Chapter 10

Penelope looked at Clyde and blinked away tears.

"Even if you kill me now I know the truth! I know there are no monsters. There was only ever you, a screwed up boy with a gun in his hand thinking he's a big man to creep into a stranger's house and pull the trigger in the middle of the night! You're nothing, Clyde!"

"I couldn't agree more!"

Penelope's eyes widened in surprise on hearing a familiar voice.

Clyde turned sharply, staring at Sylvester who was standing behind him.

Sneekly looked...absolutely fine all of a sudden?

Then Clyde had no more time to think about it as Sylvester smacked him in the face with an iron fist and sent him sprawling to floor.

Penelope felt stunned as she looked at her lover.

"I thought you had a seizure?"

"I was faking it." He told her.

Then he looked down at Clyde, knocked out cold on the floor and he smiled.

"He thought Sparks couldn't teach me anything?" He remarked, "He did. He taught me how to throw a punch!"

"I certainly did."

They both looked towards the doorway, where Sparks and Yak Yak were standing.

Sparks walked over to Sylvester and placed his hand on his shoulder as warmth shone in his eyes.

"We came to help out but when I saw you faking that seizure I knew you were planning something."

Sylvester felt surprised by that remark.

"How did you know I was faking it?"

Sparks gave him a knowing smile.

"After being locked up with you for fifteen years I know when you're sick and when you're not!"

Penelope wriggled again, but the ropes stayed tight.

"Excuse me, boys? Could someone help me with –"

She stopped, hearing someone run up behind her.

Something quick and sharp sliced through the air with a swish and the ropes fell free.

Penelope stepped away from the post and looked down to see a small, dark haired man in a sharp suit with an even sharper switchblade in his hand which he quickly put away as he smiled up at her.

"Thank you!" Penelope said warmly.

Yak Yak opened his mouth to start yakking and Sparks snapped his fingers, silencing him before he could begin.

"We have work to do." He reminded him, then he turned back to Sylvester.

"Get Penelope out of here. And don't worry about Clyde – this is no longer your problem."

Sylvester thought about the fire.

"Clyde burned the bar."

Sparks shook his head.

"Don't worry, Sylvester. Everything will be taken care of."

"Clyde said he planted some explosives." Penelope told him, "I know they were down near the hull but I'm not sure about the exact spot."

"I heard." Sparks replied, "And I'm sorry but we'll have to blow the boat. It's the best way to get rid of every trace of evidence."

Penelope wondered exactly what he had planned but had no more time to think about it as Sylvester took hold of her hand.

"Come on Penelope." He said, "We have to get out of here."

"But I wanted to know what happens next -"

"There's no time." He added, "Let's go."

"But I-"

"Let's go right now, Penelope."

And he kept a firm grip on her hand as he led her out of the cargo hold.

Sparks watched as Sylvester walked away.

He thought for a moment about the man he had met so long ago back in prison, the guy who didn't even know how to throw a punch... Sylvester had come a long way since the old days and he was sure he had never felt more proud of him than the moment when he had fooled Clyde and then knocked him out cold.

Yak Yak looked up at his boss.

"What do we do now, Mr Sparks?" He asked him.

Sparks thought for a moment.

"We'll take the car out to the sticks and torch it with the drugs inside it. But first we blow the boat- and deal with this piece of shit."

And he nudged Clyde with his foot.

He gave a groan but didn't wake.

"Want me to take him out now?" Yak Yak wondered.

Sparks looked down at Clyde and felt a cold rage building up inside him.

"Not yet." He said, "I want a word with this piece of trash first..."

Penelope half stumbled in the dark as Sylvester led her away from the docks.

"Where are we going?"

"Home." He replied.

"But what about Clyde? Surely Sparks will need us to talk to the cops about everything too?"

Sylvester stopped walking.

The docks were far behind them now and the lights of the city were burning brightly against the night skyline, there was a distance between them and the scene of what was about to happen but as he looked into Penelope's eyes he saw nothing there but confusion:

She really had no clue as to what would be happening next...

And Sylvester understood that perfectly, because there had been a time when he wouldn't have fully understood either, not until he had gone to jail and met Sparks and become a part of his world.

But that side of his life was one that Penelope never needed to know about.

He smiled as he thought about how sweet and innocent she used to be – and how innocent she still was to a certain degree.

She had never walked the path he had walked, never shared the kind of life he had known and there was no reason for that to change.

For a brief moment it struck him as ironic that she had once been shocked to see him go crazy back in the days when he had been sick – she had never imagined him capable of such violence.

But that was then, when he had no control over his actions.

It was all changed now, he was a different man, changed by time and life and everything that had gone along with it – although of course Penelope would know very little of the darker side of his world and his association with a man named Frankie Sparks, because if she knew every detail she would be shocked all over again to think her lover had such close connections with the underworld...

"What about Clyde?" She said again, "We need to talk to the police!"

Sylvester looked into Penelope's eyes and felt sure he could never in his life love another woman as much as he loved Penelope Pitstop.

"We don't have to talk to the police." He promised her, "Sparks is taking care of everything – he's keeping us and your company out of the situation. Trust me; Clyde will get what he deserves."

And she looked at him with such love in her eyes as she smiled.

"That's really helpful of Mr Sparks to deal with all this by himself!" She exclaimed, "I mean, if the cops found out what Clyde had been using my company for I could have wound up in jail!"

Sylvester smiled too on hearing those words as he thought about Sparks and his friends in the police force who he had been paying off for many years for many different reasons...

"Sparks will handle everything." He promised her, "He's used to dealing with the law..."

Penelope tightened her grip on his hand.

"I'm so glad this is over." She said, looking adoringly into his eyes.

"Me too." Sylvester replied.

And then Penelope, who only saw the good in everyone and never spotted a trace of anything remotely bad even when it was staring her in the face, turned away from the docks in the distance and thought no more about Clyde and all that had happened, pushing it far from her mind as she kept hold of her lover's hand as they walked on towards home.

At first Clyde knew nothing but the sensation of waking to silence.

Then he blinked and his eyes became used to the dim lighting in the cargo hold of the ship.

Any trace of drowsiness left him swiftly as he realized he was sitting on the floor, his hands tied behind his back.

He was tied to the same post Penelope had been tied to...

He looked around – Penelope and Sylvester were gone...

Then someone stepped forward and he saw two highly polished leather shoes in front of him.

Clyde looked up the owner of the shoes.

Frankie Sparks was standing over him, fixing him with a hardened glare that seemed to slice right through him.

"You burned my bar." He stated.

Clyde's eyes grew wider.

"And I'm sorry! I...I'll buy you another one! I have money...I'm Clyde McDonald, I can get hold of anything...I can –"

A swift kick from Sparks knocked the air from his lungs.

As Clyde sat tied to the post Sparks looked down at him, holding back most of his rage because he knew what he wanted to say and he was going to say it while Clyde was still in a fit state to take in his words...

Sparks took in a deep breath, briefly closing his eyes as a past flashed through his mind that held more pain than he could measure.

Then he focussed on Clyde once more.

"I hate your kind." He said in a low voice, "I hate people like you, people who deal in drugs. You have blood on your hands and the blood you're stained with is far worse than any stains I could ever carry, you piece of shit! You deal in death. You take away lives and you do it to line your pockets. You do it every day and don't give a second thought to fathers and mothers left with dead children. I'm a father whose son died because of drugs and tonight I almost lost another son - because of you!"

And Clyde looked up at him with fear in his eyes as cold terror swept over him as he finally understood where the path he had chosen to walk in life had led him to; it had led him to this, a situation that he was sure he would not be walking away from...

"Please let me go!"

As his words echoed around the hollow room he knew before he saw the smile on Sparks face that his begging and pleading would amount to nothing.

Sparks just shook his head and turned and walked away, hitting a switch on the wall and killing the lights in the cargo hold.

"WAIT!" Clyde yelled as he struggled to loosen his bonds, "Come back, get me out of here! Help me!"

Then he drew in a breath and stared at the dimly lit corridor beyond. Sparks had gone now...

Clyde gave up trying to loosen the rope that tied him to the post as he wondered about the explosives planted on the ship:

Was he planning to blow the ship and have him go down with it?

The thought of slowly drowning in the cargo hold filled him with panic and he began to frantically to struggle to loosen the rope that tied his hands, he tried and failed and then a shadow darted across the room.

Clyde looked up, seeing nothing in the dim light that crept in from the corridor beyond the open doorway.

"Who's there?" He said breathlessly.

Then a small figure stepped closer and Clyde gave a sigh of relief:

He wasn't sure what a little kid was doing wandering about on the ship, but he was sure he could help him get loose from this rope...

"Hey kid..." He said quickly, "Come here, I need some help..."

The figure stepped closer.

Clyde's eyes grew wide with terror:

This was no kid.

This was a small man, aged around thirty wearing a sharp suit and carrying an even sharper switch blade knife...

Yak Yak fixed his dark eyes on Clyde McDonald and smiled.

"Goodnight." He stated, raising the blade high in the air.

Just as Clyde screamed, Sparks was stepping off the ship.

He heard the scream down in the cargo hold and then the screaming stopped and the world fell silent once more.

Sparks walked over to the limo and leaned against it with a smile on his face; it always made him happy in his heart to know another piece of trash had been taken off the streets - and Clyde was history now...

He checked his watch and then he waited for Yak Yak to finish the job and join him back on dry land.

By morning the bar was nothing but a blackened shell where debris lay in a charred heap and faint tendrils of smoke rose from the ruins.

Penelope's pink car was parked a short distance away from the scene of the blaze and as Snoozy stood beside Sylvester and surveyed the damage he blinked away tears.

"That was my home!"

Sylvester saw the look in Snoozy's eyes and put his arm around his shoulder.

He guessed this was the last thing he needed to find out about after coming out of the hospital; he had been through enough with Clyde beating him up, but now he had lost his home, too...

"It's going to be okay. Sparks is having the place rebuilt."

Snoozy stifled a sob.

"I've got no where to live!"

Sylvester took his arm off his shoulder and glanced at Penelope.

She smiled and so did Sylvester; they had already talked about this...

"You can come and stay with us until the bar gets rebuilt."

Snoozy's eyes lit up and he smiled.

"Really? Do you mean it?"

Penelope laughed softly.

"Of course we mean it! Now let's get in the car and go home."

As they turned away from the ashes and walked back towards Penelope's pink car, Sylvester glanced at Snoozy.

"There's just one thing I want you to remember."

"What?" Snoozy wondered.

"The bedroom." He reminded him, "Don't forget to knock!"

And Snoozy laughed.

"I won't forget that ever again!" He promised, and the three of them got into the car and headed off home.

A week later Penelope had woken up late after a long, deep sleep and then she had got out of bed and looked out of her window.

The sun was rising high in a blue sky and its rays were falling through the heavy boughs of the trees that lined the pathway.

For a brief moment she recalled the night the hooded figure had stepped out from the shadows and looked up at her from that same path, the thought clouded her eyes as she remembered his name:

Hooded Claw.

Then she thought about how Clyde had fooled her, how she had spent years being afraid of a man who did not exist...

The Hooded Claw had only ever lived in her nightmares.

He had never been real.

The memory would always linger, all the memories of the past, from her parent's killing to her own close brush with death, and it had all been down to one man.

A man, just a man – not a monster.

She knew for sure now, there were no monsters, there never had been and there never would be...

Then Penelope smiled as her thoughts turned to happier times, and to her best friend Melanie.

She had been right about everything, and Penelope had apologized to her over throwing her out the way she did – again, that had all been Clyde's fault...

Melanie had accepted her apology.

It was good to have her best friend back in her life, and she was coming over to the house later, too – she had been coming over to the house almost every day lately - mainly because she rather liked Snoozy, Sylvester's lazy friend who often went missing and when he vanished could always be found in the hammock at the bottom of the garden doing what he loved to do best – snoozing...

Penelope's eyes were still fixed on the sunlit garden below as he walked up behind her and took hold of her.

"I've got you now, Penelope Pitstop." Sylvester whispered as he wrapped his strong tattooed arms around her and held her close.

Penelope turned and slid her arms around her lover and smiled as she looked into his eyes.

"You most certainly have got me, Sylvester." She said warmly, "And I never want you to let me go!"

"Don't worry about that, my dear." Her lover replied as he held her tightly, "I promise I'll never let you go, I love you Penelope!"

"I love you too, Sylvester." She whispered.

And their lips touched and their kiss grew deeper as the sun shone through the window, where beyond lie a garden with no more secrets, no monsters lurking in the shadows, that state of the world outside being much like the light that filled Penelope's world now:

Life was just as she wanted it to be, she was in the arms of Sylvester Sneekly and there was no Hooded Claw.

There never had been a Hooded Claw, because he had never existed in the first place...

The End.