The Frogspawn Viking

             The life of a geriatric recluse can sometimes be challenging, and my solitude was recently disrupted by local yobbos shouting abuse and hurling missiles at my windows. I responded defiantly by turning my garden hose on the brain-dead rabble, but with hindsight soaking Fat Kev Blenkinsop was a dumb move. Kev slipped over and knocked himself unconscious on my gatepost, which infuriated his neanderthal mother Toxic Tilly, who shook her gigantic tattooed fists at me and angrily prophesied my imminent death.

            I gave Tilly two fingers and retired triumphantly to my sitting room to partake of something comfortingly alcoholic. The room was in semi-darkness and I had an uncomfortable feeling that there was someone there and peering through the gloom I was alarmed to see a shadowy figure lounging in my best armchair.

          “Who the hell are you?” I yelped, thinking that one of the yobs had gained entry, “and what are you doing here?” 

          “ I’m moving in,” said the figure. “The situation at my current accommodation has become intolerable, so I’m requisitioning this property forthwith. My need are few and will not cause inconvenience."

           I switched the light on and discovered that my intruder was not one of my tormentors, but was some sort of fruitcake. He was bizarrely attired in a long gown worn over chain-mail and sported a peculiar two-pronged beard. Oh, and a helmet encircled by a crown.

         “Who the hell are you?” I repeated. "And what's with the fancy dress?"              

          He puffed his chest out. “I’m Sweyn; Sweyn Forkbeard. King of England. Pleased to meet you."
         This guy was obviously barking, possibly dangerous, so I was wary. “I see," I said, "that's interesting.In all honesty I can't say I've heard of you, Sweyn. King you say? Is the Queen doing a job-share?”

          The fruitcake growled indignantly.“I was declared King of England in 1013, after I’d given Aethelred the Unready a good kicking. It was big news at the time."”
          I thought it best to humour him. " Sorry, Sweyn, a bit before my time."
          "Your loss," he shrugged. "I only reigned for five weeks anyway, so I suppose you might have missed it. But I was a well-hard Viking, and if you'd met me you'd have remembered it, matey."
          I peered closer at Sweyn. He certainly looked well-hard. Also sinister, creepy, and … insubstantial! Not transparent exactly, but undeniably translucent. Spectral, actually.

         “1013?  That‘s a while back, that would make you...?”

         “Dead is the word you're searching for.”

         ”My condolences," I said. "I thought you looked pasty.”

         “Not surprising,” he said, “I’ve been dead since 1014 but I’ve been stuck here ever since over a dispute about my after-life destination.”

          I am often in dispute, so I sympathised.“These things happen, what’s the problem?”

         "Visa trouble.  I was a Christian convert but when I died Heaven denied me entry on account of my pagan roots and the pagans refused me Valhalla because of my Christian connections. My case went to an arbitration tribunal and I’ve been hanging out, invisible, in what's now 64 Acacia Avenue ever since. Invisible, that is, until Toxic Tilly Blenkinsop and Fat Kev moved in.”

        Sweyn shuddered. "It was terrifying.Fighting, drunken parties, drugs, loud music, all day, every day. The stress was unbearable and gave me anxiety attacks which developed in to ectoplasmic eruptions, wisps of vapour at first, increasing in frequency and virulence until I became intermittently visible.”
        “When Tilly first saw me, she put me down to the LSD, before realising that I was a business opportunity. She scammed me a dead man’s National Insurance number, disability allowance, a car on the mobility scheme and she even gets carer’s allowance. I have a social worker.” Sweyn's  insubstantial lip quivered uncontrollably. “A bloody social worker. Toxic Tilly scares me witless and I’ll never de-materialise with her around.”

        Sweyn’s Viking’s bravado had completely dissipated, and I felt a sudden affinity with him, resisting the urge to pat his translucent shoulder. “I know all about Toxic Tilly, Sweyn, I have problems too.”

        Just then we were interrupted by loud bangs and splintering noises, which I correctly judged to be someone kicking my front door in. Then the living room door burst open to reveal the hideous immensity of Toxic Tilly herself.
        “Good grief,” moaned Sweyn, frantically filtering himself through the back of the armchair in an attempt to hide, “it’s her.”

         Toxic Tilly loomed menacingly above me and cuffed both my ears with her huge fists.”That’s for hosing my little boy, arsehole. I was going to smash your furniture and break your legs for that, but I've just received my eviction notice, so me and Fat Kev are moving in here and I’ll need you fully functional to do the skivvying.

        She glanced in surprise at Sweyn. “Not sure why you’re here Whiskers, but get yourself out of that fancy dress and into your jeans and sweat shirt. I want you looking disabled and deserving before the social worker arrives.”
       So the Blenkinsops moved in, partying and fighting and requisitioning my income. I was bullied in to doing all the household chores while the well-hard Viking curled his spineless self in to the foetal position, and whimpered endlessly, too terrified of Tilly to just disappear off out of it.

       Then I had my brilliant idea.

       The plan was to ratchet Sweyen’s stress levels up so high that he would transcend translucency and actually coagulate. Once sufficiently substantial he would behead the Blenkinsops with his newly coagulated sword and I would bury the bodies in the garden. No one would bother to question their disappearance. The police and social services wouldn’t believe their luck, and Sweyn and the murder weapon would fade quietly away.

      But this plan failed.

      Despite our efforts Sweyn didn’t coagulate beyond a state of gross decomposition and the stench was appalling He closely resembled frogspawn, and sometimes bits of him fell off and trod in to the carpet, and neither he nor his sword were capable of delivering anything more lethal than a slimy wet slap.

     Then Sweyn had his brilliant idea.
     He got me to grass Tilly up, anonymously, over claiming for Sweyn using a dead guy’s identity, although I neglected to mention that Sweyn was dead anyway.  The benefits people arrived mob-handed along with the police and Sweyn’s social worker. understandable doubts about Sweyn’s wraith status were soon dispelled when he removed his head and put it under his arm, a cliché, admittedly, but startlingly effective. There followed a brawl involving Tilly and Kev and two transit loads of police, and now the Blenkinsops are doing time for benefit fraud and GBH. Result!

       I now have the respect of our estate as the man that did for Toxic Tilly. Sweyn is still here, but is flickering intermittently and becoming more insubstantial by the day. He hovers in my armchair, droning on about his well-hard Viking days, though I know him for the wimp he really is.

      My book, ‘Sweyn Forkbeard, The Last Viking King of England’, will be on sale at Christmas.

           The ghostwriter won’t get a mention.