Crazy Cornelius & the Magic Pills Ch. 07

In the car, the others watched Alistair destroy the young man. It was pretty brutal to see, but necessary. The bogan whether through ignorance or an alliance to evil was impeding their escape. It was right and completely justified for Alistair to bash him with the iron bar and kick him repeatedly on the ground until he no longer presented a threat to the Hawkins family.

Alistair felt nothing as he left the bogan unconscious on the ground closer to being dead than alive, blood everywhere. It was just something that had to be done, a job like paperwork, filing or washing the dishes. With the loader now moved, Alistair and Danielle could now get through, so they did just this and continued on their way.

In Port Kembla, Alistair stopped in a quiet car park near a park, recreation center, a row of businesses and small supermarket and slammed out of the car pointing at Gavin. "His grandparents have seen him and we're all over the news reported missing," Alistair stormed. "Police are swarming all over our house back in Sydney, and this area will be soon be filled with police who will let the aliens know where we are. I need ideas and I need them fast. Come on, think, think!"

Cornelius spoke up first. "Dad, you know how they're looking for us? But they aren't looking for people who aren't us, are they?"

Erica noticed the crazy gleam in her brother's eyes and cringed internally. When Cornelius had that look on his face, it usually only led to one place sooner rather than later, and that place was trouble. Erica braced herself as she saw how angry her father looked."

"Of course they aren't looking for people who aren't us," shouted Alistair. "What the fuck are you talking about Cornelius? Are you really that fucking stupid, or are you doing it just to annoy me? You belong in a school for slow learners, but even the retards there would be too fucking smart for you."

"I don't think you're with me Dad, but you will be soon. I know what we can do to stop them finding us, and I'll show you. Right now, I need to borrow the car. Be right back."

Before anybody could stop him, Cornelius leaped into the four wheel drive and took off at speed with the driver's side door still open, Alistair chasing the four wheel drive on foot. "Cornelius, Cornelius!" he bellowed. "Come back at once!"

Cornelius gave a maniacal wave out of the window after closing the door. "Bye Alistair!"

The entrance to the car park was a roundabout, and at it as Cornelius drove up were an old couple in a Volvo, the elderly male driver in his cheese-cutter hat waiting for a van over 200 meters down the road to come through. The impatient Cornelius laid on his horn and flashed the car with his headlights. When it did not move, Cornelius backed up and then proceeded to drive the wrong way around the roundabout at great speed, cutting off two drivers who screeched to a halt and sounded their horns, they and Cornelius exchanging pleasantries as Cornelius drove away at breakneck pace.

"I am going to kick his arse when he gets back," growled Alistair, the family waiting 30 nervous minutes for Cornelius's return.

It was Danielle who spotted the four wheel drive returning first, this time indicating and going through the roundabout the correct way. However, the quickest direct route to the Hawkins family was not by driving through the car park roadway, but by driving directly over kerbs in a straight line, which is exactly what Cornelius did.

"What is that fucking fool doing?" roared Alistair. The car being a large four wheel drive obviously could be driven over pathways and kerbs, but it still annoyed Alistair to see his son driving the vehicle with such stupidity. At least Alistair thought it was his son. As the vehicle drew nearer, he could see that the person driving it looked somewhat different from Cornelius. Very different from Cornelius.

Everyone else looked at the very different man driving Alistair's car, and Erica could see her father's growing anger. This did not dissipate as the four wheel drive stopped and Cornelius waved at them from the driver's seat. "Hey homies, bet you didn't recognize me, mother fuckers."

"I have a really bad feeling about this," Faye said under her breath, observing her husband staring at their son with a rigid body posture and unblinking eyes, anger growing across his bearded face.

Erica felt like she was about to piss in her panties such was her apprehension about what was going to happen next, and Gavin and Danielle just kept quiet knowing trouble was brewing big time.

Cornelius had from somewhere purchased black make-up, and applied it liberally to his face, hands and neck, and over his normal hair wore a wig -- a black curly wig. He looked like a gollywog doll that had come to life, or if he had a straw boater hat and carried a cane a performer in a minstrel show. A really bad minstrel show.

Alistair, seething with anger, regarded his son dressed in blackface. "What the fuck is going on here?"

Cornelius indicated himself. "Cornelius be black."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" the seething Alistair demanded. "Why are you dressed up like that?"

"Don't you get it, Dad?" Cornelius laughed, the pink interior of his mouth and white teeth contrasting with his blackface make-up. "The police are looking for us and we're all white, but they're not looking for black people are they? So what we do is get more black make-up and wigs and pretend to be black like this, that way they won't find us."

Alistair was so angry that he could not say anything and just stood there unblinking, and Cornelius said, "I think the words you're looking for Dad are 'Thank you, Cornelius.' So what about it Alistair? You want to be black like me?"

Seeing her husband was about to lose it completely, Faye put her hand on his stomach to try and restrain him if he turned nasty, but it was too late for this, Alistair was already incandescent with rage and in about the same state as the Krakatoa volcano 10 seconds before the 1883 eruption.

"No!" thundered Alistair, Erica seeing some pigeons taking flight as her father's voice reverberated through half of Wollongong. "You stupid son of a bitch, you are not black! I am not black, nobody in this family is black! Nobody! Not now, not ever. There are no black people in my fucking family pretend or otherwise! None!"

Faye cut in nervously, worried her husband's shouting would attract attention. "Alistair..."

Alistair clearly wasn't going to listen, and was so enraged as to be delusional. "No, we are not black! Nobody is black! There are no black people! Black people don't exist!"

Cornelius grinned at his father. "What a pity Dad, you'd look good if you were black."

"And you'll look good black too when I shove a pitch-fork up your arse and throw you in a vat of hot tar, you stupid mongoloid retard!" roared Alistair. "Come here!"

"Alistair, wait..." urged Faye but her husband was too angry to listen and charged at their son, roaring with rage.

Cornelius took to his heels, and not for the first time all Faye, Erica, Gavin and Danielle could do was watch as Cornelius sprinted away as his angry father chased him, bellowing incoherently while Cornelius laughed. Faye went into the first aid kit to retrieve Alistair's heart medication. She had a feeling her husband might need it after their son's latest shenanigans.

The chase took them up a nearby street, where some people saw a very angry looking bearded white man roaring and chasing a younger black man up the street. Most decided it was better to look the other way, pretend they had not seen anything and not try to intervene or call authorities. The older bearded man looked like a complete maniac and they did not want to have his wrath transferred to them. The young black man seemed to be somewhat unhinged too, yelling offensive terms for black people as the older white man chased him down the street. Maybe both were escaped mental patients from a locked psychiatric ward?

With Cornelius aged 23 and his pursuing father aged 52, the younger man was obviously the one who was going to win the chase and Cornelius did this quite easily, putting on a burst of speed across another car park as his father slowed down.

Puffing and sweating, Alistair still had enough voice power to bellow after his son. "You'd better keep running, you idiot! You're fucking dead for this stupid Sambo shit, you hear me! When I get my hands on you you're dead! Dead! You should be in a gas chamber, or hanging upside down from a tree with the Ku Klux Klan burning a fucking cross underneath you!"

"Excuse me!"

Alistair turned around at hearing the indignant young male voice behind him, and saw in front of him a skinny red haired young man, who was looking at him with a disapproving expression.

"What the fuck is your problem, faggot?" Alistair barked. "What the fuck has this got to do with you?"

"I should let you know before I call the police to report the hate crime I witnessed that intimidating or harassing a person on the basis of race is a criminal offense in Australia," said the young man, his supercilious tone antagonizing Alistair even more. "Don't you know how life is difficult enough for black people without racist bigots like you making things worse? How do you think the young man you were chasing is feeling right now?"

In life there are some people who just should not meet, and Alistair Hawkins and the young man who had confronted him -- a 28-year-old lawyer named Simon Marshall -- were a good example of this. Normally they would not have met. Alistair should have been in Sydney, working on elevators with his crew, but was obviously on the run from evil paranormal forces chasing his family. Simon Marshall would normally have been at his place of work at a community legal center in Wollongong, but was having a rostered day off this Monday. Their meeting was just one of random chance.

Simon Marshall's political views were definitely to the left of the spectrum, and he dreamed of one day being a leading human rights lawyer. The tee-shirt he wore today -- a map of Australia with 'Refugees Welcome' within it showed his left-wing views of the world.

Alistair Hawkins did not share these views and he most certainly hated refugees. In fact the tee-shirt worn by the young lawyer was sort of like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Without warning Alistair, his face contorted in fury and bright red, launched his attack, roaring with rage like when he had chased the bogan and then a black-faced Cornelius.

Unlike the bogan who Alistair had bashed with the iron bar and left for dead on the road, Simon was able to run fast enough to evade his older pursuer, who showed no sign of any logical behavior. He was a complete and utter madman, and Simon was terrified, the young man realizing his mistake in confronting a crazy person. While it seemed the right thing to do at the time to stop him harassing the black man, it was clearly the wrong thing to have done.

Alistair continued bellowing in rage as he chased the lawyer, and ran past a bin where an empty bottle of beer had been discarded. Pretty good at cricket and rugby in his earlier years and having amazing strength due to mental instability, Alistair grabbed the beer bottle and hurled it at the lawyer's head, glass shattering into dangerous shards as it hit a signpost.

One of the pieces of glass made contact with Simon's face, cutting his cheek and drawing blood, but the young lawyer was so petrified of the angry man that ran behind him and not likely to give up the chase that he did not notice. Finally Simon was able to put a burst of speed and get into his car which was adorned with stickers of left-wing political causes and parked a short distance away. Alistair caught up to the car as Simon started the engine.

"Come out you fucking poofter!" bellowed Alistair as he tried to open the car doors but Simon had already used the central locking, and sped away from the kerbside and raced up the street.

Again bellowing with rage like an angry water buffalo, Alistair chased the car up the street for about another 200 meters before it vanished from sight and he gave up the pursuit and headed back to his family, still shaking with rage and his heart sending inconsistent beats through his cardiovascular system.

Further away still, Simon Marshall continued to drive away fast, terrified that the madman had his own car and was now giving pursuit on the road. He was so distracted by looking behind himself, that he almost didn't see the enormous steel truck -- a common sight around Wollongong -- stopping in front of him until it was nearly too late.

In a panic, he swerved into the left lane, but did not check his blind spot and cut off a cement truck, which sounded its horn and screeched to an emergency stop. Simon tried to move back to the center lane but this was blocked by the steel truck. In the left lane in front of Simon was another enormous truck, this one stopped in a clearway to deliver supplies to a building site and about to reverse into it.

Noticing another huge truck dead in front of him, blood running from the cut on his face and blocked by the steel truck on the right with a potential maniac chasing him, Simon panicked more and swerved violently left, this taking him into the building site where a multi-story commercial building was under construction.

Workers from the site leaped out of the way in shock as the car sped through, and increasingly terrified Simon did the worst thing one could do while driving an automatic in an emergency situation -- he put his foot on the accelerator pedal rather than the brake.

Speeding through the construction site dead in front of Simon was a hoist where an enormous steel panel was about to be hoisted to an upper floor by a crane. At present the panel was horizontal to the ground -- and about neck height for anyone in a motor vehicle.

With no time to spare, Simon's car smashed into the steel panel at speed. There was an almighty crashing of glass as it went through the windscreen and front driver's side window, making direct contact with Simon's neck at his voice box, death for the young lawyer instant as he was decapitated, Simon's severed head flying from his body and going through the air, landing in a nearby wheelie bin.

The car came to a rest against a wall, still revving violently as the dead driver's foot rested on the gas panel. Construction workers ran in, several vomiting as they caught sight of Simon's severed head in the wheelie bin with lifeless blue eyes staring at the sky, and the headless corpse still at the wheel of the wrecked car, twitching violently as blood poured from the neck.

One young apprentice passed out from shock, as one of the builders overcame his feelings of nausea to grab his mobile phone and call the emergency services.

*

Alistair of course was unaware of the fatal accident of the young man he had chased as he returned to the car park, his heart racing at crazy levels and still filled with fury. Cornelius had taken off the black wig and Danielle was now frantically trying to remove her husband's blackface makeup with a towel.

"Keep that fucking idiot out of my way, and make sure he doesn't look like a coon anymore," Alistair ordered Danielle. "How much more of this insanity do I have to put up with?"

"Alistair, come and sit down and take your heart medication," Faye urged, guiding Alistair to the four wheel drive, where she took out the tablets and a bottle of water.

Never one to learn a lesson, Cornelius decided it was a good time to smart off to his still fuming father. "Hey Alistair, if we can't dress as Sambos can we dress as Chinamen instead?"

"I'll give you Chinamen you stupid little..." Alistair began, getting to his feet but Faye stopped him.

"Alistair, leave it, we need to keep together, think of your heart," said Faye. "If you end up in hospital the aliens will know you're there for sure, and then they'll get all of us." She then turned to her son and screeched at him. "Cornelius, for the last time will you stop annoying your father? You know how much he hates black people. So don't make it any worse. Do you want your father to die from a heart attack or stroke?"

"This stuff is awful, how do you get it off properly?" the irritated Danielle asked, still struggling to remove her husband's blackface makeup. "Seriously Cornelius, next time think before you act!"

"I thought it was a good idea for us to dress up like black people to escape the aliens and demons but I never get any fucking support from anyone," grumbled Cornelius.

Erica stood with Gavin looking at her father as he tried to catch his breath. Clearly this was affecting his mental health, and Cornelius's antics. It worried her as to how much more of this he could take.

The wail of emergency sirens heading to the building site after the lawyer had been decapitated in the car accident after Alistair chased him convinced the Hawkins family that their pursuers were after them again, and the group quickly jumped into their two cars and left. Alistair was in no fit state to be driving so instead Faye took control of the four wheel drive with Erica and Gavin in the back, while Danielle drove her car with Cornelius in the passenger seat, still trying to remove his black makeup which had been much easier to put on.

Their stop in Wollongong had been a short one, but a complete disaster so Faye was glad to be getting out of here and into the regional part of the Illawarra region. Not daring to turn on a car radio fearing that aliens and demons could plant messages in their minds, none of the six had any idea what was going on as the cars travelled through the country roads with no clear destination.

*

Up in Sydney, Mr. and Mrs. Baxter had their pleasant cruise holiday come to an abrupt end when an officer came to their cabin to deliver the terrible news that their son had been reported missing, rather than risk the couple hearing it through the media, considerable news coverage taking place about it.

Given priority to disembark when the cruise ship docked at Circular Quay, Mr. and Mrs. Baxter were met by their distraught daughter Lisa and her boyfriend Pete and several other relatives. As she spoke to them Lisa dissolved into tears, sobbing and blaming herself for her brother vanishing when she was left in charge when their parents went on a holiday.

However, members of the Hawkins and Baxter family and police following up the case had some good news, and that was that with the exception of the also missing Brendan Hawkins, that when the case hit the news there were plenty of alleged sightings of the other Hawkins family member around New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory over the past four days, and with them was a young man matching Gavin's description.

The woman who lived over the back from the Hawkins family, holding a large black cat in her arms, had met police searching and conducting forensics reporting being awoken by a violent argument between Alistair and Cornelius Hawkins very early on Friday morning. While nothing unusual, the woman said what the two men were arguing about that morning seemed to be nonsense even for them, it was something about a pig.

Other neighbors reported hearing strange things from Number 9 on Friday morning, lots of yelling and noise before they drove away. People who had been in the vicinity of the Opera House and at Bondi Beach that same morning reported seeing two cars containing six occupants matching the descriptions of the missing six, and behaving very oddly. One woman reported the group talking about monsters and UFOs, and a lifeguard reported his observance of the girl in the group with messy blonde hair taking down her pants and changing her sanitary pad for a tampon out in the open, staff and customers in a store in Bondi confirming that a girl matching Danielle Hawkins' description buying feminine hygiene products there that morning, the young woman being rude and pushing in line.