East of Ealing (15 page)

Norman held fast to his seat and stared forward into the darkness. Strange lights welled up before him, swung past to either side, and vanished away behind. He experienced no sensation of motion; it was as if he was somehow travelling outside of space and time altogether. He was in limbo. Norman looked at his watch. It had stopped. He scrutinized the date counter he had optimistically screwed on to one of the enclosing calliper arms; a tangle of wires dangled from beneath it. He had forgotten to link the thing up. Where was he, and more importantly when was he? He might have been travelling for an hour or a year or a century. He had no way of telling. He had best put the machine out of gear and cruise to a halt before he slipped back too far. The idea of finding himself trampled on by a dinosaur was most unappealing.

A terrible fear took a grip upon his heart. Exactly what would he find when he stopped? He could wind up in the middle of Rorke’s Drift with the Zulus on the attack. Or even in the sea or inside the heart of a mountain. There was no way of telling. Perhaps if he slowed down just a bit he could spy out a safe place to land. Norman’s hand hovered over the controls, a look of imbecility folding his face in half. He had pulled off The Big One this time and no mistake, but where was it going to get him? In big big trouble, that was where. Norman did his best to weigh up the pros and cons. Could he get killed in the past before he had even been born? Was such a thing possible? The situation he was now in lent sufficient weight to the conviction that nothing was impossible. The words of the great Jack Vance filled his head, “In a situation of infinity, every possibility no matter how remote must find physical expression.” He had that sewn into a sampler over his bed.

It was all too much for the shopkeeper and he slumped dejectedly over the controls and grizzled quietly, resigning himself to oblivion. What had he done? What in the name of dear Mother Earth had he done?

“Norman,” a voice called to him from out of the void. “Norman.”

“Who’s that?” Norman squinted into the darkness. “I know that voice.”

“Norman,” the voice grew louder. “Halt the apparatus, you will slip beyond reach.”

Norman hammered at the controls; he tore the ignition key from the dashboard, and a sudden rush of air buffeted him back in his seat. Light popped and flashed about him, the machine rattled and shuddered and with a great sigh, daylight spun into view from the end of a long dark tunnel and broke in every direction. Norman shielded his face, closed his eyes and prepared to make what peace he could with his Creator. There was a hefty whack and a moment of terrible silence. Norman flinched and cowered.

Warm sunlight tickled his fingers and the sound of birdsong filled his ears. Still not daring to look, Norman sniffed. The sweet scent of flowers, sweeter than any he had previously smelled – or was that now would smell? – engulfed him.

He had died, that was it. Died and gone to the good place. Hope always sprang eternal in the wee lad. Norman uncovered his eyes and peered through his fingers. The time machine rested in an Arcadian glade upon a richly-forested hillside, bordering a beautiful valley which swept in gentle rolls down to a picturesque and meandering river. Very nice indeed. This far exceeded his highest hopes of what Heaven might look like. The trip had been well worthwhile after all. Rising high above the hills beyond the river stood a shimmering white fairytale castle, pennants flying in the breeze. It was the stuff of storybooks, of childhood innocence. It was wonderful. Pushing back the calliper arms, Norman unclipped his safety belt and, plucking gingerly at his still damp trouser seat, set his feet upon the lush green carpet of dew-soaked grass. It was paradise; the enchanted glade.

“Norman.” The voice loosened the lad’s bowels, but he had nothing left to yield. “Norman.” An old man was approaching, hobbling upon a cane. He was clothed in a flowing robe of deepest black, embroidered richly with stars and pentacles and magical symbols picked out in silvern thread. Upon his head he wore a tall conical hat of identical craftsmanship. He sported a long white beard and was the very picture of all one might reasonably expect of Merlin the Magician.

Norman peered at the approaching apparition. He knew that face, that stooping gait, as well as he knew anything. A choked voice rose from his throat. “Professor Slocombe?”

The magician put his long finger to his lips. “All in good time, he said. “Welcome, Norman.”

“Where am I?”

“Why in Camelot, of course. Wherever did you think?”

“I thought, perhaps, well I don’t know, still in Brentford maybe.”

Merlin cocked his head on one side. “Brentford,” he said. “I like the name, I will see what can be done about that for some future time. But for now we have much to speak of. Will you come with me to yonder castle and take a cup of mead?”

“I think that would be just fine,” said Norman, the once and future shopkeeper of England.

Professor Slocombe looked up towards the great ormolu mantel-clock and nodded his old head gently in time to the pendulum’s swing. “Good luck, Norman,” he said. Drawing his gaze from the antique timepiece, he turned to stare out through the open French windows. There, in the all-too-near distance, the great black shaft of the Lateinos and Romiith building obscenely scarred the two-hundred-year-old skyline. Its upper reaches were lost high amongst gathering stormclouds. The aura of undiluted evil pressed out from it, seeking to penetrate the very room. The old man shuddered briefly and drew the windows shut. Norman’s homemade double laid aside a bound volume of da Vinci, penned in the crooked mirror-Latin of the great man himself, and peered quizzically towards the Professor.

“I know what you are thinking,” the scholar said. “He is safe thus far, so much is already known to me. But as to the return trip, all depends upon the calculations. It is all in the numbers. We can only offer our prayers.”

“Prayers?”

“They offer some comfort.”

“I wouldn’t know,” said the robot, somewhat brusquely. “Norman did not see fit to log such concepts into my data banks.”

Professor Slocombe watched the mechanical man with unguarded interest. “I should really like to know exactly what you do feel.”

“I feel texture. I think, therefore I am. Or so I have been informed. Every cloud has a silver lining I was also told, and a trouble shared is a bird in the…”

“Yes, indeed. But what causes you to react? How do you arrive at decisions? What motivates you?”

“Impetus. I react as I have been programmed to do. Upon information received, as the boys in blue will have it.”

“Do you believe then that this is how the other duplicates function?”

“Certainly not.” Something approaching pride entered the robot’s voice. “They are merely receivers, created solely to receive and to collect information and perform their tasks. The mainframe of the great computer does all their thinking for them. Clockwork dummies, that’s all they are.”

“Interesting,” said Professor Slocombe.

“You spend a great deal of time in idle speculation,” the robot observed, “considering the gravity of the situation. You seek to detect human emotion in me. I might do the same to you.”

Professor Slocombe chuckled delightedly. “There are more wheels currently in motion than the one which spins in your chest,” said he. “Even now, great forces are beginning to stir elsewhere in the parish.”

“Fe… fi… fo… fum.” The bloated barman awoke giddily from another bout of barbiturate-induced slumber and rattled the window-panes of his hospital prison. The door beneath him opened and his Promethean tormentor entered the barman-crowded room, hypodermic at the ready. Neville eyed her with absolute loathing. “I smell the blood of an Englishman.”

“We are not going to be naughty again, are we?”

“Be he alive or be he dead.”

“Roly-poly, please, sir.”

“I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.”

“I shall have to fetch doctor, then.”

“No!” Neville drew in his breath, filled his cheeks, and blew a great blast at the clinical harpy. The midget fought at the gale, but lost her footing and fluttered away through the doorway and out into the corridor. “At last,” said Neville to the ceiling against which his face had been compressed so uncomfortably for so very long. “At long long last.” He raised a fist the size of a cement sack and clenched and unclenched the fingers. The sap was beginning to rise and a great inner strength was rising with it. The power was surging, driving through his veins; unstoppable and titanic.

At last he realized the truth: his consuming disability had been nothing more than the painful and grotesque prelude to what was to come. The time for the settling of scores was fast approaching. The power of the great Old Ones. The gods of his pagan ancestry born in the dawn of the light when the world was full of wonder. The power had returned and it had returned to him. The last of the line.

A broad tight-lipped smile arced up upon the barman’s face. His fingers flexed, and beneath the surgical gown huge muscles rolled about his body, porpoises swimming in a sack. The Herculean barman pressed his hands to the ceiling of his most private ward. With a splinter of plastic-cladding, his hands rose, tightening to fists and forcing upwards, unstoppably. Neville rose with them, pouring forth from his prison, rising upon a floodtide of superhuman energy. The barman’s head and shoulders passed through the ceiling and a low choked cry rose from his throat.

He was ill-prepared for the sight which met his gaze. He had supposed himself to be in the private wing of the Cottage Hospital. The view from the window tending to support this well enough. But not a bit of it. The hospital room and its window view were nothing but a sham, hiding a grim reality. The tiny room was little more than a box, set in some great empty warehouse of a place. It spread away, dimly-lit, acre upon acre of concrete flooring and absolutely nothing. The window view, now seen from above, was a mish-mash of laser lines projected on to a screen. It was a hologram.

“Fe… fi… fo,” said Neville, as he perused his stark surroundings. Where was he? He felt like a jack-in-the-box in an empty toy factory. “Curiouser and curiouser!” Standing erect and kicking aside the make-believe walls of the movie-set hospital room, he stood upon a soundstage vaster by far than any ever envisaged by the now legendary Cecil B himself.

Neville drew in his breath and watched in pride as his great chest rose beneath the gown. This was the dream come true, surely? The impossible dream realized. His gods had at long last decided to smile upon him. He must have performed for them some great service without even realizing it. A million glorious thoughts poured into the barman’s head. He would seek out that Trevor Alvy who had bullied him at school; and parade up and down the beach come summer with his shirt actually off. No more heavy sweaters to disguise his bony physique, no more cutting jibes about his round shoulders. He would get a tan. And kick sand in people’s faces. Yes, he would definitely do that. He would eject drunks from the bar without having to resort to the sneaky knobkerry from behind. Neville threw himself into a pose, displaying muscles in places where Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t even have places. Conan who? He was quids in here and no mistake. “Oh joy, oh bliss.” Things were happening about Neville’s groin regions which, out of common decency, he did not even dare to dwell upon. The bulging barman paused for a moment or two’s reflection. For one thing, it was impossible for him to gauge exactly how high he might be. If the hospital room was life-size, he must surely top the twenty-foot mark. That was no laughing matter. Giants, no matter how well hung they might be, were never exactly the most popular fellows in town. In fact, the more well hung they were, the worse their lot. There was always some would be “David” about, with a catapult and poor eyesight.

Neville erased such thoughts from his brain with difficulty. If this thing had been done to him, then it had been done with a purpose. There was no accident or casual element of chance evident here. This was something else, something very very special. And he would have to find out the purpose. And to do that, he would first have to make his escape from this great cold dark room at the very hurry-up. Before the chill began to shrink anything. Upon those tireless, finely-muscled legs that Charles Atlas had promised to a dozen generations of sickly youth, Neville took flight and sped away with great leaps and bounds, seeking the exit.

A good half-mile beneath the barbarian barman’s thundering feet, John Omally opened another bottle of carrot claret and poured himself a large glass. “Soap,” said he to his host, “this is good stuff you have here.”

“Nectar,” Jim Pooley agreed. “Write me down the recipe and I will provide for your old age.”

Soap grinned stupidly. “You must try the cigars,” he said, rising unsteadily from his horrendous armchair and tottering over to the box.

“Home-grown?”

Soap made a crooked “O” out of his thumb and forefinger. “I have a five spot says you cannot identify the blend.”

“Take it out of the money you still owe us,” said Jim.

Soap handed out a brace of lime-green coronas. Omally took his dubiously and rolled it against his ear. “Not a sprout?” he asked in a fearful voice.

“Heavens no.” Soap crossed his heart. “Would I do that to you?”

Pooley sniffed his along its length. “Not spud?”

“Absolutely not. I know Omally stuffs his peelings into his pipe, but even he would draw the line at manufacturing cigars from them.”

“They don’t roll,” said John, making the motions.

The two men lit up, and collapsed simultaneously into fits of violent coughing.

“Whatever it is,” wheezed John, tears streaming from his eyes, “it’s good stuff.”

“Perhaps a little sharp.” Jim’s face now matched the colour of his cigar.

“Do you give up?”

“Indubitably.”

“Well I shan’t tell you anyway.” Soap slumped back into his chair, hands clasped behind his head.

The ruddy hue slowly returned to Jim’s face as he got the measure of his smoke. “How long do you think we are going to have to fiddle about down here?” he asked.

Soap shrugged.

Omally tapped a quarter-inch of snow-white ash into a glass cache pot of the Boda persuasion. “We can’t stay down here indefinitely, Soap,” he said. “Although your hospitality is greatly appreciated, you must surely realize that we must make some attempts at salvaging something of our former lives. We were quite fond of them.”

Soap waved his hands at the Irishman. “All in good time, John. The Prof will tip us the wink. For now, have a drink and a smoke and a pleasant chat.”

“I fear we will shortly exhaust all topics of conversation.”

“Not a bit of it, I am a fascinating conversationalist. On most matters I am eloquence personified. My range is almost inexhaustible.”

“And your modesty legend. I know.”

“All right then, what is your opinion of evolution?”

“A nine-aeon wonder.” Omally awaited the applause.

“I have a somewhat revolutionary theory of my own.”

“I do not wish to hear it.”

“I subscribe to the view that the world was created five minutes ago, complete with all records and memories. Although an improbable hypothesis, I think you will find it logically irrefutable.”

“And how long have you held this belief?”

“Hard to say, possibly four and a half minutes.”

“Fol-de-rol.”

“Well, what about politics, then? As an Irishman, you must have some definite views.”

“As an Irishman, I never trouble to give the matter a moment’s thought.”

“Religion, then?”

“I subscribe to the view that the world was created five minutes ago. Are you looking for a grazed chin, Soap?”

“Only trying to pass the time with a little pleasant intercourse.”

“Careful,” said Jim.

“Well, I get few callers.”

“Hardly surprising, your address is somewhat obscure even for the A to Z.”

“Would you care to see my mushroom beds?”

“Frankly, no.”

“I spy with my little eye?”

“Stick it in your ear, Soap.”

The three men sat awhile in silence. Jim picked a bit of chive out of his teeth and won five quid from Soap. But other than that there was frankly no excitement to be had whatsoever, which might in its way have been a good thing, for there was a great deal of it in the offing. A sudden bout of urgent knocking rattled Soap Distant’s front door.

“Expecting guests?” Omally asked. “Ladies, I trust. Current affairs have played havoc with my social calendar.”

Soap’s face had, within the twinkling of an eye, transformed itself from an amiable countenance into the all-too-familiar mask of cold fear. “Are either of you tooled up?” he asked inanely.

“I have my barlow knife,” said Omally, rapidly finishing his drink.

“And me my running shoes,” said Jim. “Where’s the back door, Soap?”

Mr Distant dithered in his armchair. “No-one knows of this place,” he whispered hoarsely. The pounding on the door informed him that that statement was patently incorrect.

Omally rose hurriedly from his seat. “Lead us to the priesthole, Soap, and make it snappy.”

“I’m for that.” Jim leapt up and began smacking at the walls. “Where’s the secret panel, Soap?”

Soap chewed upon his knuckles. “It’s the other me,” he whimpered. “I knew it had to happen, even here.”

“The odds are in its favour. Kindly show us the way out.”

“There’s no other exit.”

“Then find us a place to hide, someone must continue to serve the cause, even if you are indisposed.”

“Yes, fair do’s,” Jim agreed, as the pounding rattled ornaments and nerves alike. “If it’s the other you, then he may not know John and I are here. We at least should hide until the bloodshed is over.”

“Oh, thanks very much, pals.”

“We’d do the same for you.”

“Come again?”

“Open up there.” A voice from without brought the ludicrous conversation to a halt.

“It’s Sherlock Holmes,” said Omally. “Let him in.”

Soap hastened to unfasten the front door. “Close it without delay.” The detective pressed himself inside. “They are hard upon my heels.”

“How did you know where I lived?” Soap pressed the bolts home.

“No matter. Are you three tooled up?”

Omally shook his head and fell back into his seat. Pooley did likewise. “Would you care for another splash of carrot, Jim?” Omally waggled the bottle towards Pooley.

“Another would be fine. So how goes the game afoot, Sherlock?”

“A bit iffy as it happens.” Holmes drew out his revolver and flattened himself against the front wall.

Jim rattled his glass against the bottle’s neck. “And you have brought the lads down here after us. Most enterprising.”

“I never really believed in him, you know,” said John, now refreshing his own glass.

“I looked it all up in the library,” Pooley replied.

“The evidence is very much against him. Purely fictitious, I so believe.”

“Wise up,” said Sherlock Holmes. “These mothers mean business.”

The sounds of terrible ghost train screaming leant weight to his conviction. From beyond, something malevolent was surging forward from the darkness. Pooley covered his ears and crossed his eyes. Omally snatched up a Biba table-lamp and prepared once more to do battle. If the awful screaming was not bad enough, the sounds which accompanied it were sufficient to put the wind up even Saint Anthony himself. Hideous slurpings and suckings, as of some gigantic mollusc, and thrashing sounds, dragging chains and clicking joints. All in all, anything but a Christmas hamper.

Omally turned towards Holmes, who now crouched facing the door, Magnum forty-four poised once more between his outstretched hands. “What in the name of the Holies is it?” he shouted above the growing din.

“It came at me from a basement opening. I have only seen its like before amongst the work of Hieronymous Bosch.”

This remark meant little to Omally who had always thought a Bosch to be an expensive sports car. But that the something which was approaching was very very nasty and somewhat overlarge seemed on the cards.

As the first concussion shook the front wall, Holmes fired point-blank into the door. A gale-force icy wind swept through the bullet-hole, like a blast from a ruptured gas-pipe. A fetid odour filled the room; the stench of the very pit itself, of all the world’s carrion congealed into a single rotting mass. Holmes staggered back into Omally, coughing and gagging. The Irishman fell to his knees, covering his nose, and retching violently. Outside, the thing lashed at the door with redoubled fury. The iron hinges screamed in anguish, echoing those of the satanic emissary of death. Beneath the throbbing door, slim, barbed hooks worked and tore. A yellow haze of brimstone coloured the unbreathable air and the room shook and shivered beneath the hellish assault.

Omally crawled over to Soap Distant, who had wisely assumed the foetal position beneath the table. “You’ve got to get us out,” he shouted, tearing away the hands clamped about the albino head. “There has to be a way.”

“No way.” Soap tore himself from Omally’s hold. “No way.”

Shivers of woodwork flew from the bottom of the door as the evil barbs, now showing porcupine quills and scorpion tails thrashing about them, stripped the Ronseal finish clear down to the filled knot-holes. Omally stumbled to his feet. Sherlock Holmes was standing alone in the whirlwind, a speckled band tied bandana-fashion across his face. A finger in the air. The doyen of dicks was definitely off his trolley, thought John. As if reading his thoughts, Holmes suddenly struck him a weltering blow to the skull. Caught in surprise John hit the deck. Holmes leapt down upon him and pointed frantically through the swirling, cascading stench. “Fireplace,” he shouted, his voice all but lost amidst the screaming, the hurricane, and the splintering woodwork. “Up the chimney, get going, quick.”

It took very little time for Omally to cop on. Grabbing the huddled Pooley firmly by the collar, he dragged him towards what was surely the only hope of escape. Holmes stepped over to Soap and booted him in the ribcage. Soap peered up bitterly towards his tormentor, a dizzy blur, lost for the most part in the maelstrom of tearing elements. Holmes stretched deftly forward and hooked a pair of fingers into the sub-Earther’s nostrils. “Lead us out!” he cried, bearing him aloft. Whimpering and howling, but somehow happy for the nose-plugs, Soap staggered forward. Holmes thrust his head first into the fireplace and then, suddenly enlightened, Soap turned towards his persecutor with a nodding, smiling head and gestured upwards. Within a moment he was scrabbling into the darkness above. Omally pressed Jim onwards and followed hard upon his heels. Holmes spun about, revolver in hand, as the door burst from its hinges to spin a million whirling fragments about him. The icy gale tore his tweedy jacket from his shoulders as the thing rolled into the room, a tangle of barbs, quills and spikes, whipping and lashing and screaming, screaming. The great detective held his ground and fired off his revolver again and again into the spinning ball of death as it charged towards him.

The wind and the terror coming from below spurred on the three-man escape committee as it crept higher and higher up the narrow black chimney. Soap’s voice called down from above, “Come on, lads, shouldn’t be more than a mile at most.” Pooley mumbled and complained, but Omally, who was tail-end Charlie and in the most vulnerable position, bit him in the ankle. A howl of pain and a sudden acceleration from Jim assured the struggling Irishman that the message was well-received.

The going was far from certain and made ever more perilous by the cramped space and the complete and utter darkness. Stones and grit tumbled down into the climbers’ faces. Soap trod upon Jim’s hands and Jim out of fairness trod upon John’s. Higher and higher up the slim shaft of hope they clambered until at last they could no longer feel the icy wind rushing from below or the awful stench souring their nostrils. They paused a moment, clinging to what they could for dear life, to catch their breath, and cough up what was left of their lungs.

“How much farther, Soap?” Omally wiped at his streaming eyes and strained to support himself whilst delving in his pockets for a fag.

“A goodly way and all of it straight up.”

“There is actually an opening at the top?” Jim ventured. “I mean I’d just hate to climb all this way and find myself peering out of a ventilation duct in Lateinos and Romiith’s basement.”

“Hm. To be quite candid, this digging is one of the great grandaddy’s. We shall have to trust to the luck of the Distants.”

“Oh, very comforting. Ooh, ow, ouch!”

“Sorry, Jim. Did I singe your bum?”

“Pass me up that fag, you clumsy oaf.”

“Smoking cigarettes can harm your health,” said Soap. “Ooh, ow, ouch!”

“Onward, Christian Soldier,” said Jim, withdrawing the lighted fag from Soap’s trouser seat.

The three continued their bleak and harrowing journey, now illuminated by the firefly-glow of three burning cigarettes. The first hour was really quite uneventful, other than for the occasional minor avalanche which threatened to plunge them to a most uninviting oblivion. It was several minutes into the second that things took a most depressing turn for the worst.

“I hate to tell you this,” said Soap Distant, “but I’ve run out of passage.”

“You’ve bloody what? Careful there, that’s my damn hand you’re treading on.”

“Get a move on, Pooley.”

“Shut up, John.”

“Stop the two of you, for God’s sake. I can’t climb any higher.”

“Then get to one side and let us pass.”

“He means the passage has come to an end, John.”

“Then stand aside and let me kill him.”

“Shut up, I can see daylight.”

“What?”

The three men strained their eyes into the darkness above. In the far distance a dim light showed. A mere pinprick, yet it was some kind of hope, although not a lot.

“Get a move on,” yelled Omally.

“I’ve told you, something’s blocking my way.”

“I just knew it,” said Jim, with the voice of one who just knew it. “No way up, no way down. Doomed to starve here until we drop away one by one like little shrivelled up…”

“Give it a rest, Jim. What’s in the way, Soap?”

Soap prodded above. “Some old grill or grating, rusty as hell.”

“Easy on the descriptions.”

“Solid as a rock also.”

“Doom and desolation oh misery, misery.”

“I have plenty of fuel in my lighter, Jim.”

“Sorry, John. Can’t you wiggle it loose, Soap?”