17

Humphrey had no idea what was happening. Cornelius appeared to be having some kind of seizure, flailing his arms around, making incoherent, but angry sounding noises. Frida tried to calm him down, even as he began to grasp hold of the crochet curtain of the voting booth. He tried to rip the curtain from the rail, but Frida had made too good a job of it and it only made the booth itself threaten to topple over.

The old woman, Ursula, had started to shoo all the other villagers from the community centre, telling them that they needed to clear a path. A path for what, or who, Humphrey didn't know. And Audrey had disappeared into the kitchen-cum-storeroom-cum-boiler room where the sounds of shouting, things smashing and a good deal of pained yelping started to emanate. Seconds later, Audrey dashed from the area, holding on to a bloodied hand.

That caused Humphrey to move. He finally lifted himself from the chair and took Audrey by the arm. The cut on her hand didn't look too bad, but she would need to see a doctor. In the meantime, he took his clean handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it around the injury. Audrey, for her part, never showed an ounce of the pain she must have felt. Humphrey scowled as he bandaged the hand. It looked like something had bitten her.

"I'll be fine. But that poor thing needs help." Audrey tilted her head back towards the kitchen. "It's scared and in pain and I can't think of anyone else that could calm it down."

For a moment, Humphrey gazed around, trying to find the person that Audrey spoke of. The only other people left within the hall were Cornelius, who seemed to be in the process of tearing what little hair he had left from his scalp. Frida looked at a loss for words, trying desperately to calm Cornelius down and the old woman simply stood there, by the door, leaning upon her walking stick.

"Oh. Oh! Do you mean me?" Realisation dawned and Audrey rolled her eyes, jerking her head back towards the kitchen. "Well, I'm not entirely certain that I'm the right person to calm ... it. Whatever it is."

"It's a dog. It's injured and you have the most friendly, unassuming face I've ever known, old boy." She slapped his shoulder with her good hand and turned him, pointing him towards the kitchen. "Just try to lead it outside, if nothing else. It's already jumped on the counter and kicked over the kettle. It's too agitated to stay in there, it'll only injure itself even more. We can call in the RSPCA later."

She pushed him forward and he almost started to step backwards, away from the kitchen, but one look at Audrey's face forced him forward again. He took one step and paused. He'd heard a growl and growls were rarely a good thing in his experience. He remembered Ms Everly and her dog, Toby, and her threat to let dogs have the 'thief's' balls.

He couldn't let that worry him, nor the fact that this dog had already bitten Audrey. On second thoughts, that truly did worry him, because he doubted he had half the pain tolerance of Audrey and not anywhere near as much compassion. His foot hung in the air, caught between stepping forward and starting to run far away.

"You! You've done it again!" Cornelius had stopped his incoherent howling and had returned his ire towards Humphrey. Humphrey didn't even need to look to know that. "You and this damned community centre! Well, I shan't stand for it! I won't! I'll have you off this committee if I have to beat it from you. You and your damned community centre and your damned rich parents and your damned centuries old computer. Damn you!"

"Oh, do shut up, Cornelius, you insufferable oaf!" Humphrey had far too many things happening around him and Cornelius' ranting wasn't anywhere close to the top of the list of things he cared about. Not even on the same piece of paper. "I'll quit if that will shut you up."

"Quit? Quit?" For some reason, that seemed to make Cornelius even more angry, but Humphrey no longer cared.

He stepped closer to the door of the kitchen-cum-storeroom-cum-boiler room and heard a terrible noise coming from within. A number of crashes, bangs, thumps, a couple of squeaks as claws failed to find purchase on the polished floor. It sounded as though the dog had fallen into a panic. Closer to the door, he saw drips of blood on that shiny floor. Two trails. One going into the kitchen, the other coming out. The one coming out was, obviously, Audrey's

The door opened as he tugged at the handle and he managed to finally see the dog within. It was, indeed, the stray dog that had terrorised the village for days. It had finally sat, far into the corner of the room, licking at its backside. The dog shook and, at this distance, Humphrey could tell the animal hadn't eaten well in days. Possibly weeks.

A swell of pity rose up within Humphrey and he edged forward, crouching low and trying not to make himself look in any way aggressive. Outside, in the hall, he could still hear Cornelius ranting. Something about quitting being too honourable. None of that mattered. Right now, Humphrey only cared about helping this poor dog. He stepped forward one more step, but that was a step too far.

The dog spooked, jumping to its feet and howling in pain as it did so. It bounded forward and Humphrey raised his arms before his face, trying to protect himself even as he jumped to the side, crashing into the gas bottles and the heating boiler, sending them flying. But the dog didn't bite him. Instead, it barged past Humphrey, running through the hall.

As Humphrey extricated himself from the gas pipes and bottles, he fell back into the hall in time to see the dog crash sideways into the outside door, dislodging the sheep-shaped doorstep, before running out, back onto the cobbled street. The door closed in an almost ominous fashion, the lock clicking as the door swooped into the frame.

Before Humphrey could even begin to move towards the door, he felt himself almost lifted from his feet and pushed against the nearby wall. Cornelius had resorted to violence once again. Humphrey couldn't understand why. He'd quit the committee. What more could Cornelius possibly want? Audrey and Frida both tried to drag Cornelius away.

"Stop it, Corny." Frida, with what little strength she possessed, completely failed to pull Cornelius away. Audrey had much better luck, but Cornelius strained to grab Humphrey once more.

"You think quitting makes it alright? You think you can take the honourable way out? Fall on your sword?" As he shouted, spittle flew from Cornelius' mouth. His eyes bulged towards Humphrey. "I'll run the vote again and again and again until they vote you out like the pariah you are. And ... and ... you can take that blasted shoddy computer of yours with you! In fact, no! I'll tell you what I'll do with that ..."

Cornelius whipped to the side, pushing Audrey and Frida out of the way. He grabbed the old, gnarled walking stick from Ursula's hand, almost knocking her over, and raced across the room. Once in front of the computer, in his madness, Cornelius began to hit the dusty old computer with the stick. Humphrey didn't know why. He'd never cared for the computer since they got it. And he had other things on his mind.

"Does anyone else smell something?" No-one heard him. All three of the others had chased after Cornelius, leaving Humphrey, somewhat bedraggled and confused, alone.

The sounds of Cornelius battering at the computer seemed to happen far away as Humphrey began to sniff the air. It smelled familiar. Something that stirred memories of caravan trips to the coast where his father would struggle to light the lamps in the decrepit old caravan that he had always said he would replace. A smell that, sometimes, they had to open the door and air out the caravan before his father could attempt lighting the lamps again.

Gas.

Then his mind began to fit everything together. The dog, running rampant within the kitchen-cum-storeroom-cum-boiler room. Audrey constantly complaining that the heating system needed repairing. Humphrey, himself, falling into the boiler and gas bottles as the dog had rushed by him. It all became clear and he felt his cheeks grow cold as the blood rushed from his face.

"Corny! Please!" Frida, trying her best to stop Cornelius.

"Cornelius, you mad old bugger! Stop!" Audrey, trying her best to grab the walking stick from Cornelius.

"'Appen we'd be best getting out." Ursula trying her best to hobble towards the door to the little hallway without the aid of her walking stick.

Humphrey didn't know much about anything, if he were honest with himself, but he knew that those old, cathode ray tubes in the monitors of old computers sometimes retained a charge for a long time. If Cornelius broke the screen, Humphrey didn't want to think what could happen.

"Out! Out! Everybody! Get out now!" He ran back to the room, pushing Audrey and Frida aside, he pointed to the door. "Gas! If he makes a spark, everything will go up! Get out!"

Frida didn't believe him, of course, but Audrey took one sniff of the air and almost picked Frida up, dragging her towards the outside door of the community centre where the old woman had already left through, leaving Humphrey and Cornelius. Humphrey tried to stop Cornelius, tried to shout in his face about the gas, but Cornelius had fallen too much into his rage. He wouldn't listen.

Humphrey knew he couldn't drag the bigger man out without a great deal of effort and Cornelius would not go without a fight, raising Ursula's stick once more. With little else to do, little other option, Humphrey punched Cornelius on the jaw, sending him flying back to land unconscious upon the floor.

With much effort, he managed to drag Cornelius to the door, open it and pull the unconscious man from the community centre, where Audrey appeared to help them both get to a safe distance. Humphrey drew in great lungfuls of air, leaning upon his knees. Cornelius would never forgive him now.

"Looks like you worried about nothing, old boy." Audrey pointed towards the community centre, that hadn't exploded. "The fire brigade will be here soon, they'll make it safe."

Then the community centre exploded.