He pulled back as much as he could and it slid down between his legs, slumping half on the floor and half on him. The blood kept pouring out in his lap as