The Hipster From Outer Space (The Hipster Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  Hawk & Cleaver

  FREE BOOK

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Book 1

  Quotes

  Prologue

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Appendix

  Part 2

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Appendix

  Part 3

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Appendix

  Part 4

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Appendix

  Part 5

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Appendix

  Part 6

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Meanwhile

  Chapter 10

  Appendix

  Book 2

  The Hipster Trilogy

  END OF BOOK STUFF

  About The Author

  Hawk & Cleaver

  Copyright © 2015 by Luke Kondor

  All rights reserved

  Cover Image © Luke Kondor

  Hawk & Cleaver

  London, United Kingdom

  www.lukekondor.com

  www.hawkandcleaver.com

  For press inquiries, please contact [email protected]

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  To that old hipster I saw on the tube that time. Nice shoes.

  LUKE KONDOR

  STRANGE THINGS ARE HAPPENING IN OUR CORNER OF THE UNIVERSE

  An ancient race of Space-Beings called Thinkers are waking up as humans on Earth.

  A malevolent force is killing them off one by one whilst listening to self-help tapes.

  The honeymoon period for a pair of newlyweds is cut short.

  An elderly lady and her pet dog are convinced that the universe is ending.

  And a ginger cat called Gary is the only one who knows anything about anything.

  Be warned. Contains graphic violence. Swearing. And the protagonist is a bit of a git.

  Also, the author is English, so when he talks about the item of clothing, pants, he’s talking about underwear.

  “Forth then, my soul sped, throughout the Cosmos,

  seeing ever, new things and old;

  learning that man is truly space-born,

  a son of the Sun,

  a child of the stars.”

  Thoth the Atlantean

  The Emerald Tablets

  “Can we actually ‘know’ the universe? My God, it's hard enough finding your way around in Chinatown.”

  Woody Allen

  Prologue

  Aidan Black

  “I’m sixty foot tall and made of diamond,” Aidan muttered under his breath. “I’m sixty-fucking-foot tall and made of unbreakable diamond.”

  He wasn’t talking to anyone other than himself as he drove along to the silence of the early morning roads. It was his mantra. An affirmation. Something he would repeat to himself over and over, burying it deeper into his subconscious.

  The tin box on the dashboard rattled as Aidan drove along the country road. An old biscuit tin Aidan had started using to collect his teeth as a child, and had continued to do so throughout life. On the lid he’d etched the words ‘For the toof fairy’ with a penknife.

  He’d been driving for three and a half hours straight, and the sun was only just starting to rise.

  The van wasn’t his. It was a Transit thing his granddad used to shift his painting and decorating gear across the Midlands. Just here-and-there jobs. Not the main one. No, that was always the farm.

  He could still smell the methylated spirit soaked into the wood in the back.

  The van was old, dirty, and on its last legs. There were no other words for it – it was a shit-box. Someone had even written the words ‘clean me’ in the dirt on the back. It was covered in stains and patches from a decade before. Never cared for, it had been left to rot and moulder. Aidan hated it. He hated everything about it. It wasn’t him. It was the antithesis of everything he was.

  You’re better than this place. You’re a god amongst men. Your potential is yet to be realised.

  “I know,” he said to the empty passenger seat. “I fucking know that.”

  He banged his hand on the steering wheel and looked back to the road. Running his hand through his hair, he turned onto the winding stretch of road that ran through the village of Alvaston. It was a sleepy place where nothing much happened. It was his hometown. He slowed the van and wound down the window, letting the cool morning breeze enter.

  The milkman drove past in his milk float. His bottles of white danced and rattled as the old cart sputtered along.

  “Morning,” the milkman said, doffing his cap. The man’s unkempt grey sideburns reached out from the sides of his wrinkled, paper-thin face. Lack of vitamin D. Loser. Unsuccessful.

  “Morning,” Aidan said.

  You’re a winner. You’re a star.

  Aidan smiled at the empty passenger seat.

  “I’m a god,” he said, smiling. “I’m a fucking god.”

  He glanced at himself in the rear-view mirror. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a brown comb and ran it through his hair. He pressed down so hard it scratched his scalp. Any harder and it would’ve broken the skin.

  The main road in Alvaston was as limited as the ambitions of the locals. Its achievements could be counted on a single hand. The most it had going for it was the farm, and that was down to the work ethic and positive mind-set of his granddad.

  As Aidan passed the houses and shops, he shook his head at the wasted potential. He came to a signpost that read ‘White Log Farm’ and turned right.

  It was a petting farm. The kind of place where people would go and buy bags of pellets for the goats and the pigs and feed them, hoping that they might feel like something loved them and
that maybe they weren’t so alone in the universe.

  But the goats couldn’t give a fuck about them. Not even if they were giving them pellets. They would have to be some special kind of pellets if they wanted to leave an impression on those brainless bastards.

  And the guy who sold them the feed. The spotty little teenager, bucktoothed, up to his knees in shit-stains. The farm boy. The one the guests laughed at because he spoke funny: a lisp, an accent they couldn’t place. A mix of every accent they’d ever heard before. That boy was…

  Concentrate. Execution is everything. Do you want to reach your potential?

  Aidan shook his head. He had a headache. He drove past the goat pastures, spotting a few of them huddled in the corner of the field, a couple of kids in the mix. He passed the admin cabin, which was actually a shed painted up to look nice for the guests. The paint had long since faded and chipped away at the edges. It had blistered in the heat of summers past. Everything about the place screamed old and outdated.

  He drove on past the smaller pasture for the pigs and the unforgettable stink of pig shit hit him. He winced as he pulled the van up next to the pigsty, or as the red letters on the side of the building called it, the Pig-House.

  Holy … It really was terrible. A stench the customers would complain about as they bought their pellets for the goats.

  “How can you stand that smell?” they’d ask as Aidan handed them their little paper bags. Why paper? Because it was cheap. Plus the goats would bite the bottom of the bags so the pellets came tumbling out and the parents were forced to buy new bags to keep their children from screaming and ruining their “perfect afternoon”.

  Aidan took a deep breath and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. The sun was peeking over the horizon. He opened the van door and climbed out. He could already hear the snorting and scuttling of the pigs. Their chunky little legs casting shadows through the holes in the wooden walls. He walked over to the rusty barn door and knocked.

  It was a few seconds before the door opened.

  It was Sammy who answered. It was always Sammy. With his big stupid head and eyes that never made contact with anybody else’s. Sammy in his overalls, dirty, covered in shit. Sammy with his perfect hand. Aidan ran his fingers over the nubs where his missing little finger and ring finger were.

  “Good to see you, big brother,” Aidan said.

  The imperfect pale line of Sammy’s hair parting stirred the same old frustration. That goddamn lightning strike of pale scalp. He’d told Sammy many times to keep it straight. It was a sign of a professional to have a good solid parting.

  Sammy nodded hello to Aidan, and Aidan put his hand on Sammy’s shoulder. With his free hand, he reached into his pocket, pulled out his comb and began straightening Sammy’s parting.

  “You look disgusting,” he said. “You live with pigs, and you’re the filthiest one here.”

  “Sorry,” Sammy said. “Sorry, Aidan.”

  Aidan grabbed Sammy, holding his head in place while he finished up. He sighed and did his best to make Sammy’s eyes meet his own.

  “We need to dress for the jobs we want, Sammy, not the jobs we have. I told you this. Remember, you need to think positive thoughts, and positive things will happen to you.”

  “Yes, Aidan,” he said. “Yes.”

  The whimper in Sammy’s tone grated against him.

  “Have you recited you affirmations today?” he asked.

  Sammy squirmed under Aidan’s hand.

  “Your mantra, Sammy. Have you said it?”

  “Not yet, Aidan. I haven’t had a chance. I’ve had a lot—“

  “Well then,” he interrupted. “That’s why you look like a lost puppy isn’t it? Listen Sammy, when we’re done here, you need to go to the mirror, take out your words and read them over and over until they burrow themselves into your fucking skull. I read mine to myself in the mirror every morning as soon as I wake up. You know what I tell myself?”

  “You’re sixty foot tall and made—”

  “That’s right, I’m sixty foot and made of diamond. And it reminds me of who I am, who I want to be and who I will be.”

  Sammy’s attention focused on Aidan’s hand.

  “So come on,” Aidan said. “I need your help. Your little brother needs your help.”

  Aidan patted Sammy on the shoulder, and Sammy nodded.

  “Okay,” he said.

  ***

  It was wrapped up in plastic bags. Not your average supermarket shopping bags but the kind you use on a farm to move big piles of shit and feed around. Big thick stuff that doesn’t pierce easily – doesn’t let the blood get through. A bag around each of the limbs, sealed off with black tape.

  With the slight outline, you could tell that it was a female. Maybe in her thirties. Dried blood had pooled inside the bag on the body’s head and seeped out when they lifted the body. Blood that had pumped out of the poor girl’s mouth when Aidan removed her teeth with pliers. His granddad’s old pliers, in fact. More for the toof fairy.

  Sammy and Aidan lifted the body from the back of the van and carried it into the Pig-House. The swine were snorting and squealing as they smelled the human blood in the air, knowing that a good meal was coming.

  There were eight pigs in all.

  Elsa was the big mother. Big fat Elsa, coming on eight years old now. She didn’t have too long left, so it was nice that she got to enjoy a big meal every now and again. She was slowing down. After giving birth so many times she’d fucked herself up. Like all mothers, really. Aidan remembered the day Elsa was born. It wasn’t long before his granddad passed away.

  They’d wasted hours the first time they’d fed a body to the pigs. Thinking it might make it easier on them, they’d chopped the body up – the hands, the limbs, the guts, the head – and dropped the pieces in separate troughs, but they realised that it was waste of sweat and labour. The pigs didn’t care about all that. In fact, the only thing they had to do was remove the teeth. The pigs did the rest.

  They stripped off the bags and then cut away the clothes before placing the whole naked body in the trough.

  Sammy’s attention lingered on the beaten face. The blonde hair. The broken nose. The swollen lips and the open mouth full of congealed blood.

  “Nearly there, Sammy,” Aidan said as they opened the gates and let the pigs at it.

  Aidan yawned and a plume of mist billowed from his mouth. He rubbed his hands together. It was a cold March morning.

  He noticed Elsa biting into the meaty calf of the girl and, for the first time in two weeks, his mind was quiet. Everything seemed to slow down. He looked at his suit and knew the first thing he needed to do was to get himself cleaned up and looking like himself again. The real him. The chosen one. His granddad’s old wardrobe was full of suits for him to use. He wasn’t going to need them anymore.

  That crusty little teen. The one who used to sell you pellets. The one you’d rip into. The one you didn’t care about. He would be a success in this world. Through hard work, determination and the power of self-help, he would succeed.

  Sammy turned away and made his way out of the barn door as the pigs ripped and munched into the body, nibbling away at the extremities first.

  There’s more.

  “What?” Aidan said, looking to Sammy, who was already closing the door.

  There’s more.

  Aidan sighed. The noise was returning just as quickly as it had left. A tinnitus-like whine that kept him from sleeping. Whispering sweet victims into his ear.

  The sun was now all the way up, glaring through the wooden slats, bringing the mother of all headaches with it.

  You want to be successful? You want to be a winner?

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out his comb and drew it back through his hair.

  “Of course I do,” he said.

  Moomamu The Thinker

  HIS NAME WAS MOOMAMU THE THINKER. Pronounced Moo-Mah-Moo Duh Fink-Ah.

  He was an all-powerful being whose job w
as simple: to float around in the nebulae that surrounded him, in his own little corner of the universe, and to watch and think. That was it. That was why he was there.

  Galaxies forming. Planets colliding. Black holes swallowing stars. Life growing and developing self-awareness, and consequently life dying. He’d seen it all.

  Like all beings, he was born with a bang. The Big Bang, to be precise. And since then he’d watched it all unfold around him.

  To watch and to think. He couldn’t see it all, and he didn’t know everything, but he’d been doing his best for as long as he could remember, and then some.

  He remembered seeing the sweet little Babosi race grow up on the planet Obonda. They were an interesting cluster of limbs and penises. They were the first race he’d ever seen who had orgies with more than a hundred partners. They would last for days and would require an onsite medic. Moomamu saw that and he thought about it. That was his job.

  He remembered seeing the majestic Novii of Taun discover time travel. They used the technology to say hello to their previous selves. The technology could only go back a single hour, so it was pretty useless … but still … Moomamu saw it, and he thought about it.

  He also remembered the time a small ape-like creature from the planet Earth flew upwards from his home world and into the space surrounding it. Steve or Neil or something like that. Neil Stronghand. Moomamu thought it was okay. It was a bit of an anti-climax, if anything.

  He’d seen inter-dimensional time travel. He’d seen a baby the size of a small star being born in the Outer Reaches. He even once saw a small furry mammal poo on its own head. Try to figure that one out.

  Before that day, Moomamu was something unique, something great, something special. And he thought he’d seen it all.

  But he’d just woken up. That was something he’d never done before.

  He opened eyelids that he’d never opened before and yawned with breath he’d never tasted with lungs he’d never filled. He’d stretched muscles and flesh that was never his.