Aren’t you sick of those stupid films and books and shit where everything’s so much harder because no-one asks anyone anything? There’s always someone who knows important things, someone who wants to help. Hopefully the same person.

I mean, just think, I wouldn’t have had to sit through nine fucking hours of Lord of the Rings if they’d just asked Gollum to burn the ring in the first place.

Well, that hadn’t happened to me. I knew where I was going, what for and what would meet me there just by asking. They say most intimidating people just want someone to level with, and the same goes for big evil demons too, obviously. All I needed was someone to actually do everything and I was off for a pint.

I bought one of those fold-out maps from a machine by the main park gate and set off in what was possibly the way to the Altar of Apocolys, AKA Church on the Hill. The street seemed filled with people who might just be out for a mooch but were probably looking for me, so I kept to the shadows. Then I noticed the strange looks and just walked. Hiding in the open, as they say. A man about town. No biggie.

And as I walked, I started noticing spooky things again, like a young woman offering licks of her bloodied wrists to a pack of dogs on the corner and a bucket and head sale outside a pound shop. But now, they weren’t so scary. I’d started to learn a thing or two about this town. Teen gangs, drug cartels, football ultras or ancient orders of magicians... they were all the same to the general public. If it all really boiled over, or if you were involved, things might get violent. But nobody wanted to risk a random, pointless attack on a poor bloke in broad daylight. It just drew attention. And if there were paramedics or whatever that rescued people from ghosts and took them to hospital, then there were police too. I was only in bloody Yorkshire, not somewhere foreign and deranged.

But there was one problem with that. I was involved, wasn’t I? Not all the enchanters and intestine-wranglers might know that, but somewhere, someone would be watching. Time to get this over with as quick as my athletic, muscular legs could propel me.

I got along the remaining four hundred yards of Green Street in twenty minutes, and unmolested to boot, which was amazing given the brawl that suddenly broke out between two frogs and a barstool over a brochure that blew out of a cafe window. It was a different kettle of fish down the narrow residential lanes of Meadow and Hayward though, because several well fit birds came out to follow me along, and I’m not just talking about the parrots. It put a good spring in my step, that did, and I didn’t half fly along, possibly because I didn’t know what to say to such to the point propositions. I was halfway across town before I made out that the fat dick they wanted to eat was me, all of me, and then I really did prove a big boy can run. I detangled my ankles from all the tongues and I was off like a shot into the nearest hedgerow. I think they did see where I went, especially when I couldn’t get both my legs in, but they let me go in the end, cackling away into the afternoon. All the girls do.

When I came out, I found myself at a little roundabout, another park on one side and posh, fenced-off houses all about. I even spotted a ‘65’ reg Mazda so I knew I was among kings. And there was also a couple of rather out-of-place looking concrete booths in the middle of the circle. One was a paper shop, and I quickly looked on because regardless of what Doc thought I don’t have the memory of an ornamental pond fish. The other was a tourist information point. Perfect.

It was just what I needed in my quest to keep things simple. No poncing about in underground lairs looking for lost heroes to join me. A bit more local knowledge was all I needed now.

So I straightened out my shirt, brushed off the slaver and marched right up, just like that. The lass behind the counter was incredibly pleased to see me. Around her were enough English Heritage leaflets for a proper holiday - St Martyn’s Snake Pit, the Roman Barricade (A Foolish Attempt to Seal in Ancient Raughnen Forever) and the Eternal Wheel of Wensleydale - if only there was a decent B&B around that served more than two bangers at breakfast. Trust me, I’d looked. Why do you think this was still just a day trip?

The woman also had a big silver amulet half hidden beneath her sky-blue blouse which glowed red when I approached.

“What’s that?” I said, slow, low and ready for action. I looked cautiously at the rustling branches all above me. Some were moving against the breeze.

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The lady fastened her top button with shaking hands, looked up, and smiled.

“Oh... that? It’s... nothing.... just a happy tourist detector!”

“Oh! Okay then.” With that settled, I was eager to move on. “So, could you tell me where the closest monster exterminator is?”

The girl flushed and drew her hand away from something bulging in her jeans pocket. “We’re not talking bedbugs, right? Because the council hearse has a ten month backlog for registered affected households.”

“No.”

“Well, Mrs Bradley would be your best bet!” the woman practically cheered. “She’s just off the A7980, five minutes out of town that way. Just before the farmhouse with the wheelbarrow. Specialises in gallshrieks and hellbeasts mainly.”

“Well, that’s... oddly convenient”, I managed. And it was. It was bloody fantastic! My luck could simply not get any better. I’d have to be off to Vegas after all this was over and done with. Or maybe just to the William Hill at the top if I couldn’t be arsed.

I thanked the nice lady, and then I was off as quick as I could. She was pretty fit too and I didn’t want her to see the waterfalls of sweat down my great hairy back did I? I did think about a couple of those leaflets, but I wasn’t particularly sure I’d want to be back this way again. Had I really wanted to come at all? I seriously couldn’t remember anything about any attractions until I was actually on my way. Maybe I was still a wee bit tipsy from last night/ this morning.

So anyway, I went down the posh street, then I spotted an old dusty bottle of cider beneath a bush and did a detour to avoid the council estate that was inevitably just ahead. If I’d been dealing with high-class cultists, fuck knows what the sponges were like. Probably, like literally sponged the life out of you.

The phone had to come out then, so any horrors of the day were gonna be eclipsed pretty hard by next month’s data charges. Soon, just past a little row of shops, the buildings started getting sparser. And then, all at once, I was in nice empty countryside. It happens like that in the North East. Not like these choked up holding pens the southerners or Lancashire lads call towns. The people never bloody stop there, do they? Manchester’s just East East Liverpool really if you go on a coach. They have to keep all the dickheads somewhere, I suppose.

The only noise was the screaming and honking from mile-long tailback behind a tractor, but that was just one of the charms of the country. I stopped briefly at a farmhouse to save a poor timid little farm wife from buying into a ‘Protectarc Rejuvenation Leyperimeter’ which, according to the rather annoyed gent in a tweed wizard hat by her door, was going to ‘increase nightshade yield by up to two stools per hectare’.

“Just get my mate Marko’s crop paste, for like two quid a bag,” I told the grateful girl, handing over a scribbled number. “You’ll have stools coming out yer ears.” She might have different kinds of stools about seeing as Marko scraped it all up from the sewage treatment company up at Portrack where he worked. But it worked fine for Mam’s petunias, and I’d saved her a load. Wait till I tell Marko I’m a bloody salesman now, I thought, as I hurried away from the saleswizard’s quite literally steaming nose. He’d have to get the next round in. He’d be rolling in it now. Cash, not shit.

Further up, the jam behind the tractor gave way to a jam behind a caravan. The tractor had turned off at a farmhouse with a wheelbarrow next to it. I looked up the road, and above the trees, I caught a glimpse of stone tower. The Church on the Hill.

Fucked if I was going in there.

I racked my brain for something important I’d missed. Yeah, this Bradley lass was supposed to be before the house, right? But the only building I’d passed since the other house was a great whitewashed pub called the Hunter’s Inn. Posh sort with chalkboards and hanging baskets rather than puddles of vomit and hanging underpants.

Then it clicked. Mrs. Bradley must be in the pub. Eat your heart out, Sherlock.

I backtracked a bit for a closer look. I only hadn’t stopped for a quickie because a man promised a pint never pays for his own. Alcoholics’ code. One of the boards went on about homemade pies and I wondered if I’d have enough change left over after my quote for an interdimensional demonic beast clearout. Another was even more interesting.

‘Hunter’s Inn. Home of the last goblin caves in Yorkshire.’ There was an old Polaroid Sellotaped beneath the message, but it’d been there so long it might have been Yorkshire’s last goblin caves or the back of Mum’s wardrobe after an emergency tidy up for a guest. Who could tell. The goblin cave would probably be cleaner.

There was also a board with the opening times and prices. For a good old-fashioned goblin hunt, not the beers. I say ‘good old-fashioned’ because I guessed that this was this particular bit of farmland’s claim to fame, a supposed unmissable tradition spanning back centuries that had just been conveniently unearthed again for the pleasure of any idiot tourists that took a wrong turn off the A19 on the way to somewhere proper. Every village round here has a last summat.

Here, they were trying to get with the times and rake in the gaming crowd. You could choose your genre. When you went down the little set of steps to the left of the inn doors, you could go off left to Gate A for a traditional Yorkshire ‘filgery-bash’ with swords and shields or axes, or off to Gate B on the right to just blast their bloody heads off with a shotgun. It was never gonna work, I mused, without a shuttle service to scrape the customers off their beds in the first place. You probably couldn’t eat crumpets down there while you came face to face with the buggers. Can with Skyrim.

There was also a plastic sign with a logo that made my heart leap with delight. Or maybe that was the half-mile walk I’d just managed. Anyway, it was a hefty English Heritage wall of text about the first warrior’s tavern here, keeping the hive of beasts at bay while the fledgling village of Raughnen got to grips with its growing summoning cottage industry. So I guess it was legit after all.

Well, it all sounded like a good laugh, but it wasn’t for now, was it? I was on business. And I was getting thirsty. So I did the sensible thing. I stepped through the door to the right instead and got on with my own hunt for Mrs. Bradley.

Then there was a sharp crack and a flash of light, and then the floorboards slipped out from underneath my feet and I ended up in the bloody cave anyway.

As you do.