by Mike Wild
Hey, you never know. Maybe some day I'll even find myself dangling desperately off the side of one of those runaway, forty-four tonne necroplasm-possessed hazmat tankers you see doing a hundred and thirty down the south lane of the M1... know the kind I mean, right?
Yeah... right.
Nah, the real question was, why she was asking herself dumb questions? She got herself involved with this crap because that was what she and her partner did.
Deal with the weird shit, honey.
It's our job.
Just two short minutes earlier, Hannah had been seated beside her business partner Lawrence Verse in the semi-clapped-out heap that served as their day-to-day transport, she the lithe, curly-haired ex-US intelligence agent in the jeans, boots and sheepskin coat, driving - he the defrocked priest with the pointy beard and the American footballer physique, annoying the hell out of her. As usual they had been involved in a discussion of a vital and profound importance.
"Sooo, best Star Wars character there never was?"
"Napoleon Solo, Han's long-lost uncle."
Verse snorted derisively. "Darth Death. Dark Lord of the Scythe."
"Nonsense. Hibba the Shed."
"Hibba the Shed?"
"Second cousin," Hannah extrapolated, "of Jabba the Hut, owner of Tatooine's only garden centre."
"Pff. Nice try, but no Death Star. I give you Ja-Ja Bonks, annoying CGI Nazi porn icon..."
Hannah stared at him. "There were no Nazis in Star Wars."
"Grand Moff Tarkin, anyone?" The priest turned to look at her with some difficulty - Verse was squeezed into the Mini Cooper like an Action Man in a Dinky car. "Bet you didn't know that Peter Cushing wore his slippers in all those scenes?"
"Yeah."
"You did not."
"I'm telling you, I did..."
Just ahead of the two, the tanker on which they had been riding shotgun for the last hundred-odd miles was trundling south down the M1 en route to Worcestershire. A specially converted container vehicle, it was on loan from the Quist Foundation and headed to Doomwatch's strange matter disposal site just outside Bromsgrove. As well as Chapter and Verse, it was escorted by two police motorbike outriders and a pair of blued-and-twoed four-by-fours, who acted as a rolling roadblock. All the uniforms involved in the escort had been briefed that the tanker held volatile chemical waste but, in fact, it contained stuff a lot more volatile than that. Necroplasm, to be accurate, gallons of the semi-sentient gunk, nullified by a Matheson radiation pulse after a particularly ugly psychic summoning that Chapter and Verse had been called to handle. It should have been an easy job but a sequence of events was in play that was about to lead Hannah to where she dangled now.
And it had all started with Mabel Donovan.
Mabel Donovan, may the blue-rinsed old bag rest in pieces. A Barnsley-born-n-bred Medium to the Stars and author of such bestselling spiritualist tomes as Hugs From Heaven and Yer Grandma's Gone To The Angels, Hannah took it as a blessing that Mabel had gone to the angels too, because frankly the woman had been dangerous. To be honest, she hoped that somewhere in heaven Grandma was giving her a reet good slap. People such as Mabel just never learned there were things you left alone.
She'd had been staging a seance for prospective purchasers of her new book when the shit had hit the fans. Her audience of devoted readers, local journos and VIPs were being squeezed by heavenly hugs from Great Aunt Beryl and her ilk when out of the blue another entity had decided to step up to the mike. He said his name was Xaphan.
Anyone sensible involved in the biz would have backed off straight away. Anyone sensible would have known that Xaphan was your actual demon. A second-order demon, sure, whose responsibilities amounted to stoking the furnaces of hell, but a demon nonetheless. You didn't play with those.
Stupid, stupid Mabel didn't back off. Greater publicity beckoned so she asked that Xaphan show himself, that Xaphan use her ectoplasm to embody himself for her audience. This was the kind of game any self-respecting demon would not normally be arsed with, but maybe Xaphan fancied a break from shovelling. His fifteen minutes of fame.
So Xaphan came.
Being a demon, ectoplasm wasn't good enough for Xaphan, however. After all, how could that white mush show off his scales, claws and his horns to their best effect? So Xaphan opted to manifest in necroplasm instead. No amount of hugs from heaven could have saved Mabel from that point on because necroplasm was the far nastier cousin of ectoplasm, produced not so much from a medium's body as with it. In short, an agonised Mabel was gone before she knew it. And when the demon was done reducing her to a malleable gloop, it turned on her audience as well. Seconds later the only indication that any of them had existed were the harder-to-digest belt buckles, bra-clasps, exotic jewellery, pacemakers, gold fillings and the like that were being hurled about in the half-clotted, half-liquid black mud.
Xaphan manifested himself in an empty room. Ah well, fame was fleeting...
It was at this point that the venue manager had phoned for help, and Chapter and Verse had taken the call. These one-time freelance operators had worked around the world and been responsible for the demise of, among other things, the Guatemalan werejaguar cult, the corpse-riders of Zagreb, and Stockport's Dark Man. These days, however, they were cards-in with the recently formed paranormal troubleshooting outfit, Caballistics, Inc.
There were two questions people always asked of the pair. Were their surnames for real, and were they more than business partners? The answer to the first was that the names might be just a dumb gimmick but they brought in the work. The answer to the second was - okay, apart from that time in Guatamala - that one of them was meant to be holy ordered and celibate while the other wasn't into that opposite-gender-sexual relationship thing.
Actually, there was one other question they got asked a lot. And they'd got it as soon as they'd arrived at the venue.
"You're the Ghostbusters, right?"
"Wrong."
"Oh. Then?"
Hannah flashed an ID. "Caballistics, Inc. And we get very tired of being compared with the lead characters of a by now very old film. My partner especially gets tired of comparison with the big, black guy, 'cause he got fat."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"
"For example, how would you like it if the two of us referred to you as Basil Fawlty, I wonder? I mean, here you are, a jumpy, whey-faced pipe-cleaner of a man with a silly moustache-"
"Look, I am sorr-"
"Not much, I imagine. Because it would suggest that you were, in fact, a congenital idiot, would it not? Are you a congenital idiot, Mr Manager?"
"N-no-" the manager stammered. "I just-" He gave up and looked to Verse for help. The priest ignored him and stared through a small window in the door, but not before he'd winked at Hannah.
"Looks like Xaphan has had his fun and buggered off," he said. He held up a small EM/EP detector and studied the blip that came from the turbulent mud. "We do, however, have vestigial sentience in the necropool - most likely brain fragments." He tweaked the detector before adding, "Yup, it's Donovan's brain."
Hannah peered in. "God, I hate this gunk. I'd imagine Mabel's pretty cheesed off, and I'm in no mood to be whacked about the head by nipple rings and the insides of teeth. Matheson Machine?"
"Aha. One pulse should quieten it down."
"Fine. Get it from the boot and I'll-" Hannah keyed her mobile phone "-get us some transport."
Verse returned a minute later rolling a fridge-sized device covered in dials and buttons. The Matheson Machine was an electromagnetic generator made to disrupt E-K harmonies in the higher range of the Carnacki-Silence spectrum. Verse clicked a switch, the machine went EEEEEE, and the noise from the room stopped. Verse rolled the machine away again.
"What?" the manager said. "That's it?"
"Expecting proton packs and a laser light show? We're professionals, sir." Hannah thrust a large invoice into the manager's hand. "Our terms are thirty days. Next time be careful who it is you hire your
rooms out to. Have a nice day."
And that was that. Half an hour later the gunk was aboard the tanker. What should have been an easy job and home in time for breakfast.
Should have been, Hannah reminded herself.
But then it had happened.
2.46am, according to the car's clock.
No warning apart from a deep bass hum, a sudden light, and the high-pitched screech of a thousand circuit boards shorting all at once. Then a wall of brilliant radiance had appeared out of nowhere and scythed swathingly across their path. In the few seconds it lasted, bolts of lightning punched the ground, flesh tingled and heads pounded as if all were suffering a subarachnoid haematoma. It was like being inside a giant fluorescent strip-light, with their necks plugged into the mains.
Then it was gone, just as quickly as it had come. Moving on across the countryside like the Almighty on a walking holiday, its path visible as a series of white flashes beyond the motorway embankment, receding ever more into the distance, and heading God alone knew where.
The tanker, car, four-by-fours and bike escorts skewed to a halt in a screech of assorted brakes. Everything went very still. For a few heartbeats everyone could hear everyone else breathing. The police escorts exited their vehicles and stared at one another.
"Okaaaaaay," Verse said cautiously. "That was what exactly?"
"You got me," Hannah Chapter said. "But I have a bad feeling about this."
"Bit clichéd, girl. It isn't quiet, too quiet, is it?"
Hannah looked at Verse with disdain. "You know as well as I do that weird feelings keep us alive longer in this business than any of the fancy hi-tech junk we carry about."
"So wha-?"
Chapter and Verse both ducked simultaneously as necroplasm exploded out of the rear of the tanker in angry, whiplashing tendrils. Unaware of what they were dealing with, the police escorts stared at it agog while the tanker driver exited his cab to see what was going on. None of them lived to find out. Sensing their presence, the necroplasm tendrils whipped suddenly like snakes and buried themselves one by one into the backs of the heads of each and every man. Small fragments of skulls and gore splattered onto the windscreen of Verse and Chapter's car.
"Shit," Verse said. "I thought we'd nullified that crap."
"We did. But I'd guess that lightshow just now has given it a jumpstart." She turned the wipers on and peered out. Attached to the tendrils like puppets on single strings, the policemen remained upright and were staring malevolently at the car. "Looks like it taught it a new trick, too. That crap's in their brains."
Verse watched as the tendrils guided the police back to their bikes and four-by-fours, the tanker's driver to his cab. The vehicles started up and began to move off, the spidery assembly of necroplasm and metal gathering speed. "Um, care to tell me what it's doing?"
"Getting away from us, I think."
Chapter threw the car into gear and slammed her foot on the accelerator. There was a junction on its way and if this crap got off the motorway and into a town...
"Fancy hi-tech junk time?"
"Can't use the Matheson Machine," Verse said.
"Why the hell not?"
"Drained the batteries at the hotel."
"It runs off batteries?"
"Puracell. The exorcist's choice." Verse gave a little grin that faded under a withering stare. "Okay, not - but the thing does need charging."
"Great. So what we got in the back?"
Verse did a quick mental inventory. "AK47, one of. Golem grenades, pack of six. Crossbow. Two machetes, one with silver blade. Stake sharpener and garlic press. Spectralometer. Oh, and a 5.1 gauge multi-phasic anti-matter vortex cannon with Gatling laser and auto tracker."
"Cool. When'd we get one of those?"
"We didn't. But I've wanted one since Doom 3."
Hannah sighed. "Any C4, Astro Boy?"
"Expecting the unexpected, as always, doll."
"Then C4 it is." The car swerved as she turned to quickly scramble on the back seat. As she did, Verse manoeuvred himself under her - no mean feat - and took the wheel. Jamming four C4 charges in her pockets, Hannah yanked open the car's sunroof and climbed out. Knowing exactly what it was she wanted next, Verse gunned the car engine and drew alongside the tanker so she could make the jump.
"What's the plan?" Verse yelled.
"Mine it, blow it, not fall off!" Hannah yelled back. "Especially that-"
Last bit, Verse thought with concern. I'm with you on that, babe. Although obviously he'd never have told her that.
That last bit had not, of course, worked out in quite the way she'd planned, and here she was, in her usual mess. A mess in which it had soon been obvious that she was not getting back to the roof of the tanker up its side - the curvature made it impossible. She had briefly considered doing an Indy and sliding between the tanker wheels on the end of her trusty whip but, wouldn't you know it, she'd left the whip back home. Besides, business and pleasure never mixed.
No, the only way back was to reach the cab and climb up from there. Hopefully she could slam on the brakes en route.
Hannah inched along the rail by her fingertips, coming at last to the side window of the driver's cabin, and cringed as she tumbled inside. She'd been hoping there'd be something she could do for the driver but there wasn't a chance of that. In place of the original tendril, which had now withdrawn, another had punched through into the cabin from the tanker shell, plugging directly into the back of his neck, holding him there, rigid, while he "drove" the vehicle. Only the man's face was left, the rest of his head a slowly pulsing black goo. Grotesquely, two smaller tendrils had wound their way into the sides of his mouth and were stretching it back into a rictus grin that looked frankly ludicrous. What, with the wide-open gob, teeth, and staring bug eyes, he looked for all the world like he should have Grommit on his lap and be asking, "Nice piece of cheeese, dear?"
But the terror in his eyes, the heated tears of agony streaming down his face, and the desperate, pleading look he gave Hannah, spoiled the comical image somehow. The man was dead... and he knew it.
Please...
Hannah unholstered a weapon and, holding him by the shoulder, loosed three 9mm parabellum steel-jackets into the driver's temple. As the tendril snapped away, she lowered his body onto the seat.
The necroplasm - Mabel - didn't take to that at all, and suddenly the cab was being whiplashed by the forcibly disconnected tendril. Hannah ducked and rolled to avoid it, at the same time slamming on the tanker's airbrakes and then firing three more rounds into the dash to short the electrics.
It took a couple of seconds but the tanker jack-knifed to a halt. Again, the escorting vehicles skewed alongside.
Time to end this, Hannah thought. She twisted back out of the window and hauled herself quickly onto the cab's roof, pausing only to pull out her second gun and blow away some necroplasm wrapping itself around her ankle. Oh yeah, she'd had just about enough of this bitch.
Hannah leapt from the cab back onto the tanker shell itself, and located the access hatch. This she flung open and peered inside. The necroplasm rolled like a wave tank in its shadowed interior, and somewhere in its component parts lurked those all-important fragments of Mabel Donovan's brain. It was these - the vestigial sentience - that she needed to destroy, and the only way to guarantee that was to blow the tanker and contents from the inside out. It was why she hadn't skimped on the C4; four chunks ought to do the job nicely.
A black tendril erupted suddenly from the hatch and flailed at her wildly. Hannah emptied twin magazines into it, driving it back. Mabel didn't want to be blown up, obviously. Too late, honey, Hannah thought. She set the explosive's digital timers for one minute and lobbed the packs into the four corners of the shell. Time to go...
As she stood, the tanker lurched violently, and Hannah was thrown back. She threw out a hand for support but it met only the darkness of the hatch and she was tipped half inside. She grabbed onto an edge and managed to heave herself back, in
the process almost dislocating her shoulder, but this took time and beneath her she could feel that the tanker was once again on the move and picking up speed. How the hell had that hap-?
Aww crap. Hannah stared down at the motorbikes and four-by-fours, towing the tanker by their still linked tendrils, and burning rubber like there was no tomorrow... they had to be doing eighty already. Mabel again. She knew she wouldn't see tomorrow, so she didn't want Hannah to see it, either.
Okay, Hannah thought. She looked at her watch. Twenty-four seconds. No way I can make a jump at this speed, and no way to stop the C4. Bollocks. Just have to hope that...
The familiar sound of a semi-clapped out engine pushed to its limits heralded Verse's arrival on the scene. The Mini Cooper swept out from behind the tanker and raced between it and the motorbike and four-by-four on its left hand side. Verse was driving with one hand and leaning out of the car's window wielding a roaring chainsaw in the other. It was this chainsaw that had led to Verse's parting of the ways with the church - or more accurately his rather novel use of it during a rite of exorcism - and Hannah knew just how effective it could be. As she watched, the priest drove beneath the two connecting tendrils and with a juddering of metal teeth sawed through the necroplasmic links. This done, the priest braked the car into a controlled skid, gunned the protesting engine once more, and raced around the tanker to sever the tendrils on its other side. Strings cut, the motorbikes and four-by-fours skewed off, riding up onto the embankment or slamming into the central barrier, where they and their drivers came to a dead stop.
The tanker began to slow. The burning question for Hannah was whether it would slow enough.
Three seconds, according to her watch. No, not enough. One chance. Be there, Verse, she urged. Read my mind.
Hannah sprinted along the tanker's catwalk and launched herself from its rear, tendrils snapping behind her ankles as she took flight. The Mini Cooper screeched into position below her, just as she'd hoped.