Back to the contents...

Start Of Part Two
"Who are you?" asked Kirsty, with the sound of terror distinct in her neatly written voice, and the look of deja vu apparent on her delicate young features.
"I," said the man with the underlined voice, "Am your worst nightmare! I am Poopface!"
After they'd finished laughing, Primrose explained that the last few minutes of a dramatic end-of-part-one would often be repeated at the beginning of part two, especially in a poorly-written drama, and so put everyone's minds to rest.
"So what the bleeding hell do you want, Poopface?" Charlie asked.
"What I want is not of your concern, my pretty young thing" Poopface replied, and sat down.
"Oh, fair enough."
"Well, seeing as it has nothing to do with us, we may as well leave." said Kirsty.
"Yes, leave now, and never return!" said Poopface, and laughed maniacally again. "Hahaha!" he added, just to get his point across. After Primrose and pals had left, Poopface realised his mistake and ran to the door. "Wait!" he called down the street, "I'm supposed to hold you captive and tell you of my evil plans!" But they were already long gone. "Oh, bugger."

"But we still don't know who's behind these Mysterious disappearances!" said Primrose, narrowly avoiding bumping into another short grey skinned man with big eyes. "It could be any one of these people!" She made an expansive gesture across the crowds of short grey people.
"What we need to do," said Charlie, "Is find out who some of the people are who have disappeared."
"My master will torment you for all eternity" came a small voice from ankle height, although noone heard it.
"You're right, Charlie!"
"Of course I'm right, you stupid girl"
"Let's ask Mr Nofriends, the policeman" said Kirsty, "He's bound to know!"
After an exhaustive search of nearly thirty seconds, the gang found Mr Nofriends the policeman, and asked him who had disappeared.
"Well, I don't rightly think I can let you know what that information really is."
"Oh, go on."
"I shall endeavour to recall what did happen to me on the night of the fifth of August, this year." Mr Nofriends reached into his pocket and extracted a notebook. Without looking in it once, he continued: "I was proceeding down the Parsnip Road, at approximately nineteen hundred and twenty one hours, when I did hear a scream, not unlike that of a lady screaming. As a good and honest copper, I did run to what I believed to be the source of the scream, and I did see a lady, who was screaming. After calming her down, I did ask her what was the panic which she was feeling, and she did reply 'It is that small grey skinned man there, approximately four feet and ten and four fifteenths of an inch, with large black almond shaped eyes set above his small mouth on his bulbous, bald cranium.' The lady then continued to scream, while I did attempt to apprehend the small man, who I did describe not one minute beforehand. The small, previously described man evaded arrest, and disappeared with the lady up a shaft of bright white light into his waiting mothership. Unable as I was to continue with my duty, I returned to my home and did smoke two cigars, and drink three tumblers of finest whisky, whilst my lovely ladywife, who shall remain unnamed until I can think up a name for her, talked sweet nothings in my ear."
"And how much of that was true, Mr Nofriends?" Charlie asked, getting ready for an extended period of swearing and abuse.
"All of it except the last bit about my lovely ladywife, who, in fact, does not exist."
"You shall hear the screams of a billion dying souls for as long as there is death" said Mr Furry, without anyone noticing.
Primrose dragged her pals away from Mr Nofriends before Charlie had a chance to start swearing, and whispered with them in a huddle.
"I'm starting to see a pattern" she said.
"Me too," said Kirsty, "I think it's something in the water."
"Both of our witnesses have reported a woman screaming - perhaps that's connected?"
And before anyone else could say anything, there was a sudden scream - that of a woman.

Meanwhile, halfway across the still-nameless mediaeval city, two unidentified women were walking along the empty street (this is in the part of town with more money) and talking about something, probably women's talk. One of them, the taller of the two, decided she had a sudden need to go somewhere else, let's say into a shop that sold something or other. The other woman, the shorter of the two, looked at her portable sundial with built-in calendar and sheep-identifying guide and saw that the time was about two in the afternoon, and the date was the fifth of August, this year. With a shock of realisation, she, um, realised that she had misidentified a sheep as a shark, and also that she was being studied intently by a short man with grey skin and big eyes, oh, and a bulbous head too.
"What do you want, short man with grey skin and big eyes, oh, and a bulbous head too?" she asked. Without replying, the short man with grey skin and big eyes, oh, and a bulbous head too produced from his sack a short silvery probe, and pointed it at the woman.
"You call that a probe?" she laughed, before realising that she was trapped in a beam of light five feet above the ground, and screamed.

"Listen!" said Primrose, halfway across town, "Another womanly scream!"
"There's been another Mysterious disappearance!" said Kirsty.
"I must be excused, as I have my policeman's duty as a policeman to investigate these 'ere disappearances, Mysterious, for the use of." said Mr Nofriends, running in the wrong direction.
"Er..." said Geoffrey, speaking only his second line so far.
"Good idea, Geoffrey!" Primrose ran off in the direction of the second scream, because by that time she had forgotten about the first one, and her pals followed her. When they arrived, they saw a woman, who would have been described as the taller, but for the fact that there was noone else there to whom her height could be compared.
"What happened, woman who is of fairly average height?" asked Primrose, enthusiastically, and not at all exhausted from her run across the city.
"I went into that shop there, the one that sells stuff, and when I came back out, my shorter friend had vanished! All I heard was a scream, and nothing else. And I didn't see a thing."
"You're another useless witness." said Charlie.
"Die violently so that I may feed on your blood" Mr Furry intoned quietly.
"Now we have three witnesses!" said Kirsty, "None of whom lead us any nearer to the culprit!"
Primrose reached into her pocket and pulled out a length of liquorice. Chewing on it's tooth rotting sickly sweetness, she began to piece together what few clues they had. The others stood around impatiently while she did so. After nearly ten seconds, she pulled the liquorice from her mouth and stabbed it into the air.
"I believe that these disappearances, as well as being Mysterious disappearances, are also Evil disappearances!"
Her pals and the woman all inhaled sharply, and took a step back, while Mr Furry looked more interested.
"And," Primrose continued, "Who do we know who is evil?"
"Well," Kirsty said, slipping momentarily into a normal font, "Most people say that Mr Furry is a touch on the demonic side."
"No, no, no." Primrose took another suck on the liquorice. "Who have we met recently who is evil?"
"Poopface?" said the woman, helping the narrative along.
"Yes! Poopface is evil!" Primrose smiled contentedly and crossed her arms.
"And...?" Charlie prompted, getting angry. Er, angrier than usual, that is.
"And therefore, he is the one behind these Mysterious and Evil disappearances!" Proud of her leap in backwards logic, Primrose took a long hard suck on her liquorice, while the others jumped at the sudden dramatic jarring tone.

End Of Part Two

Part Three!!!