BC Holiday Special V - Winter of the Lost

THE BEN CHATHAM ADVENTURES: CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

"WINTER OF THE LUST"

Parte The First

A passing alien spacecraft scoops up all the inmates of the lunatic asylum bar Ben Chatham - who does not register as humanoid life on their sensors - and our acid-blonde, gormless DD-breasted main character is free once more. Immediately, Ben drinks a whole bottle of medicinal alcohol and a bucket of cleaning fluid, and knocks herself into a coma for a full six months.

Ben regains consciousness and stumbles around the deserted asylum butt naked in a scene that is clearly hardcore plagiarized from 28 Days Later. As she leaves the asylum, however, she discovers the world is pretty much the same as she left it, except now it is Christmas!

Ben happily starts singing "Twelve Days of Christmas" out of tune, unable to remember the lyrics, and it dawns on her she has absolutely nowhere to go and noone to turn to - not the Doctor and his companions, not Touchwood and not even his stolen hovel which is now a Starbucks cafe. She has no money, no friends, no home, and is far too up herself to deign to visit a homeless shelter.

After accidentally getting her naked ass stuck to a frozen park bench, Ben decides to gatecrash Fuxdorth House, the ancestral home of the rich and famous Ashford clan. Ben has never ever met Lord or Lady Ashford, even before the sex change incident, but assumes that she can automatically turn up on their doorstep on Christmas Eve and demand sanctuary.

Ben sets off to the outskirts of Hampshire, whose local sanitorium she was being held in luckily enough, allowing the crisp winter air make her nipples erect. Well, not so much allowing since she has no way to prevent it, but I'm STRUGGLING to pay attention enough to transcribe this. Let's be honest, Britney's tits are more interesting than anything else in the story so far.

Ben spots a large cafe which Ben decides to visit so she can scream abuse at the staff about how Cultured, Degree-Bearing Gods like herself hate such places. He is stunned to discover his old shag Katie Ryan enjoying some refreshing coffees and cake with Tom Wallace.

Ben strides up to them and demands to know why the hell they didn't rescue her from the asylum.

"Who are you?" Tom asks, baffled.

"BEN CHATHAM!"

"Oh, fuck. Leave me alone Ben!" Katie groans. "We've got work to do!"

"Your 'work'," sneers Ben, "can wait. You must have got a new car since you tried to incinerate me in the last one. I want you to take me to Fuxdorth House!"

"What?" asks Tom suspiciously. "How did you know we were going there?"

"Because you'll be taking ME there, ASBO boy," Ben sneers.

"Fuck off!" Katie shouts at her.

"I mean," Tom growls, "that Katie here and I were planning to visit the Ashfords already. And probably will without you, Brit. Now piss off before I ram my screwdriver somewhere even Captain Jack would wince at."

"Oh," Ben jeers, "I suppose they're old family friends, are they?"

"Not particularly, Ben," Katie snaps. "I bet they're not yours, either. Christ, you're not going round pretending you're incredibly famous and popular are you?"

"What do you mean 'pretending'?" Ben demands,

"Oh, god..."

"Look, Brit," Tom explains patiently. "We've been invited to Fuxdorth House by Lord Ashford because he's found something weird in the foundations of the ruined chapel in his grounds."

"And precisely what is this "weirdness"?"

"Bones, mainly," Katie retorts. "Hardly surprisingly for a ruined chapel."

"You shouldn't call them bones, you should call them artefacts," Ben bitches. "Or is that word too big for you?" She snorts with laughter. "Sorry, couldn't resist."

Katie punches Ben in the face, breaking her nose. "Niether could I," she grunts.

"Anyway, moving on," Tom continues, "Lord Ashford was clearing the foundations so he can build a nice walled garden there instead."

"What thtyle?" Ben demands, rearranging her nostrils.

"Elizabethan," Katie grumbles. "Why are you even asking us these questions?"

"Because, Katie Ryan, you ovary-possessing brood mare, I intend to spend Christmas in one of the UK's finest stately holmes and want to know what scum like you are doing there!"

"Because no one wants you near them for Christmas?" Katie sneers.

"Look, bimbo," Tom sighs, "Lord Ashford wants to start the garden in January, so we have to get the excavation done soon, and that means WE are staying at Fuxdorth House and there's not a chance in hell we're going to let you anywhere near us."

Ben rudely sits down next to them. "What are you wanted for then, creature-who-definitely-is-not-my-son? To dig the excavation trenches? And as for you, Katie, as if YOUR knowledge could possibly be useful the project And why on Earth would he ask chavs like you?"

"He wants someone reliable," Tom replies, munching on some hash brownies.

"I AM RELIABLE!" screams the naked transsexual in the cafe at the top of her voice. "Frankly, Katie, I'm surprised you're not uncomfortable with this!"

"Oh, I'm uncomfortable all right," Katie sighs.

"If the archaeology there IS of great importance, you are duty bound to recommend that development is suspended for a fair while to allow a fuller excavation!"

"What the fuck do you know about archaeology?" Katie demands. "You haven't done a day's work in your life!"

Ben folds her arms. "I expected better of you, Katie. He's going to build a big, ugly modern house on the site!"

"Just a little garden," Tom puts in. "I mean, it's HIS property."

"SHUT UP!" Ben roars, before pretending nothing happened. "You're nothing but a slut, Katie, I bet you're there digging ditches for Christmas because Lord Ashford will be generous with his wallet and codpiece IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN?!?! Nothing about greasing the palms of his housing project at all! This is just another opportunity for you to feed your noxious desires for male sex!"

Katie throws her cup of white-hot coffee into Ben's groin.

This leaves Ben in an even more embarrassing position.

All three are finally thrown out of the cafe by several burly men at the behest of a woman who anyone who has watched Voyage of the Damned... or Neighbours... will instantly recognize as Kylie Minogue. Ben's razor-sharp insight allows him to recognize Kylie after Tom and Katie point this out, explain who she is, why she is famous and remind him that they're talking about the woman whose servants have just kicked their arses.

"Oh!" Ben wails in what is supposed to be an endearing manner. "She must be on her way to a show or something."

"No, she's in a cafe trying to eat, you moron," Tom grunts. "She didn't like you screaming your head off."

"She'll BEG me to scream my head off once I introduce myself!"

"You don't think," Katie points out, "that she has all those burly men specifically to stop members of the public harrassing her? Especially naked tarts like you?"

Ben ignores this and charges straight into the cafe and up to the table. The burly bodyguards lunge at her, but somehow Ben ducks in time and all the hired goons are knocked unconscious. Kylie is understandably started when a nude Britney Spears runs straight at her and shouts at her, "I AM BEN CHATHAM! WORSHIP ME!!"

"Are you... Britney Spears?" asks Kylie, baffled.

"No, I am Ben Chatham. I love your new blonde look, even though you're copying me."

"Thanks," Kylie says, backing away slowly. "It's probably just a coincidence about the hair, though."

"Can I just say how much I admire your Impossible Princess album?"

"Oh. Sure. Thanks!"

"It is a shame you went downhill after that, but no one is as good as me. You might even be able to turn out the odd good track," Ben continues, shrugging her bare shoulders. "Well?"

"Well what?" Kylie snaps, reasonably annoyed to be accosted by an insane nudist who thinks her music is crap.

"Aren't you going to blush and feel yourself deeply attracted to my youth, blonde strangeness?"

"Look, I don't want to blow my own trumpet, but I'm a world-famous megastar with a pretty respectible fan base, and I'm straight. So why would a mad bitch like you saying you think my latest work is rubbish suddenly make me fall in love with you?"

Ben stares at her. "Yes."

"You don't think I should slap you round the face?"

"Of course not. I have saved the world from several major alien threats!"

"Which major alien threats?"

"Well, a few of them resolved themselves with no help from me whatsoever... never mind that. Surely you know the Ben Chatham who saves the world from aliens?"

"I'm not in the UK much but... wait! No, you're not him. You see, he's Ben JACKSON. And you're... Britney Spears. Guess the rehab's not working out again, huh? You're not pregnant again, are you?"

"Not a chance."

"So you haven't got any recently?"

Ben smiles in what she considers to be a charming manner. "Why don't you run your hand up my leg and stroke my smoothe inner thigh?"

"Why should I?"

"Because," Ben says, checking no one is watching them, "I want to invite you to a private, er, gig at Fuxdorth House."

"Where?"

"Only the finest UK stately home."

"I'm sure it's lovely. But I'm on tour..."

"It's my 21st!" Ben wails hopefully.

"You were born on Christmas Eve?" Kylie asks. "My comiserations to your parents."

"I grew up with your music and I'm a big fan!"

"You said you hated my recent stuff."

"That proves what a huge fan I am!"

"Not interested."

"I am the son of Lord and Lady Ashforth!"

"What?"

"Yes, I am Anselm Ashforth!"

"I thought you were Ben Chatham!"

"I use that name for tax reasons."

"You're a woman."

"It's complicated."

"No doubt."

"You can use the Summer House!"

"Uh-uh."

"I can pay well."

Kylie's eyes light up. "You can? I'll do it!"

Ben grins. "Really?"

Kylie grins back. "No! I'm lying! Bye!"

She runs off. Ben watches her go, crestfallen. "Wait! You haven't got to know me more deeply!"

But she's gone.

"Shit," Ben sighs, before the bodyguards - who have regained consciousness - beat the shit out of her.


Parte the Second

As Ben hauls her bruised and bleeding body from the large industrial bin behind the cafe where the bodyguards crammed her headfirst, she ponders on the disappearance of her front teeth, the boot print on the back of her neck, and why is her left arm is sticking out at such a peculiar angle?

"But more important," she croaks, "why wasn't Kylie attracted by my physcal beauty?! Why didn't my radiance captivate her?! But I'm Ben FUCKING Chatham! The whole point is that I am alluring and attractive! Everyone falls for my irresistable, playful provocative charm charm! Has my sexual chemistry broken down? Do people no longer see anything special in me? Am I suddenly unable to transcend this repulsive female body?"

Ben's bloodshot eyes widen in horror at the thought.

"No, wait, maybe that breast cancer treatment Kylie has had has turned her into some sort of chav slapper? Yes, that's it! Who cares about Kylie? You know, I think I've broken my femur..."

Meanwhile, Tom and Katie have arrive at Fuxforth House. At the site of the planned garden, Lord Ashford reveals that, for tax purposes, he is now Lord Ashworth and begins to bore them all stupid by reciting the information that was excellently exposited in part one.

"We plan to transform this site into a garden."

"We know," Tom grunts.

"A garden modelled on Elizabeth the First's charming walled garden at Aitchworth House."

"We KNOW."

"There was a monastery on this site before the dissolution, then this house was built."

"WE KNOW!! YOU'VE ALREADY TOLD US!"

"I suspect the bones are just some buried monks."

"WE KNOW ALL THIS!!"

"Either that or some graves from the house chapel."

"WILL JUST SHUT UP, YOU DAFT GIT?!?"

"The chapel stood here till the 1800s, you know..."

"JUST - SHUT - UP!!!"

Lord Ashworth blinks and falls silent. So wound up, Tom lights on a joint to calm down. "Right, Katie, here's the plan. We do a few digs in the middle and on the edge, see if there's any other bodies or that."

"And if there is, we keep it to ourselves."

"Well, I was GOING to help you out with your shitty walled garden," Tom growls, "but you've pissed me off so much I've got half a mind to tell the Archaeology Stasi that we've found Sutton fucking Hoo's high school reunion, just to get this whole thing postponed, you greedy knighted bastard."

"How about a fat backhander?"

"It'll have to be morbidly obese if you want us to defy our chosen profession," Katie chips in, and soon they have both earned fifty grand simply for turning up and smoking on the premesis.

As Lord and Lady Ashford return to the house, having resumed their former identities, Ben stumbles from the undergrowth. "OWW! HAR UTTARLEE DILYTFARL! WARN LAAAAAARVES THE SWEAT SMOLL ORF WOSES INNER SEAREASE OF TRIHANGOOLAH VIZ WHO HAL HILUNDS!"

Tom and Katie stare at their stalker. "What the hell are you doing here?" Katie asks.

"And what's with the stupid voice?"

"It's call SHOWING RESPECT, something you pair of failed genetic experiments would do well to learn," Ben sneers.

"It's called 'sounding like a twat'," Tom retorts, folding his arms. "Nobody - I mean, NOBODY - talks like that."

"I am trying to impress his Lordship," Ben sniffs.

"Ben," Katie fumes, "firstly, his Lordship is inside and that is not here to be impressed. Secondly, that wouldn't impress a dead rat that had been buried in the bottom of a septic tank for three years. And thirdly, talking posh doesn't balance out the fact you're wandering around the lawn, drunken, concussed and nude!"

"Yeah. So sod off," Tom adds, punctuating the comment by whacking Ben over the head with a spade. "We've got work to do."

Ben feels a strange desire to shout "How dare you? My own son!" but passes out before she can.

Leaving Ben to slowly be pecked by local wildlife, Tom and Katie get on to work, digging an excavation trench and good-naturedly slagging off their paymasters for their inbred stupidity. Katie grimaces as her spade makes a crunching noise and, lifting it up, she sees a human skull imbedded in the end.

"Whoops," she says lamely. "Well, it's pretty shallow and well preserved. Probably a recent burial."

"How recent?" asks Tom.

Katie shrugs. "Say 200 years."

"Guess "recent" is a relative term," Tom sighs. "Ang about, there's a star carved into the back of that skull. One of those magic symbols."

"A pentagram," Katie suggests.

"Nah, nothing to do with America," Tom says, taking the skull. "Something more... primal." He blinks. "Is it me or is it suddenly getting cold?"

The air turns hazy and a strange wind blows around the duo as a bunch of hollow-eyed zombies in robes form around them.

"Ah!" says a bright voice from amongst them. "Sorry about that. Just manipulating time itself, bit of a cheat, I know, but needs must. Just fusing the two time zones together to collect the third Lodestone of the Cetene Prize, which looks to be on the end of that spade." The spiky-haired figure peers through his spectacles to look at the skull. "Nasty. Still, should stop the Gam's little attempt at conquest."

He plucks the skull from the spade and throws it to a redheaded girl beside him. "There you go, Abby."

"Doctor! This is gross!" she complains.

"It's also the only thing stopping all out war against the Time Agency, so don't drop it!" the Doctor shouts over his shoulder. "Well, i'll just restabilize the time stream and be on our way." He frowns at the baffled Tom and Katie. "Hang on, don't I know you two?" he asks, before he and the others vanish.

Ben wakes up with her usual lack of elegance and sees Katie and Tom standing nearby.

"You lazy dole scum!" she muses. "No wonder you're getting nowhere. Digging with SPADES?! No Geophys? HOW PRIMITIVE ARE YOU FREAKS?!"

She then realizes she has been sitting on a dead human face, maggots crawling over it and is immediately incontinent.

"Ew!" Katie groans. "I expect you to interfere with a crime scene, but that's something else!"

Ben hops off the corpse of a man dressed in overalls.

"The humanity!" she wails. "It was a MAN! And not some stupid teenage bint! I am SO disconcerted!" she says, sobbing artistically. "It is unusual for one to find maggot-ridden dead bodies in country gardens! Ooh! Nice sword!" she says and yanks a short blade from the corpse.

"What?!" Tom roars, furious. "That man is dead and you're more interested in playing with a sword!"

"But it's not Elizabethan!"

"Why should it be Elizabethan?!" Tom demands. "You think the murderer is going to use the exact same period weaponry as the proposed garden? How do you even KNOW it's not Elizabethan?"

"The design's too simple."

"Like your brain," Katie adds.

"It looks just like some swords found at Danebury Hillfort and must date back to the iron age!"

"Why would anyone use an ancient knife to kill someone?" asks Katie. "Why not a gun?"

"Beautiful," Ben drools. A lot. "I've never seen one this well preserved."

"You'll get that well-preserved knife through your neck in a minute," Tom shouts. "Right, we're gonna have to call in the police. BEFORE you mess up more evidence."

"I don't mess up evidence!" Ben snaps, using the blade as a nail file.

"Tea is ready!" says a young man as he enters.

"Who are you?" asks Katie, suspiciously.

"I'm Anselm."

"...and?" Tom prompts.

"Lord and Lady Ashford's son," he supplies.

"Yeah. You don't seem to surprised to find us standing over a dead body, do ya boy?" Tom challenges.

"Leave him alone!" Ben sobs and rushes over to the young man, who flinches as a muddy nude skank covered in her own urine embraces him. "He's slim! Dark! Beautiful! With a delicate almost vulnerable look! And he's cultured! I'm instantly attracted to him!"

"Er, yeah, thanks for sharing Brit," Tom snaps. "But..."

"Oh, Anselm," Ben sobs. "I have a brilliant idea! Let's call the police before tea. That's my idea. All mine. No one else's. Aren't I practical? Aren't you just falling in love with me as we speak, my bit of local totty. I'm more than pleased to meet you."

"You're a fucking lunatic!" Anslem screams, shakes himself loose and runs off in horror.

"Oh yeah," Ben watches on happily. "I am so on."


Parte the Third

The police arrive and Ben immediately flees into the undergrowth. Lady Ashford emerges from the house to find out why her son is now burning his clothes and hacking off his hair screaming "I FEEL DIRTY!!" at his reflection the bathroom mirror.

"You know, they're going to want to interview all of us," Tom says, folding his arms smugly.

"Oh how inconvenient," Lady Ashford sighs. "I have a meeting at the church hall at four to discuss the arrangements for the New Year country crafts fete."

Tom stares at her. "What do you want?" he asks after a pause. "Sympathy? You're still alive, aren't ya? You're doing better than that poor sod. Didn't live to see Christmas, never got to say goodbye to his family, and we don't even know who he is!"

"What, Porter?"

"Sorry?" asks Katie, confused.

"Oh, I recognised the body instantly. It's Porter, the assistant gardener."

"Do assistant gardeners get stabbed a lot round here?" asks Tom, surprised.

"Well, the ones that frequent the Dog & Handgun pub down the road do. Drunken hooligans stabbing each other. It's most vexing."

"Vexing? I think you mean 'fatal'! A man's just died!"

"A loafer has just died," corrects Lord Ashford, angrilly: "Damned loafer. Always loafing around. We should have let that loafer go long ago. The loafer. No wonder the garden's so shabby... he's loafer!"

"He's dead. On Christmas Eve. Maybe show a bit of respect?"

"SHUT UP!" screams Ben as she reemerges from the bushes. "How dare you comment awkwardly when refined, proper people are having a conversation!"

Ben is then grabbed by the throat by Katie, dragged over to the river and thrown into it.

Finally our... protagonist... is washed ashore, covered in pond weeds and a dead fish up her arse, coughing up lungfuls of water. Evening is approaching and, keen to have her wicked way with the attractive young aristocrat, starts to stalk the grounds to find her prey.

"I don't suppose we can leave the police to deal with everything?" says Katie hopefully as she and Tom enter the drawing room.

Tom helps himself to a sticky bun. "Yeah. The old bill are always who I turn to do when I see a time shift. There's stuff going on here, and you and me, Katie, we're going to get to the bottom of it."

"Why us?"

"Who else is there?" Tom points out and they head back to the garden to investigate.

"It'll be all cordoned off with police tape."

"Then we'll rip our way through it. Good practice for the presents tomorrow, eh?"

Meanwhile, at the river, Ben finds Anselm trying to regain his composure by fishing.

"Hi, Anselm!" Ben squeals and runs over to him. "It's me, Ben Chatham! I dunno about you, but I feel an enslaught of desire right now to hold you in bed and explore your slender limbs."

Anselm swallows and mumbles, "She's not real. It's just a nightmare. This isn't happening!"

Ben dives into Anselm's lap, ignoring his muffled screams of terror. "I love the country way of life, that's my facebook statement," she says, trying and failing to sound all tough and cool and modern. "Getting to shoot things on your own land, whenever you like. It must be great. You can invite chavs round and slaughter them like... well, like fish. It must be a great opportunity to have!"

"I deny this reality. The reality is computational matrix. I deny it."

"You know, Anselm, ever since I saw you, I suspected that you were my kind of guy."

"I DENY IT!!!"

"I thought you were gay. It's funny how I just know. Don't worry, I'm really a man trapped in this disgusting body that gets mistaken for Britney Spears. And I'm much better than that Minogue slag. So it's perfect. Two educated, aristocratic Cambridge graduates, and no one will ever discover our shameful secret!"

Anselm starts to sob. "The Leader will deliver! The Leader will deliver!"

"What?" asks Ben, baffled.

"The new age is coming! Christmas Day is when it all changes, and you GOTTA be ready!"

"You've lost me..."

"All are welcome to be part of the Cult of the Sun!"

"Ooh! Another cult! I always run into cults - I even tried to form one at Uni - Absinthe Drinkers For Anarchy! No one else joined, they all tried to hide their longing for me by saying I was a pushy egomaniac loser they all hated... but I find cults really intriguing, don't you? The way they're misguided yet well meaning, the way they give me a wikipedia entry for what the cult is about before I text UNIT and Touchwood and they destroy all the members with biological warfare. But the whole worshipping bits and pieces of the past, that's really what appeals to an amateur archaeologist like me. After so many ridiculous cults, I can pretty much work out their cental tenant just by looking at them."

"The Leader will deliver!"

"Let me guess... an underground circle rejecting the culture of the modern urban world and returning to a simpler way of life? Am I right? There's probably some alien race you're working for, who are lying to you so they can invade Earth and devastate western civilization as we know it? Oh, and you want to rewind history to a pre-industrial age! That goes without saying! The local laundrette tries to do that! It's just good manners! Now, where we we? Oh, yes, a taste of things to come!"

So saying, she jumps Anselm and starts to rip his clothes off.

His screams echo across the grounds of the stately home...



Parte the Fourth

On the cold, damp riverbank, Ben lies next to the terrified and borderline catatonic Anselm.

"Wow," says Ben slowly to Anselm. "You were shit, Anselm. I mean, as sex goes, even I have done better! I just hope this disgusting flesh bag I wear doesn't get pregnant again. Mind you, there IS a strange sort of fluttering in my stomach... jesus. Not AGAIN!"

Anselm flinches and mumbles about the Leader incoherently.

"Oh well," says Ben regarding her slightly swollen gut. "I guess at least this way I can blackmail you to get into the cult."

"Cult?" asks Anselm, lost and scared.

"You know? The Cult of the Sun? You know, your leader is going to take you to a new home on another planet beyond the solar system? Probably in another solar system, I guess. But he's probably got the technology to let us live life without modern technology and society. As long as there's plenty of absinthe, Bowie and man on man goodness, I'll be happy."

Anselm shudders as Ben's blonde hair touches his skin. "Mummy, make her go away..."

"Oh, shut up and stroke my hair," Ben grumbles. "Now you've found me, we can go together to the new world."

Anselm's bloodshot eyes fill with tears. "I don't want you to come with me to the new world!"

"Who cares what you think?" Ben says, smacking him in the face. "Would you rather I left after you only just found me?"

"YES!"

"SHUT UP, CHAV-LOVER!" Ben snaps and Anselm sobs. "Now go and get me a punnet of strawberries."

"A what?"

"Some strawberries, you uncouth simpleton!"

"In winter? In England? Where the fuck am I going to find strawberries?!"

"I'm too busy trying not to find the sensation of a baby fluttering inside me nauseous! Just carry me back to your house and get me your finest brandy!"

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU, ANYWAY?"

Ben glares at him. "Do you WANT me to tell you about my degree?!"

Back at the house, Katie and Tom have ignored the police and gone on with their work. Soon they discover a Bart Simpson catapult slingshot and a plastic Ninja Turtles sword. "Wait a minute," says Tom darkly. "These are presents for the local orphanage. Some bastard's been burrying them here!"

"Who would be that much of a bastard?" Katie asks.

"The only person I can imagine is Britney Chatham, but she's too lazy..."

Suddenly a bunch of men in black, with balaclavas, sub machine guns and bandoliers of ammunition emerge from the shadows and surround our heroes. They close in and the leader speaks through a voice distorter that leaves him sounding like Stephen Hawking impersonating Spike Milligan: "DO NOT MOVE. YOU ARE OUR PRISONER. HAND OVER THE CONSUMER GOODS?"

Tom grins a smile that would have given a Weeping Angel pause for thought.

"Bring - it - on!" he challenges and leaps into the air, kicking the leader with both legs and flipping him into the bushes. Another one charges Tom, who ducks and lashes out again...

The shaking and twitching Anselm staggers back to the house, having been forced to carry Ben all the way there as she boringly explains she intends to take over the Cult of the Sun, allowing her to rule the planet Earth and bring up her second child to be a truly cultured man. And not a chav slut whore like Tom Wallace.

At the entrance, Lord Ashford meets up with a pale, curly-haired man in a duffel coat accompanied by a glamorous blonde woman. This is Jonathon Creek and Carla Boreigo, the unorthadox detectives who have been summoned to find out who murdered the loafing gardener in a nifty mystery for the Jonathon Creek Christmas Special.

Jonathon has only started patronizing Carla when he sees Ashford's son - clearly in a state of deep trauma - carrying the naked form of Britney Spears. The strange woman starts waving and shouting: "Hey, you! My name is Ben Chatham and my new Cult of Iron Age Warriors is going to destroy civilization! I know how it sounds, but I'm telling the truth and you're all DEAD MEAT!"

"Care to explain that?" Carla challenges.

Jonathon shakes his head, stunned into silence.

Anselm dumps Ben in the passenger seat of his car as she knocks back a whole bottle of brandy, which she then drops onto her bare stomach and shatters. "I haitch being unshmooth," she slurs. "Well? Take me to yer leader, den! Doncha, I say, doncha feel sutcher closhnuz to me? DRIVE!"

Anselm sobs and does as he is bidden.

As they leave, meanwhile, Tom Wallace has effortlessly defeated all sixteen heavily-armed assassins and is breaking the leader's fingers until he agrees to take him to their base via a landrover and a mud track. Katie watches on, amazed at Tom's can-do attitude.

"That's incredible!" she breathes.

Tom grins. "You should see me with a screwdriver," he suggests.

Anselm drives to a large house set within a plush estate, on the other side of the road to Fuxdorth House. As Ben rapidly metabolizes the alcohol and idly traces the dark line that is forming down the middle of her expanding belly, Anselm hastily kicks down the gates and hurries over to a small shack-like dwelling stained with tar and pulls aside the bit of corrugated metal acting as a door.

Inside, a strange figure is staggering drunkenly about the place.

Anselm addresses him: "Leader, I have brought someone to meet you. She's a very scary woman who wants to take over the Cult of the Sun and rule humanity forever! She says her name is Ben Chatham!"

Ben herself manages to stumble in, her drunkeness and shifting centre of gravity meaning she looks as unsteady as the shabby creature already present. "Where is this para-pope anyway?" she demands.

Anselm whimpers and indicates the figure as he trips over his own feet and knocks over a shelf of paint tins.

"THAT is your Leader?"

Anselm nods.

"This is gonna be a lot easier than I thought," Ben mutters. "Does he, uh, have a name?"

Anselm shrugs. "We only know him as...

...THE MIGHTY PIGBIN JOSH!!

Parte the Fifth

Ben yawns, stretches and listens in silence as the Mighty Pigbin Josh gurgles and grumbles, then resolutely grabs his head and smashes it against her knee repeatedly, neatly avoiding her bulging abdomen. Then she punches him in the jaw, sending him flying into the window, smashing it.

"Right," she says, dusting her hands. "Time for the Living God Ben Chatham to take over - niether man nor woman nor chav nor pikey dosser dole scum. The Cult of the Sun is now going to abandon this stupid plan to travel to a new planet in another solar system with some solar technology."

Anselm sobs. "B-bu-but! It's a new beginning for mankind!"

"There'll still be one of those, just still on this planet. I can't afford to travel in my condition, let alone second class! I mean, don't get me wrong, sex slave, I can see how this idea might appeal to some people, however I don't much care for the idea of living on some rural planet in a mud hut with no books, refined cultural pleasures and fine restaurants."

Anselm falls to his knees in despair. "But Ben! Think of the adventure! And the sense of discovery!"

"Fuck adventure and sense of discovery!" Ben sneers, smacking away his hands. "The whole experience would be most distasteful, I imagine. And I have no desire to live like some kind of neolithic person. I like to keep myself clean. And I'm your God now, so either you like it or lump it!"

Anselm rises, turns and strides out. Ben struggles to follow - whether this is down to her increasing gravity or the fact she is a lazy bitch of a son is open to debate.

"Where do you think you're going?!" she demands.

"I'm off!" he shouts.

"What? Get back here!"

"I don't want to be in your cult!"

Ben waddles after him. "Well, tough! You're going to be kept here until the project is complete!" She struggles to move faster, but Anselm is already in the car driving away. "YOU'LL CHANGE YOUR MIND!" she shouts. "You'll look lovingly into my my dark, think what you're doing and come crawling back..."

Ben rubs her lower back and swears like a council estate inhabitant.

Suddenly, the van arrives as Tom Wallace and Katie burst out, armed to the teeth. "Ah, hello Brit!" Tom laughs. "You got a gland problem or something?" he says, indicating her well-rounded tummy.

"You've not got yourself pregnant again?" Katie complains.

Ben huffs and folds her arms. "Like that is any business of scum like you."

Tom shakes his head. "She really IS like Britney Spears," he marvels.

"I suppose you're here to agree to join the Cult of the Ben and create the new, fresh green world free of war, greed and corruption while not giving up all my comforts and modern tastes and backhanders."

"No, we're not, numbnut," Katie says, jabbing Ben's mound-like stomach. "You're trying to get another cult to do your evil bidding? Why don't just become a scientologist like all the others?!"

Ben stares at her. "Get your filthy hands off the Holy Mother!"

Tom sighs. "You know what I love about pacifist organizations that mean people no harm?"

"What?" asks Ben, completely disinterested.

"That you're not part of them, so there's no moral question mark over me doing this," he says and jams a screwdriver in her flattened out navel and twists it round a few times. "Merry Christmas, Brit," he adds, and throws the gravid Ben against the unmoving form of Pigbin Josh. As she staggers against the wall, Katie punches her in the head and then she and Tom link arms and stroll out.

"She really shoulda seen that coming," Tom comments as they leave.

"You know Ben - she's so slow on the uptake she thinks 'iniative' is something to do with Newton's Laws of Motion," Katie replies.

Irritated, Ben watches as the screwdriver pops out of her expanding stomach. "This always seems so easy in the Hammer Horror movies," she grumbles. "Christopher Lee never has to work hard to wipe clean planets of their population and technology. I bet he's even got a degree." She takes out her mobile from the place she keeps it and sets it on vibrate, which seems to exert a hypnotic effect on her. Well, it leaves more glassy-eyed and slack-jawed than normal.

Finally, she collects the phone and looks through the various sex lines she's put in the memory, and decides that "Queen Thalisa of the Zenons Talking Pure Filth" is a good one and dials.

"Hello, is that Queen Thalisa?" asks Ben.

"Who?" asks the voice at the other end.

The voice of...... Kylie Minogue!


Parte the Sixth

"Sorry, you've got the wrong number," Ben sneers.

"What? You rang me!"

"Piss off you slag! I'm Ben Chatham and can do what I wish!"

"Have YOU got an OBE? No? Well fuck off yourself, blondie!" retorts Kylie before hanging up.

Tears fill Ben's eyes and, in a state of shock, she gets off her peachy bubblebut and waddles out the door, only to bump into Anselm, who is trying to remember his character act after such a long gap in between episodes. Upon seeing Ben, Anselm runs off.

"Oi!" Ben gasps trying to follow. "Get back here! Don't you want to be one of the select few to survive when I wipe the planet of most of its population? Huh?" Ben asks, concerned, before getting tired. "OK, I admit it, I'm using the cult to assist me by spinning this false aim - but it's not like that tramp could transport you to another world anyway!"

"Like you can!" Anselm jeers.

"I so can!" Ben groans. "It's easy. We just assemble on Silbury Hill and combine our psychic energy."

"How can that help?!"

"You wouldn't understand, you don't have a degree," says Ben lightly, flicking some imaginary dust from her bare shoulder. "No stop being so emotional and running across some fields. Get me some Fox's Glacier Mints! Honestly, a woman in my condition needs to be comatose calm..."

"YOU RUINED MY ENTIRE LIFE IN ONE DAY!"

"A chav would have just strung it out and made it more painful in the longrun," Ben retorts, swigging a bottle of brandy. "Now, what we need is to contact the real Queen Thalisa and get her to clear the Earth of all the disgusting working-class chavs. We'll tell everyone one we're returning Earth to a pre-industrial golden age because anyone with any intelligence will instantly become our slaves. Mind control could help too, though."

"I'm going home to my parents," Anselm shouts and storms off.

"What? Lord and Lady Ashworth?"

"No, Lord and Lady Ashmore! We've changed our names again - and you're not getting any more of our brandy!"

Ben puts her hands on her childbearing hips. "What do I have to do? Give birth to the messiah on Christmas Day?"

"I don't give a fuck what you do!" Anselm shouts. "Die in a ditch for all I care!"

"Well, fine! I'll go to Silbury Hill tomorrow and THEN we'll see who's laughing as I end history as you know it!"

"I'll tell Tom Wallace, he'll sort it out!"

Ben laughs evilly. "He won't, there's hardly any point! It's Christmas Eve and everyone will be getting an early night, starting off tomorrow and then arrive when my evil plan is already half completed. It's what I'd do, and I'm his mother! It's not like he doesn't take after me!"

Ben thinks for a minute.

"I better get started right now," she says and shuffles off. "Christ my back..."

And so our gravid gimboid hobbles as fast as her fecundity allows to cross Danebury and waddles up the slope towards the hillfort. Finally she collapses over a makeshift altar, so bloated and swollen she can no longer move. After a while of lying on the altar face down, her muffled voice can be heard.

"Right. Assuming all that technology buried under the hill wasn't blown up by the Doctor... actually come to think of it, I do remember something along those lines... anyway, if I can activate it with psychic energy, there should be a strange glow emanating from the ground and then some stuff will happen. If only I had a cult of unquestioning and devoted followers to generate that psychic energy... Why don't people mindlessly love me? Why do they prefer Kylie Minogue? Why do they prefer anyone?"

Silence.

"Oh well," Ben groans, finally managing to roll onto her back. "I've got a degree. My psychic energy is cultured and incisive. Right er... Oh Children of the Chatham: the day of deliverence is here. Today we journey to the new earth. Focus your minds to reach for the stars. Imagine a world free of people, the new world of absinthe green. Focus your minds on my smootheness. Ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm."

Absolutely nothing whatsoever happens.

Ben is left on her own on a hill on Christmas Night with no friends, no family and no one at all interested in the fact another one of her strange and mystical pregnancies has left her immobile under her mountainous stomach. Not even the Inland Revenue give a shit. And no extraterrestrial technology comes to her aid.

"Well. This is just fucking marvellous," she grumbles after the fifth hour on the altar.

Just then she hears a strange noise and looks around to see the ragged figure of the Mighty Pigbin Josh shambling towards the stricken Chatham. She wimpers but is unable to do anything as the gargling, rambling tramp hauls out a double-barrelled shotgun, aims it at Ben's head and fires.......


Parte the Seventh

The bullet ricochets off Ben's luscious blonde locks, but the concussive force dislodges our parturient protagonist from the altar. Bouncing off the ground, she rolls out of the monument and down the bank.

Pigbin Josh makes happy noises and gargles.

"Frizz fragganham aganname nuthin ah worl cunstop me now, ooh arr!"

"Wanna bet?" says a voice behind him before the tramp is kick-boxed into submission by none other than Kylie Minogue, accompanied by Tom and Katie.

"Wow," Katie says, impressed.

"I'll let him live so he can visit a speech therapist," Kylie promises.

"She's so nice," Tom marvels.

"Lucky she was taking a morning walk and happened to be passing," Katie exposits.

"Thought it might be a good place to do a video," Kylie admits. "Is there really alien technology under this hill?"

Tom grins a feral grin. "Not any more. Sides, why would anyone bury a load of technology under here in the iron age and only use it now?"

"Maybe they were complete morons who drink too much absinthe?" Katie suggests.

"Speaking of which," Kylie says, and they all head down the bank to where Ben is struggling not to sink into the bog and swearing like a sailor whose had an anchor dropped on their foot.

"Leave me alone for fuck's sake!" she screams, barely keeping her head above water. "I am annoyed, you damn fools! It's a good thing that bullet only grazed me, otherwise civilization as you know it would have ended."

"Isn't that what you wanted to do anyway?" Katie asks, confused.

"Oh yeah," Ben says, eyes wide. "Yeah, you thought you could stop me, huh, chavboy?"

"Stop what?" Tom laughs. "How are you going to change ANYTHING?"

"And you," Ben shouts, ignoring him and pointing to Kylie. "You're not a human being, but really an alien globular thing with tentacles in disguise! YOU CANNOT STOP ME! I AM INVINCIBLE! I HAVE A DEGREE!"

Kylie frowns and looks at Tom and Katie, who shrug in embarrasment.

"Soon your planet will be home to the cultured! See how I control the minds of these dolts! Your planet is too good for such an inferior species!" Ben screams.

"God, makes me wish the Rachnoss was here," Tom winces as Ben starts laughing diabollically.

"Well, I dunno about you," Kylie says, "but I'm hungry. It's Christmas morning and we could all use some breakfast."

Anselm appears behind them. "Always room for one more at my place," he offers and the quartet head off into the sunrise.

"What?" Ben shouts. "Where are you going? OI! COME BACK HERE! ANSELM! GAZE LOVINGLY INTO MY DREAMY EYES! ANSELM, YOU CAN'T LEAVE THE MOTHER OF YOUR UNBORN CHILDREN TO DIE IN A DITCH!"

"Yes I can. I used my pocket money to get a vesectomy and backdate it," Anselm calls over his shoulder cheerfully. "No way could you get me in court! I hope you rot in hell, Britney!"

"You know," Tom says to the others. "I know a guy who knows an alien who knows a guy, and I think we can get Ben Chatham listed as public enemy number one and have every two-bit bounty hunter in England will be after her head."

"That's not the spirit of Christmas," Kylie points out.

"Yeah," Tom grimaces. "We'll do it on Boxing Day, give her a day's head start."

"Shouldn't we tell her about it?" Katie points out.

"What?" Anselm is affronted. "And ruin the surprise?"

Ben shouts at the dwindling figures. "SURELY YOU CONCEDE I DESERVE A TOAST FOR SAVING THE WHOLE WORLD?!" she demands, and then sinks beneath the surface for a moment, before emerging again and spitting out pond water.

"God fuck them, every one," she says miserably, then easily hauls her bloated body from the river and sadly trudges up the slope, a pathetic and wet sight as the festive tune of Slade's "Merry Xmas Everybody" fills the air as we change channels and wish Top of the Pops was still on.

...... the END