‘Do you think that’s a good idea young Eric, that’s the third one of those in the last three minutes?’

‘Really!, I must be slowing down, pass me that other bottle of medicine on the top shelf, I need something stronger’

George stood watching young Eric down the third dose of his so-called medicine, a liquid not inconsistent with that of best cooking sherry for that is what it was and he was now pouring himself another from the bottle George had handed to him when there was a commotion outside, a high pitch screech, followed by a dull thud and a human voice pitched on a par with the preceding  screech. 

‘That was bloody close, are you trying to kill me?’

‘Sorry about that Skipper, it’s just that things are a bit new. I’ll get used to them.’

George stepped outside to see what the commotion was.

‘You must be George, of course you are, I recognise you now. Good to see you again and sorry about the arrival but we’re getting used to one or two things at present, bit of a steep learning curve you might say.’ Elvis held out his hand and George shook  it automatically while at the same time wearing a quizzical look as she examined the extended hand’s owner.

‘Likewise, ‘E’, are you feeling okay?’ Was George’s  response.

‘Eh?, oh quite so now, what seems to be the problem, you sounded a wee bit excited on the phone? Oh, and Rosie,’ he said without breaking his rhythm, ‘I suggest you do a bit of revision? Now, lead the way, young George.’

 Inside the hut which was home to hapless chef Eric they found said individual sitting on a barrel of cooking oil, swaying slightly while holding a bottle of cooking sherry with what could best be described as a death grip in one hand and holding onto the cupboard worktop with the other in a desperate attempt at remaining semi-upright.

‘You’ll have to excuse young Eric here, he’s had a bit of a shaky morning, poor lad.’ Said George joining in the effort to keep the young man in his semi-upright position but it wasn’t long before all involved realized it was a losing battle and young Eric slid to the ground into an ingloriously undignified heap, his glazed eyes staring into space whilst his face was one big stupid grin stretching from ear to ear.  He was at that point when all the troubles in the world had vanished and he was in his own little utopia completely unaware of anyone or thing around him.  

‘I don’t think we’re going to get anything from him for a while,’ remarked Elvis, recognising something in the young chef’s condition which struck an uncomfortable chord in his own memory. Best not go there, he thought. ‘So, what can you tell me, George, seeing as how our host is off with the fairies at the moment’

George briefed Elvis the events that had led to this situation, as much as she knew and what Dog had discovered.

‘So, if you’ve got as far as locating the place where the camp is now, why haven’t you proceeded further, not a criticism you understand just a question?’ Elvis was anxious not to upset George in any way by implication, just something in the look she gave him at that moment.

‘Well,'’ she said, “it’s not as simple as it seems because we are up against something I do not understand but which you might, judging by our last encounter together.”  she stood looking straight at him, hands on hips awaiting his response.

You mean something odd?’

‘How about explosive veg?’

‘True sprouts have a bit of a reputation but hardly something for someone with my intellect to be overly concerned ‘cept maybe at Xmas time’

‘That’s not exactly what I mean by exploding veg, these  babies leave craters.’ 

‘Oh come on young George, get a grip now, you’re letting yourself get carried away here.’

‘Come see for yourself and it’s just ‘George’ if you don’t mind.’

‘Right, okay, lead the way.’ Note to self he thought, this one is a bit tetchy, better tread carefully. She led him outside and around the building and there before them were a number of rather large craters, thin tendrils of blue-grey smoke still snaking their way up from them. Elvis stood staring at them in silence, ‘If this is the veg I’m staying carnivore thank you.’ He said without thinking.

‘We have been receiving regular bombardments here every half hour’ Added George, breaking into his thoughts.

‘And that’s all you’ve got, one missing camp and a bunch of craters, oh and explosive veg?’ 

‘Not exactly, Dog has a lead.’ 

‘Very sensible, keep him close that way eh?’  

Just then Elvis felt something he wasn’t used to, a kind of burning sensation deep within him. It wasn’t like the post chilli burn or curry burn, it was more like a ‘boring’ into him. It was then he glanced at Dog which had been sitting next to George and he felt a shudder go the length of his body, Dog was giving him the most odd and very disconcerting look which seemed to tie in with the burning sensation.

‘I haven’t upset your dog have I’ he offered nervously.

George patted Dog gently on the head and without taking her eyes off Elvis said in a very quiet tone, “It’s okay old friend, he is a bit inept in this area.” Then she spoke directly to Elvis in a calm but controlled manner that somehow held a touch of menace. “Not that kind of lead, ‘E’, I mean in a clue type lead. He managed to track down the destination of the missing camp, it had been transported ten ‘Dog reckons an entire regiment.’ 

‘Entire regiment?’

‘Of giant Leeks.’ 

About now Elvis was regretting the very start of this day, it was fast becoming something he didn’t like the sound of one bit or even understand. He stood motionless, silent  for a full two minutes with a faraway look in his eye, his left one, the right one was struggling staying awake as it had been a long and difficult morning, day or whatever it was. He soon became aware of those eyes again staring right into his very soul, or so it felt. DOG was sitting all innocent looking except for those eyes which were fixed on Elvis forcing a response, it was either that or run but the latter was not his style and anywhere, why should he be running away from a friend, he was wasn’t he? Looking at those eyes he really wasn’t sure. Elvis was now fully awake, both eyes that is, and it was now that his razor sharp mind began to process all that he had heard in the last few minutes. It was time for answers of that he was certain not least of all due to the two pairs of questioning eyes now focusing on him.

‘Have you thought of ‘negoshiating?’ Slurred Eric.

‘Brilliant, young Eric, brilliant, and so simple, Why didn’t we think of that. I mean, Leaks are reasonable aren’t they?’ 

‘Jushts a thought, that’s all, Got another bottle?’
‘Of course not, this is no time for such measures, after all we have no one to talk to as I understand it. I’m right, aren’t I?’ Again he realised he wasn’t making his usual sharp decisive response to a dangerous situation, he was uncomfortably slow he felt and couldn’t understand why this was so, he was always up for action, except when he was recovering from bouts of his research. He was feeling something he hadn‘t felt for a very long time, he was feeling hesitant, uncertain of himself. This was not the E. P. Kwerk, Super-duper Special Agent the world had come to know so what was wrong? Rosie couldn’t help him here, could she?

It was at this exact moment of Elvis’s dilemma when there came an ear shattering explosion and the air around them was filled with flying debris, some of it just missing his head. This seemed to do the trick, it was like a button being pushed in his head, he suddenly appeared to come alive, every reaction of his was on red alert now. He was now at his decisive best.

‘Hit the dirt!’ he yelled. 

Elvis had no idea how long he’d been out; he was just aware that he had George and Dog standing over him as he lay in the dirt.

‘You were lucky there ‘E’, that one landed pretty close, just feet away in fact. How’re you feeling?’ George was now kneeling beside him wiping dirt from his brow. 

‘What the hell was that?’ Asked Elvis, still in a bit of a daze. 

‘That my friend was a new one judging by the look of the damage which is fairly widespread, something like a scatter weapon of some sort looks to me.’

George was now standing up and surveying the scene,  DOG was standing sniffing the air and staring fixedly toward the East from where there was little to see other than a bit of a mist.

‘Do you feel that?’ Said George.

‘Yeah, I did, a sudden drop in temperature.’

‘Familiar?’ She asked.

‘All too familiar.’  

Images were now flashing across his mind in a fast replay of previous incidents and all very bad, this was The Cloud, alright and it had returned, the very thing he’s been battling with since he couldn’t think when.

‘This reminds me of…,’ began George.  

‘I know,’ said Elvis, dusting himself off. ‘Where’s this cook friend of yours, Phineas, is it?’   

‘Phineas?’ queried George, ‘who the hell is Phineas, oh, you mean Rick?’

‘Rick, have I missed something, I must have because we’ve been joined by someone else?’ 

‘Calm down ‘E’, I know our chef friend as Rick but of course it’s actually Eric, don’t worry about it.’ 

Elvis was more than a little confused for a few moments until a realisation began to dawn on him, he knew an Eric from way back, a relation or some such. This couldn’t be him could it, nah, surely not. But the more he thought about it the more it began to make sense, which was something of a relief that something was beginning to make some sort of sense here. Just then a scrawny dishevelled figure appeared from the hut looking none too steady on his feet and holding a bottle of something in his shaking hand.

‘Ah there you are Rick,’ responded George, ‘we were just talking about you. This is my friend Elvis P. Kwerk who I told you about.’

With this the figure holding the bottle began to straighten up though still clinging to the door and began scrutinising the individual he’d just been introduced to, peering through half closed eyes bleary eyes. There was something in the appearance of this individual that rang bells in Elvis’s head, he looked so familiar, too familiar in fact. It was about then that George noticed something strange too, there was an uncanny resemblance between the two in front of her. Then she felt a touch of unease as Eric’s face turned more ashen than ever just before he measured his length on the ground. He was spark out.

‘Come on Eric, lad, drink this it’ll do you good,' George was holding a cup to Eric’s lips in an effort to coax  him into drinking some of the coffee she had made for him in an effort to sober him up. They were now inside Eric's domain, the kitchen-hut where they had carried Eric after his brief but painful introduction to the ground earlier. ‘You seem to have had a bit of a shock there?’ 

Eric was coming round slowly at first then he sat bolt upright on his bed. 

‘Is h-h-he still here’ Eric’s voice was very shaky and very hesitant. 

‘Who do you mean?’ 

‘The g-ghost, I thought I saw a ghost.’ As the words were leaving his lips he noticed the other figure standing there looking at him. ‘EEK! It’s real, he’s  there!’ 

‘What the hell is he mumbling about?’ Quizzed Elvis impatiently. 

‘EEK! It speaks!’  

Eric was beside himself, which is a good trick if you can pull it off,  in obvious terror at the sight of the face in front of him, a face from a memory long and distant and only half remembered. It was the face of someone he had thought of as dead. “You’re d-dead!”, he eventually managed to say while staring ashen faced at the spectre before him.

‘Oh, thank you very much for telling me, I’d have never known.’ Replied Elvis, the spectre in question. Then turning to George he said. 

‘What the hell is he jabbering about?’ 

They both turned their quizzical gaze upon the hapless Eric who was by now beginning to show signs of what could be called sobering up, it had been a rather sudden development and so easily could have unbalanced the lad but by the state of him that looked hardly likely, he was pretty well unbalanced right now. Elvis and George helped the now shivering young man to a seat.

‘I think he’s in shock? ,E’, said George.

‘He’s in shock, I’m a little upset. I mean I’ve just been told I am dead.  Now I’ll admit to feeling a little queasy after the travelling I’ve been doing of late but…?!’ 

  The look George and Dog gave him was enough to stem the flow of his little outburst of indignation and confusion. ‘Get him some hot sweet tea,' said George, ‘I read somewhere that back in the day that was the best thing for shock.’ After a number of cups of what Elvis called tea, he was a bit rusty in such matters of hot tea brewing, after several cups of this hot sweet liquid Eric was sufficiently aware of his surroundings and now quite calm, no longer the agitated individual first encountered by his visitors

It was Eric who spoke first, looking straight at Elvis and touching him with an outstretched hand in order to make absolutely sure he was talking to a real live person he said, in a slightly less nervous voice than when they first met. 

‘It’s true then, you are alive and after all this time I believed you were not only dead but merely a legend, a myth, not real at all.’ 

Elvis and George exchanged looks before turning their attention back on the still ashen slightly shaking figure before them. It was Elvis who broke the silence.

 ‘Legend, myth, not real?!’ 

‘Okay E’, said George in a soothing manner, ‘He’s had a shock, in fact a number of shocks.’ 

‘He’s not the only one of late, I can tell you.’ Elvis was very aware of his surroundings perhaps for the first time this day, he was standing in a shambles of a shack which served as Eric’s workplace, that is, a kitchen with someone of something tossing explosive veg at them, bomb craters all around them and even more expected to be created at any time, he felt like he was swimming in treacle against the tide in a hurricane and he was not at all comfortable. Also there was this mysterious female alongside accompanied by a rather shifty looking hound. What had he got himself into, then the thought struck him, he hadn’t got into anything as he remembered  but was delivered here by his onetime trusty sidekick, Rosie, she had a lot to answer for he thought.

‘Ah you alright there ‘E’, asked George, ‘only you seem to be somewhere else?’  

‘Er, sorry, what?, oh yes, quite,’ muttered a slightly embarrassed Elvis, ‘I was just thinking.’ He then turned his attention upon the nervy young cook in front of them. ‘Tell me young Eric, what’s all this legend and myth and not real stuff you were blabbering about just now?’

Both visitors were now staring at the young cook in expectation.

‘It’s just that I have grown up to believing the stories I heard,’ he began in a voice that was growing steadier by the word as his confidence began to return, ‘legends, stories of this great investigative warrior of yore who took on the evil forces of the world and who was eventually consumed by or disappeared into a vast black cloud never to be seen again’

‘Stop right there,’ interrupted Elvis. ‘Disappeared into a black cloud, you say?’  

‘So the stories go,’ added Eric, now quite awake and no longer terrified but curious about the person standing before him.  

Before Eric could finish what he was saying Elvis was knocked to the ground by Dog just as  a massive explosion  shook the building they were in, sending them all sprawling to the floor, with dust, debris, sausages and eggs airborne all around the huddled group.

‘We need to move,’ suggested George, ‘and quick.’

‘This way,’ said Eric, in a moment of mind bogglingly clear thinking, no longer the quivering wreck first encountered. They moved as one through a convenient trap door which Eric had opened, well, why not? This led them down a short flight of steps and into a small chamber which had a tunnel running off in a westerly direction. They scrambled their way through this dimly lit, musty, dirty  tunnel for approximately one hundred metres before finally breaking through a thick gorse bush and into the sunlight.

‘That was a bit bloody close!’ Exclaimed Elvis, looking around him mentally counting heads. They were one of their number short. ‘Where’s thingy, you know, with the floppy ears?’ he asked eventually. 

‘You mean Dog!’ replied George with an indignant tone in her voice.

‘Yes, yes, that’s the one, he was with us in there wasn’t he?’ Elvis felt the sting in George’s eyes. They all looked wildly around for any sign of the canine companion of George and it was Eric who called out excitedly.  

‘There, over there on the knoll!’ He was pointing with his finger as he said this. 

All eyes followed his finger’s direction and there, standing in the classic hunting dog’s set stance, rock still, head high with nose pointing East, stood the jet black figure of Dog. 

‘It was that little bugger who knocked me over on his way out of the shack prior to the explosion, I’m sure of it.’ Said an equally indignant Elvis who felt he was now on the high moral ground. George did not agree however.

‘He probably saved your life my friend, he’d obviously heard the incoming missiles before they hit. He could hardly say get down now could he?” Elvis made a mental note to himself that he must be a bit more diplomatic with George when it came to her hound. ‘He’s showing us the way.’ said George and with this led the way up to the knoll overlooking the camp. Dog was standing rock still and looking toward the East where the three looked towards. The air was much cooler up here on this bit of high ground, too cool for the time of year, whatever that was for no one was concerned about that trivial point.

The three individuals stood staring in the direction indicated by Dog and what they saw was an all too familiar sight to Elvis and an uneasy familiarity to George and complete mystery to Eric, there in front of them, hovering menacingly, malevolent even, was an ugly dark cloud which must have covered an area the size of Rhyl, of course it was impossible at this point and distance to be more accurate than that but it was BIG and some. It couldn’t be described as black so much as blue with shades of grey green magenta, yes, it was odd. Elvis thought so too for he remembered it distinctly as being grey-ish black before.

‘Well I can’t say that’s indicative of forthcoming rain, snow, sleet, or what!’ Said Eric who felt he just had to speak. Either that or go to the bathroom, which he thought he may do anyway. 

‘That my friend,’ proffered Elvis in an overly dramatic tone, ‘is the root cause of all your troubles, or rather in there, in that mirky evil looking cloud you see lies the cause or causes of all our troubles and furthermore, in order to resolve any problem at all we must enter yon cloud.’ A heavy silence fell as all three stood staring at the evil menace confronting them. Dog looked at Elvis and then gave a doggy shrug of his shoulders, rolled his eyes and then looked back at the cloud. George gave him a gentle pat of encouragement and joined the rest in cloud gazing. At that moment no one particularly relished the idea of entering therein. The cloud exuded sheer malevolence, almost daring one to enter and worst of all perhaps was the inevitability of the encounter to come. Elvis glanced at his watch, yes it was time for action. This decided he then spoke directly into the watch.

‘Rosie, we need you, up here.’

In a matter of what seemed seconds there came a screech of brakes as the bright red shape of the C1 that was Rosie came to a shuddering stop inches away from a somewhat startled Elvis. 

‘That was a bit close there old gal’

There was a puff of black smoke from Rosie’s exhaust before her smooth sophisticated tones responded with,  ‘Erm, old gal?’  

‘Ah, quite, Rosie, you made it, good , we need you.’ Elvis was trying to sound as casual as he could even in the light of him having apparently committed a faux pas of a particularly unpleasant kind, where Rosie was concerned. Before he could say anything else another ear-splitting explosion was felt as much as it was heard, shaking the very ground on which they stood. 

‘Are we to accept that as an invitation to a party then, Skipper?’ were Rosie’s next words.  

‘It would seem so,’ replied Elvis, deciding to play along with this new flippant tone his creation was now exhibiting, making a mental note to go into this matter further at a later date. For now they had some rather urgent business to attend to, none of the gathered group appreciated having some lunatic tossing exploding veg at them. Mental note II to self, ‘I wonder what the vegetarian society would think of this practice?’ 

‘Right, everyone, jump in. It’s clear we can’t stay here or we shall all end up well and truly ratatouille!’ Once on board and strapped in, everyone sat for a moment in total silence, all eyes straight ahead focused on the ominous murky cloud, their destination, each with their own thoughts. Elvis was anticipating a resumption of passed conflicts and maybe a positive outcome. Eric, ashen faced, wishing he’d picked up a full bottle before climbing in. George peered intently at their target trying to remember what it was like the first time because she was having mini flashbacks to her previous encounter with the Cloud. Dog, still in his classic pose, still as a rock, nose to the cloud, certain that no one had thought to bring his ball with them, after all, he had to do something to interest himself  while the rest played their games. He knew better upon reflection though because they would need him. Just then a familiar voice said. 

‘Catch, Dog, you’ll need this no doubt.’ With this he caught the ball George had tossed to him. He was content for the time being and settled himself down though still with his gaze fixed on their destination, their target and maybe their nemesis. He was a very deep was  Dog, for sure. Very special.

The party proceeded forward with caution, closing in on the ominous, malevolent cloud, Elvis was aware that his mind was a lot sharper than when he’d started the day and he was getting memory flashes albeit very fragmented ones but memories nevertheless and they were not exactly pleasant ones. In fact they were most unpleasant.   Something else he was aware of, he felt an unfamiliar sense of assurance, of confidence even. As he sat at the controls of Rosie, this new Rosie for she was not only different in appearance than he remembered but in her responses too, they were somehow and not a little unnerving in their character, yes, that’s what it was, there was a marked but subtle shift in her character. Yeah, he mused, she certainly has that. Character.

As they drew nearer to their quarry a definite drop in temperature was felt by all aboard with the exception perhaps of Eric who was wearing an incongruously wide grin which virtually split his face as he clutched a very sad looking empty bottle, his eyes staring into space. He was now somewhere else, Eric, quite happy. This would not last long sadly for Eric or the rest of them for a reality was about to hit them all. A reality unlike any other. They entered the cloud, temperature now close to zero.miles away and put down in a secluded area behind a nature reserve but it is heavily guarded.”

‘AH, right, how heavily guarded?’