Oddjobs 5: The Long Bad Friday

by Heide Goody

  “Huh?” said Chad.

  “We are confined by the limits of our language. ‘Hell’ is an English word, one we’re making convey far more meaning than it is capable of. Say what one will about the Venislarn, their language has a gift for expression that ours cannot compete with. Shar’as yon ke-eh-delah.”

  “Amen to that,” said Omar.

  “I think I attended enough Sunday School to know a little something of hell,” said Chad. “Mrs O’Brien painted a powerful mental picture. Now there was a woman who should have had a career in sales.”

  “Again, language is letting you down,” said Vivian. “We use the word ‘hell’ and you think of it in terms of English translations of the Bible. Hell, Hades, Gehenna, Tartarus. All these words come with cultural baggage—”

  “If you’re going to turn this into a lecture, I’m going,” said Morag.

  “You will find this relevant,” Vivian said. “My point is, I say ‘hell’ and Chad here thinks of flames and little imps with pitchforks.”

  “Mrs O’Brien had this thing for ‘beds of fire’, actually,” he said.

  “I say ‘Hades’ and you think of some vague notion of an ancient Greek underworld, filled with ironic tortures concocted by fantasists with too much imagination and too much time on their hands. The hell of the Venislarn is neither of these things.”

  “Hell is hell,” said Morag.

  “The Christian hell, Islamic hell, ancient mythical hells – the thing they all have in common is that they are purposeful. You are being tormented for a reason. And, odd though it seems, that is a comfort in itself. We know full well that we cannot understand the Venislarn. Yo-Morgantus and Yo Daganau-Pysh and the other temporal rulers of this world are not even true Venislarn gods. They are foot soldiers. They are the first colonists. Things with unknowable names are descending on us right now. They don’t care about us. They can’t even see us. We are flesh and bone, and whatever mental or spiritual energy we apparently possess. They will not see us, but they will grind us under their metaphorical feet for eternity without even knowing we exist.” Her thin chest heaved. “There is no negotiation.”

  Morag gave Vivian the decency of pretending to consider this for a second or two. “Bollocks,” she said.

  “Profanity is quite uncalled for.”

  “It’s entirely called for when you’re talking bollocks, Vivian. You’re saying we should do nothing, because there’s nothing that can be done. Out there, our colleagues are trying to do what they can. The world outside the shield Morgantus has thrown up might be burned to a crisp. We’ve not heard from Nina. Or Rod and Maurice. But they’re out there.”

  “Doing what?” Vivian snorted. “It’s all in vain.”

  “Nina went to Sutton Park. If she can manage to bring Mr Grey back here—”

  “Ah,” said Omar loudly.

  Morag frowned at him. There was a pained and uncomfortable look on his face, and it didn’t look like it was merely because of his injury.

  “What?” said Morag. Then she saw the corresponding look on Vivian’s face. Vivian was a woman who generally functioned on a range of minor emotions: disapproval, smug contentment, mild irritation. She made a little emotion go a long way. Right now, she looked absolutely aghast, and cued up behind the pained horror on her face, seething anger was already bubbling through.

  “Omar,” she whispered. “You told them?”

  “Barely anything,” he said. “Nina Seth had very much worked it out for herself.”

  “Nina Seth?” Vivian spat the words. “The girl can barely recall what day it is. You dared to bring my late husband into this.”

  “Clearly not late,” muttered Morag.

  “Be quiet, you jabbering Scot!” Vivian snapped. “You mess with things you do not understand! You think my husband’s dangerous and theoretical rituals will do anything more than bring calamity upon us?”

  “What? Worse than what’s already happening?”

  Vivian Grey slammed the Bloody Big Book shut. The slamming of an infinite number of pages produced a dull thump which echoed around the lobby.

  “Some things should be left as they are!” Furiously, Vivian gathered the clumsy book under her one arm. “If someone happens to be a donkey, perhaps you should consider they are a donkey for a very good reason!” She exited from behind the counter and strode to the lifts with a “You’re all children meddling with things you don’t understand!”

  Morag watched her get into the lift and the doors closing behind her. “So, she knows her husband’s a donkey and doesn’t want anything to be done about it?”

  “That’s the long and the short of it,” said Omar. “Vivian’s relationship is a complicated affair. But what do I know? I’ve never understood them.”

  “Relationships?”

  “Donkeys,” said Omar.

  04:32am

  It took a long ten seconds to convince Donk it was safe to cross over the uneven clanking ruins of the Dumping Grounds fence. Once he was through, the rest followed. He had an inquisitive and watchful manner, definitely a philosopher among donkeys.

  “I think this one really might be Mr Grey,” said Nina. “You’re Mr Grey, aren’t you? You can tell me.”

  Donk snorted and jerked his head.

  “That was a nod!” said Nina. “Definitely a nod. You see that?”

  “No,” said Pupfish. He had ejected the magazine from his pistol to inspect it once more.

  “Still only one bullet?”

  He sighed noisily and slid the magazine back in. “I don’t like going into a hostile situation unarmed.”

  Nina still had Pupfish’s flick knife in her coat pocket, but one knife and a single bullet were hardly sufficient.

  They reached the end of the gap in the container wall and looked round the corner at the priests of Nystar. The priests’ ritual circle of upended cargo containers filled a space fifty metres across. While the main foot-stamping, tentacle-waving action was going on in the centre of that circle, the nearest priest of Nystar was only a hop, skip and a jump away from them. The straddle crane finished depositing another container and wheeled around to get another.

  “If this was This Guy’s Hard—” said Pupfish.

  “Why don’t you just say Die Hard?”

  “I’ve not seen the original, man. We don’t get to see many films on the Waters. Cable companies don’t dare come near – ggh! – and I ain’t exactly got the kinda face they like to see at the multiplex. If this was Guy’s Hard then we should use the air vents to sneak around – ggh! – steal the detonators and try to alert the cops.”

  “Okay,” said Nina. “One, there are no air vents.”

  “I’m just sayin’.”

  “Two, we are the cops in this situation. I’ve got a little ID badge and everything. And, three, that is exactly the plot from Die Hard. I don’t know how your dodgy porn version was any different from the original.”

  Pupfish turned away in disappointed embarrassment. “I’m just, like – ggh! – speaking metaphorically and maybe—”

  She slapped him on the arm with the back of her hand as an idea struck her. “Course, what we could do is search through some of these containers for stuff to use as weapons. This is the Dumping Ground. Half the stuff here can melt your face or steal your soul.”

  “That’s what I’m sayin’, dog. I was in this one scene and I’m doing it with the head terrorist, this girl, Salty Boobstone—”

  “The head terrorist was called Salty Boobstone?”

  “Nah. The character had some funny German name. The girl, the actress, she was called Salty.”

  Nina didn’t want to be drawn in but couldn’t help herself. “No. No, you’ve got that wrong. No woman is called Salty, let alone Salty Boobstone. Sally, maybe?”

  “Nah. It was her stage name.”

  “Her porn name?”

  “Whatevs.”

  “No. No woman would willingly have that name.” She shook her head in irritation. “I’m going to g
o find something we can use as a weapon or distraction, then you and I are going to have a proper talk about porn names.” She moved off through the shadows of the cargo container wall, but couldn’t help muttering a bitter, “Salty Boobstone, indeed!” as she went.

  Nina sucked hard on her lolly as she looked at the containers. The consular mission did little to distinguish its cargo containers from those in general circulation. Clandestine movement of goods and materials on the UK rail network would be a hell of a lot less clandestine if all the boxes had big WARNING! – May contain horrors from beyond our universe! stickers on the side. Dumping Ground containers were just marked with a three-digit identifier, plus, if you were lucky, a plate with some sort of description.

  She passed by a container marked Needles (Lamisal), Casings (Whurrikin) and Shells (Yetsid). On the ground in front of the next container was a human body in a yellow biohazard suit – a Dumping Ground employee. Nina didn’t need to check if he was dead; even though she had no medical training, she reckoned a person would struggle to survive without a head or spine. It was clear having Please do not kill me on your suit in Venislarn did not guarantee one’s safety. Even if it was in a nice jolly font and everything.

  The container was marked with the number 655 in big painted numerals, and on the smaller plate, The Tree of Chippenham (Weird). The door was slightly ajar; she slid inside. Maybe the guy had been trying to hide, or maybe, like her, he’d been looking for weapons. Nina knew the branches of the weird tree (apart from weeping blood and driving people mad) made excellent wands. Nina had once been on the receiving end of a wand of guirz’ir binding, a gut-punching and sickening experience which nearly knocked the life out of her.

  The paltry amount of outside light which trickled inside the container only helped her see for the first few feet, but it was enough to discern the shape of the tree. It had been rammed into the container roots first. The branches, folded in by the sides of the metal box, all pointed towards the door, and Nina was faced with the pokey ends of a hundred gnarly branches, like the rear end of an enormous porcupine.

  The tree is an enormous porcupine.

  The words came into Nina’s head not as a voice, but as an insistent thought, measured and authoritative, like a posh stage actor. She was bright enough to recognise it wasn’t one of her thoughts.

  The branches rippled as though the tree was indeed a porcupine shifting in its sleep.

  “Enough of that nonsense,” she told it. “I’ve just come for one branch.”

  You already took a branch, came the thought. You took a branch and you don’t remember.

  She looked at her hands and could almost imagine having been here before, playing through the exact situation.

  You’ve been here a hundred times.

  Nina crossed her arms. “No, I haven’t. Stop being silly.” She reached out for a thin nobbly branch, one that seemed to have the air of a cool Hogwarts wand about it.

  That’s not a wand. That’s a child’s finger.

  “Stop it. You’re just being annoying now.”

  You will break the child’s finger and cause untold pain.

  “Why would a child be in this container?”

  You’re not really here. You’re at home with your children.

  “I don’t have children.”

  But you do. You just don’t remember.

  “Oh, really? Then what are their names?”

  Er – Timothy and Lola.

  “Shows what you know. My kids will be called Jaxon, Taylor and Tiktok. Seriously, tree? Is this how you’re supposed to drive people mad? Just by telling them things that aren’t true?”

  Maybe this isn’t the tree talking. Maybe I’m the voice in your head.

  She sniggered. “A voice in my head? Sound like that? I mean, you’re not even female.”

  Maybe you’re not female.

  “It’s pathetic. Stop. You’re just crap.” She twisted the branch. A foot-long section snapped off drily. “It’s embarrassing really. I bet the other trees talk about you behind your back.”

  They … they don’t.

  “All the trees in Chippenham threw a party when you got taken away.”

  They didn’t. I was – I am king among trees!

  “Tell yourself that often? Now, shut up. I need to remember an enchantment.”

  A wand of guirz’ir binding was a forceful weapon. Even so, Nina was confident she had the magical know-how to focus and encase the tree’s energy. Nina didn’t regard herself as any kind of wizard, and she certainly wasn’t any kind of academic occultist like Sheikh Omar or Mrs Grey, but she felt she had a certain knack. It was like when she was a teenager, trying to copy Maddy Ziegler’s dance routines off YouTube – sure, she didn’t have all the moves, but the bits she couldn’t get right she could sort of finesse so they didn’t look totally wrong.

  She held the wand loosely across both palms.

  You don’t know what you’re doing.

  “Shut it,” she hissed. “You had your chance.” She closed her eyes as she began her chant. “Eh hoch in ur’allad bye-zhu…” It was a good chant. It felt right. “Bhullos fro a jai’r Katouraz…”

  It felt right, and the biggest part of it feeling right was the chant didn’t cause her mind to fragment in a billion screaming shards, or turn her internal organs into her external organs. As she finished, she opened her eyes. The wand was encased in a fading blue nimbus of magic light.

  “Score,” she said, then realised the whole tree was glowing faintly. “Hey, I only meant to charm this bit of it.”

  I told you. You don’t know what you’re doing.

  She was about to throw some quality shade at the tree when there was a hollow clang and a tremor ran through the container. Nina glanced up.

  “Muda. The crane.”

  It’s your imagination – woah!

  The tree’s mellifluous thought-voice took on a momentary warble of panic as the container shifted and began to rise. Nina bolted for the door, jumped down the three feet (and rising) drop to the ground, and scrambled for cover behind the nearest container as the weird tree was hoisted up by the straddle crane. The crane reversed away with it, the container door flapping.

  Nina gripped her new wand and made her way back to Pupfish. The samakha actor-turned-donkey-handler raised his pistol as she appeared from the shadows.

  “It’s me,” she said.

  He shifted uneasily. “You were gone a while.”

  “I was arguing with a tree.”

  He looked at her wand. “Where did you go? Diagon Alley?”

  “Says the man who reckons he doesn’t get to see regular films.”

  “I seen Harry Poked-Her and the Half-Fucked Pricks.”

  “Seen it or was in it? Stop. I don’t want you ruining my childhood anymore.” She held the wand. “This should knock any priests who get in our way sideways.”

  “Then let’s move. Ggh! I don’t like hanging around.”

  Donk threw up his head and produced a throaty rasp as though in agreement.

  “That’s definitely Mr Grey,” said Nina. “Probably definitely.”

  Pupfish and Nina led the donkeys into the maze of cargo containers.

  Carcosa

  Just as the interval was ending and the second act of the play about to begin, a tar-like creature oozed up beneath the rows of seats in front of Rod and attempted to eat him. The King in Crimson stamped on it and drove it away.

  “Normally, I would permit it, but I’m enjoying your company. What do you think of it, so far?”

  On stage, action resumed with Nina, the fishman (Pupfish presumably) and a final horseman (or possibly donkey), fighting and acting their way through an army of tentacled creatures. The creatures were represented by other members of the troop in oversized smocks, waving their long arms about like whips. They shouted indignant gibberish.

  “It’s nonsense, isn’t it?” said Rod.

  In amongst the charades and confusion on stage, two more characters h
ad appeared on stage. As Nina and Pupfish moved away, warrior Rod and the mummified King in Crimson sat on chairs, backs to the audience. The other actors slowed into tableau as the on-stage King and Rod launched into fresh speeches. The warrior stood and faced the audience. He shielded his brow with one hand and stared at Rod several rows back.

  “Are these counterfeits our own selves, a mirror of this moment?” said the warrior. “’Tis a chasm of shadows, vastness beyond comprehension, yet do I see my own visage?”

  The mummified King also stood, and gave the auditorium a cursory glance. “I see naught but shadows.”

  “Hang on. Is this now?” said Rod. “Is this a representation of now?” He got to his feet. “Are they being us, in this instant, right now?”

  Rod shuddered, feeling the inevitability of a nightmare controlling his actions. He turned to look back up the rows of seats behind them. The tiers rose steeply, falling away with an abruptly stretched perspective. The theatre was suddenly too large. The space from the stage to the seats and behind was a rising curve, an exponential line on a graph, a landscape with no horizon.

  “Do you see our audience?” said the King in Crimson, amused.

  Rod stared as though through a sequence of tarnished mirrors, looking for movement in the gloom above. He saw movement, but could not tell if it was a trick of the light, or the mind, or if there were other figures up there. Other Kings and other Rods, the Rods turning back and gawping upward themselves.

  “Thou didst do this to me!” cried the warrior on the stage.

  “It is as it is writ,” replied the King with him. “The word is penned, the player doth move across the stage. The storyteller’s tale is his covenant.”

  Rod gripped a chair back as his stomach and mind lurched. He was overcome with a strong sense of vertigo, mixed with a vile déjà vu. He had been here before. He could see every instance, stretching away from him like a bottomless pit.

  “I feel sick,” he said.

  “The truth unsettling you?” said the King.