Reprinted here with absolutely no permission from the author WHATSOEVER is one of the finest bits of Chatham related fiction I've ever had the fortune to stumble across. It is up there with The Smooth Assassin of Miles Ried, Jared Hansen's Flibertigibbet and anything even looked at by NickB. Truly, Sparacus can be forgiven anything, being the inspiration for such intensely satisfying material.
Max Shrek, this blog salutes with an extra-long special salute for especially important people!
Useless - A Ben Chatham Adventure
Written by Max Shrek
"Ben Chatham" Created by Sparacus
Well, this is a good place as any to start, isn't it? You're probably in the middle of something else, so sorry for interrupting first of all. I'm sure you have much better to do than listen to my silly story, but you're the one choosing to read it! You've probably read a lot worse and I feel like telling it.
My name is Daniel Shears. I'm 24, turning 25 next month, a janitor at the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, a fan of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, think pizza is vastly overrated, believes Neon Genesis Evangelion is the best thing since sliced bread and have been known to be referred to as “Nite Owl,” a name by my mate, Marcus, a reference to both my name Daniel, a character from a comic called Watchmen and my late night shift at the museum.
But do you really care that much about little ol' me? More likely than not, you're reading this story for Ben Chatham. Ben Chatham is one of the most perplexing men I have ever met in my entire life. On one hand, he is snotty, arrogant and aristocratic, scoffing at those less fortunate. On the other, he is a self-proclaimed "hero" and protector of mankind. In the weeks after my encounter, I have heard many more opinions of Ben by the townspeople. Some call him a saint, others a scumbag.
One person in particular, was very peculiar. She called me up after the incident and nearly threatened me, claiming she was Katie-something (apologies, Katie, wherever you are for not remembering!), Ben's girlfriend, which is despite the fact that everyone else claimed Ben was gay. Anyway, hours later, she came to my house, demanding I tell her where Ben was. Not knowing, she then tried to seduce me, not understanding when I told her, “No.” And when I tried to explain I had just got out of a bad relationship, she seemed even more confused, as if that would make me more likely to sleep with her. Very strange, indeed.
Now, where was I? Ah, yes. My adventure with Ben Chatham. Well, it was a Tuesday, I remember that because I had lunch with my sister, which I do the first Tuesday of every month (sorry for getting off topic so much, I swear I will try and cut down!), and I was about to start my shift at the museum. I enter and see the friend I was talking about earlier and the day-light watchman (yes, we get the irony) before my shift, Marcus Leman, a few exhibits down, staring up at ten foot tall mastodon skeleton. Stealthily sneaking up on him, I tip-toed before placing a hand firm on his shoulder. Jumping back with shock and terror, he sighed with relief when realizing who it was.
“Nite Owl, you little-” he started to say and tried to finish, before showing mock anger and pushing me back a little. We both giggled with amusement before I asked him what he was doing around, when he should be getting off his shift around now.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry, just got a bit distracted.”
“What, at the mastodon?”
“Yeah, I'm fascin-”
In mid sentence, Marcus was rudely interrupted by a tall, imposing man in a thousand-some dollar suit, with horn-rimmed glasses and a mustache that would make Dr. Eggman from Sonic the Hedgehog proud. To me and Marcus, his name is Lucifer Morningstar, but when he's in public, he likes to take the disguise of William Knight. The curator. Our boss.
“Leman. I thought I told you to go to the Renos exhibit hours ago.” In case you're wondering, the Renos exhibit is a small, stone tablet that pre-dates any artifacts we have and has been bringing some very prestigious people to the museum. It's Knight's pride and joy; he'd probably risk its safety over his own children. And so, despite convenience or other jobs, he put its priority at the top of Marcus's list.
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” Marcus told him, his face tilted down, unable to make eye contact for fear of strangling the man.
“Well, it's a bit late now isn't it! Your shift's over! Be lucky if you have a shift tomorrow.”
Not replying, Marcus simply walked off. I found it a bit odd that he was walking to the left of the museum when he should have been walking to the right, but it vanished from my mind when Knight turned his fiery anger towards me.
“And Shears. A student came in and vomited all over the floor by the Mesopotamian artifacts. We don't have all night.”
As disgusted by his lack of subtly almost as much as the actual incident, he walked off and I stuck my tongue out at the demon in disguise. Turning around, I left and got into my uniform, but not before seeing a man walk by. Young and handsome, he had the features of a doll, almost creepily innocent. His blonde hair gelled to near-perfection, he was dressed in designer clothes. As he walked, he quietly whistled the tune to “Space Oddity.” You can probably guess who this is.
Minutes later, I also saw a elderly man and a young woman also enter the museum (odd as it was minutes before closing time). You might recognize them as well.
Anyway, moving on, hours later. The museum closed down and I was in the sub-basement, doing my job. I could go into detail about the clean-up I had to do in that hallway, but at this point, I really doubt you're caring and would like to get to the juicy center. The trouble for the night started when a 5 foot long snake, made out of fire and slime, crawled out of a corner.
Could I be more subtle and built up tension about that? Sure. But the money shot is all that really matters in the end.
With fangs baring and a hiss that could stop a heart, the snake-like creature slithered along the floor towards me, its fires continually changing colors from orange to blue and the slime regurgitating out of the fires, spraying the walls, like a sprinkler. Unsure what to do, I took two steps backwards and eyed my mop. Not being a ninja and carrying a katana, I figured a mop would be my best choice for a weapon against a fiery snake creature. Yeah, my options were limited.
Grabbing onto it with my right hand and swinging it back around, until I latched onto it with my left as well, I lifted the make-shift weapon up and swung it down, narrowly missing the snake by centimeters. Hissing and roaring, the fires on his body rising in height, the creature started to slither away. When I felt the heat, I realized it had slid between my legs and as I turned around, it was out of sight.
Hearing what sounded like an out-of-breath pant, I turned around only to be face to face with somebody, well, having an out-of-breath pant. It was the “pretty boy” student I had saw earlier. My mind was running on end, not sure what to think of the monster I just witnessed, I purposely put it in the back of my mind and asked him what he was doing here.
“Looking for an alien life form,” the man said, his voice almost needlessly condescending.
“What? Like a snake made out of fire?”
“Why... yes, actually. It’s a fire creature from the planet, Stax, come to the Earth to steal our oil supplies. It possesses objects and uses that to take form. It’s not really a snake.”
“And you know this... How?” I ask him.
“Never mind that.”
A bit fed up, I shot back, “Just who the hell are you?”
Taking a second to pause, as if for a dramatic effect that never existed, he looked me straight in the eyes and replied, “Ben Chatham.” As if he’d be anyone else.
But at the time, I just stood there, awaiting something else to be astonished by, but nothing came. “Um... Okay?”
He looked considerably hurt. “You mean you’ve never heard of me?”
“Sorry, I’ve seen you around the museum a few times. But I’ve never heard the name, no.”
“But... Never mind.” He switched the topic quickly and swiftly, as if an emotional barrier, “I know this is hard to believe, but what you saw was very clearly an alien. Now, I know it may have been-”
“Actually,” I interrupted, “It’s not that hard to believe. I mean, we’ve seen alien stuff tons of times. The London spaceships, the metal men, heck, that creature that attacked on Bonfire Night was made of fire.”
“Oh, right. You know, I had a hand in stopping that.”
Remembering it as “It rained; it died,” I inquired, “Yeah? How?”
Ben stared back at me, a genuine look of confusion and insecurity. I could tell by his eyes that he wasn’t lying to me and he really did mean what he said, but as he sat there and thought about it, realized he was incorrect, but then changed again, as if the thought that he was incorrect was the most illogical thing in the universe.
Instead, Ben surprised me once more and simply turned sideways and reached into his pocket, taking out a mobile cell phone. Not quite understanding what he was doing at first, I raised my eyebrow and asked him, “Are you texting on your phone in the middle of some crisis?”
He stopped and looked back at me, saying, “Kind of. I’m texting a secret government organization named Torchwood. They fight aliens and can help us with the problem.”
Not speaking up about the fact that Ben was giving away an organization that he claimed he was “secret,” instead I ask, “So you’re contacting a super-top-secret alien-fighting organization through... Regular text messaging?”
“Your chavy mind wouldn’t understand.”
Changing my mood almost instantaneously, my tone of voice got deeper and I looked towards him, saying, “What did you just call me?”
Flipping his phone shut and putting it in his pocket, he ran in the other direction, calling to me, “C’mon! We have a mystery to solve!”
Furious with this man, I ran at him and when we got to the elevator, sternly said, “Listen up. I don’t know who you think you are but I’m not on some hunt with you. You’ve been nothing but rude to me and now am expecting me to all of a sudden become, what, your sidekick?”
Ben looked back at me, showing what seemed to be guilt, as if he didn’t mean to be so rude. Looking at my name-tag, he sympathetically said, “Listen... Daniel.” Cracking a small smile, he said in the exact same tone of voice that anyone else in this position would apologize, “We have more important to worry about right now than feelings.”
Gasping, the elevator opened and we both stepped through, clenching my fists and trying my hardest not to punch the man in the face. When we stepped inside, he explained what he thought was the plan. “You see, the Stax fire monster will want to extract our oil supplies and I believe he’ll do this with the Renos tablet.”
“And why do you think it’ll use the Renos exhibit?”
“Well, it’s the new artifact here and why else would he come to the museum?”
“That’s good and well speculation, but not definitive proof.”
“Unfair. It’s very reasonable.”
“But-”
The elevator opened once more, this time to the first floor and Ben simply walked out. Shaking my head, I followed after him, thinking he might, somehow, be able to stop this creature. In retrospect, I really don’t know why.
Running through the museum at lightning speed to get to the Renos exhibit, I ask him, running a few feet behind him, “So why are we going straight to the Renos tablet, instead of, y’know, the mysterious screams a few exhibits down?” Indeed, a few exhibits down, we heard the roar of epic proportions. It had to be enormous.
“I’ll explain when we get there!” And so, pretty soon, we got there. And in a shocking surprise, Ben did not explain at all. And when I asked him, he pretended not to hear me.
But much to my shock, the Renos tablet was, indeed, missing. Ben was right! Or so it seemed. But there were some very fishy things about this. The tablet was missing, yes, but this was a creature made of fire that sprayed a clear slime. And yet, the tablet was simply missing. The exhibit wasn’t even broken into. It was simply gone.
I tried to explain all of these points to our Ben Chatham, but he simply wrote them off, claiming he was right in his prediction all along. Fed up, I asked him, “Okay, so what do we do now?”
“I don’t know, we have to find the alien.”
“Could it be where those mysterious sounds were coming from earlier?”
“You know, that’s not a bad idea, chav!”
Luckily for him, he turned around and headed off to that direction, or else, he would have been slapped right in the face. And so, once again, we ran. I was getting fed up and was seriously considering telling him to bugger off, but he was right about the Renos thing, albeit in a completely, well, wrong way. And so we ended up a few exhibits away from the mastodon skeleton Marcus was looking at earlier. It was on fire.
We hid behind a large globe and watched as the fiery mastodon skeleton sprayed its slime and communicated (I think it was in English, it was very, very deep and I couldn’t quite understand it) with a man and a woman on the second floor. The man was elderly with large, white hair and a stern look, in outrageous, fluffy clothes. Imagine Grigori Rasputin mixed with Jimi Hendrix. Next to him was a very pretty, young girl with striking features and dark hair. I think I heard the man refer to her as “Sarah” but I’m not sure.
“So,” Ben said, scratching his chin, intrigued, “It seems that the alien had to clone itself.”
“Or,” I suggested, “It simply decided the mastodon would be more fitting to possess.”
“Possibly.”
From what it sounded like, it seemed that the alien had intentions that in no way, shape, or form resembled any oil plans or anything to do with the Renos tablet.
“Well,” Ben stated, “You know what it’s time to do.”
“What?”
“Sneak all the way back around, go through the sub-basement again and come back around and think of a way to stop it.”
“What? Like how?”
“I dunno. We can turn on the sprinklers or something.”
“Again. How? And where are those Torchwood fellas! You called them, are they not coming to help?”
“Oh, they will. It’s just, they live all the way in Cardiff. So they have to wait until they can get to Cambridge.”
“So if they have to wait that long, why did you call them in the first place!”
“Irrelevant. Moving on!”
And for the millionth time, he took off running. “Now wait just I minute!” I yelled at him, trying carefully to both raise my voice so he could hear it and whisper doing it, making sure the alien did not hear me. Ben turned around and looked at me.
“Listen. Daniel. This is the last time, I swear.”
Deciding to give him one last chance, I told him, “Fine.” And so, we continued on, going back into the elevator and back down to the dark and damp corridors where this whole thing had started. Going past door after door, Ben’s intention was to get to the other side and use the other elevator, the one we got on earlier.
But as we ran, I heard a sound from behind one of the doors. I stopped and turned my head. Hearing what sounded like someone quickly shuffling through papers, I put my head to the door. Ben stopped and looked back at me, “What are you doing?”
“You go on ahead. I’ll meet up with you later.” I didn’t need him to get in the way. And so, Ben went off, much to my pleasure, and I put my hand on the door knob, slowly but surely twisting and opening it.
And inside the room, staring back at me, was not an alien. It was not a fire monster from the planet Stax, or an arch nemesis in a black suit and goatee, or a bald, criminal mastermind with a pet and a monocle, laughing about world domination. It was Marcus. He was going through his personal stuff, packing a bag. In his left hand was the Renos tablet. In his right, a small pistol. He looked up at me and I saw the fear in his eyes.
“Marcus,” I told him, putting my hands out, “Put the gun down.”
Instead, he raised it and pointed it at me. His hands were shaking and I could tell that pointing a weapon like that at me was one of the hardest things he’s ever done. “Nite Owl... Leave.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t. What are you doing?”
“It’s-it’s not fair! I do my hardest around here! Harder than anyone else!” I tried to listen, but it was very difficult hearing venomous bile being spewed out by someone I thought was my friend. “And this is how I’m treated by him! By him! Of all people! And so I’m taking this! I’ll show him! I’ll show him!”
Trying to reason with him, I asked, “And then what, Marcus? You take the tablet and sell it? Then what? Move? Leave your friends and family and go on the run? Move to another country, no contact with the people you care about every again?”
I could tell he was unsure of himself. It might work.
“I-I don’t know.”
“Please, Marcus. I know it’s hard. But this is not the way. If you do this, you’re every bit the scum Knight says you are.” I could tell this hit a nerve. Had to tame it down a bit. “Prove you’re better. Quit, laugh in his face. Go off and get a new job, somewhere where they respect you and in the end, be happy with your life.”
He started to lower the gun, just a little bit.
“Tell me... If you did this... Would you be happy?”
Marcus didn’t reply at first. He simply stared me in the eyes and gave me the gift of a small smile. “Nite Owl, I-”
And then all that momentum and hard work came crashing down, like a deck of cards, when Ben came racing back, put himself in the door way and proclaimed, “Is that an alien?”
Frightened, Marcus’s hand twitched and tensed up, accidentally pulling the trigger and shooting Ben in the upper arm. He screamed a falsetto of pain and horror as he grabbed his wound and slumped to the ground. “My arm! You shot me! You chav! You actually SHOT ME!”
Marcus fell to his knees, bursting into tears. Unsure what to do, I go to my friend and hold him for a few seconds, before helping both him and Ben out of the museum. On our way, we saw the mastodon skeleton screaming in pain and horror for himself as the man and Sarah looked on. In-between tearful heaves, Ben claimed he had a hand in its defeat.
A few days later, I sat in my apartment, getting off the phone with Marcus, who had been seeing psychiatric help for himself and possibly getting a new job, when my phone rang again. “Hello?” I answered.
“Daniel? This is Ben.”
“How did you get my number?”
“Never mind that. Would you mind coming to my apartment?”
Unsure if this was any sort of trap or danger, I reluctantly agreed, as he gave me the address (or “coordinates” as he called them). About forty-five minutes later, I arrived, dressed sensibly, but not in anything expensive or designer. Knocking on his door, Ben answered dressed in an evening gown opened slightly to show off his pecks and a bit of his six-pack, a sling with glitter on it and bunny slippers. In his hand was a glass of absinthe and “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” on a vinyl.
“Daniel. Hello. Come on in.”
Suspicious of the slow way he said that, complete with paused, I entered into his upper-class apartment and took a seat on his leather couch, which I’m sure my pants dirtied. Leaning against the wall, he reached into his gown’s pocket and asked me if I wanted a Fox Glacier Mint. Gulping with possible terror, I politely declined.
“You know, Daniel, I was really proud of how you handled that situation at the museum. You see, you may not have known it at the time, but I was actually using that whole experience as a test to see if I needed some help. I hired both the man who shot me and the alien as obstacles.”
“What? No, you didn’t! There’s no possible way you could’ve done that.”
“Irrelevant. The point is you did well. You showed courage and compassion and all the qualities that people tell me I lack.”
“You don’t say.”
“So would you like to be-” he arched his eyebrow, “-my companion?”
Entirely and one-hundred percent unsure of what his definition of “companion” was and anything it would entail, I imagined the tamest possibility for it and said as fast as I could, with a speed that would make a cheetah jealous, “No.”
“But-”
Tired of all of this stuff, I restated, “No.”
Ben nodded for a second, acting as if he understood my point-of-view. Then, he sat on his other couch and burst into hysterical tears, sobbing and sobbing the name “Charles” and asking, “Why did you leave me?”
Not sure what to do, I got up from the couch and walked over to him, putting my hand, sympathetically on his shoulder. I thought I might show Ben Chatham some compassion. Has anyone else even tried? But he merely pushed me away and said he would like to be alone right now. Nodding, I said goodbye and walked out of his apartment.
As I walked down his hallway, I stopped and slowly turned my head around towards his door. Was there anything I could do? Was there anyway to console Ben Chatham? To be there for him and teach him what compassion is and that human emotions and feeling for others is quite possibly the best thing you can do for another human being.
Probably not.
And in that moment, I could not figure out, if it was he, or I, who was completely, and utterly, useless.
The End
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