Nostradamus Ate My Hamster

by Robert Rankin

  Russell pushed Frank’s paperwork aside and glared at some of Mr Fudgepacker’s. The ancient film-maker had told Russell this very day that the shooting was now all but over, so they would soon be into ‘post production’ and post production would require even more money. Could Russell have a word with the Emporium, who Mr Fudgepacker felt were overcharging his film company for breakages on the set?

  Ludicrous. And all in the cause of a movie that Russell had not seen one single minute of. And he was the producer.

  ‘It just isn’t fair.’ Russell made the sulkiest of faces. ‘I’m sure everyone’s been working very hard, but it’s me who does all the worrying and takes all the responsibility. They might have shown me some of it.’

  Russell huffed and puffed and glared through the partition window to the studio floor beyond. Bare now, but for a few tables and director’s chairs and the video monitor on its stand.

  Russell’s glare moved back into the office and returned to an area where it spent a good deal of its time these recent evenings: the area filled by Mr Fudgepacker’s safe. Mr Fudgepacker’s mighty INVINCIBLE, brought over from the Emporium and lowered through the roof by crane (at great cost, Russell recalled). Several tons of worthy steel containing ...

  Russell glared at the safe. Only Mr Fudgepacker knew the combination. Only he and nobody else. Well ...

  This was not altogether true. Russell did a bit of thoughtful lip-chewing as he poured himself another Scotch. There was one other person who knew the combination. And that person was he, Russell.

  He’d discovered it quite by accident many months ago. It had been lunchtime and there’d been no-one around and so Russell thought that now would be a good time to do a bit of cleaning. Have a go at Mr Fudgepacker’s safe, the old boy would like that. But Mr Fudgepacker hadn’t liked that. He’d returned unexpectedly to find Russell worrying away at one of the big brass bosses and he’d thrown a real wobbly. Russell had thought he was going to snuff it. Baffled by Mr F’s over-reaction, Russell had returned later with a magnifying glass to examine the big brass boss. And yes, there they were, a little row of scratched-on numbers. And it didn’t take the brain of an Einstein to work out what they were.

  Of course, Russell would not have dreamed of opening the safe. That would have been a terrible thing to do. Russell felt guilty about the whole thing for ages.

  But he didn’t feel quite so guilty now.

  It wouldn’t hurt if he took a look at one or two of the test videos, would it? Just run them through the monitor and then put them back. What harm could that do?

  Russell’s brow became a knitted brow. To open the safe might be a crime in itself. Breaking and entering, without the breaking. Or the entering. But it could be trespass and it was definitely a breach of trust. But then he did have a right to see the movie. He was responsible for the movie. And what if? And this was a big, what if? A ‘what if?’ that also worried Russell and worried him greatly. What if the movie was a load of old rubbish? All ultra violence and hard-core pornography? A movie that would never be given a certificate by the censors?

  It could well be. Fudgepacker loved his gore and with Bobby Boy having a hand in the script and the starring role, Marilyn Monroe would be sure to be getting her kit off.

  And what about Julie?

  ‘I’ll kill him,’ said Russell. ‘If he’s persuaded Julie to ... I’ll kill him. I will.’

  Russell glared once more at the mighty INVINCIBLE. And then he reached into his desk drawer and brought out his magnifying glass. He looked at it and he made a guilty face. He could not pretend he hadn’t been planning this.

  ‘Oh sod it,’ said Russell. ‘It can’t hurt. I’m doing the right thing. I know I am.’ And with that said, Russell got up from his desk, went over to the safe, examined the numbers on the brass boss, twiddled the combination lock and swung open the beefy metal door.

  And there it all was. The precious Cyberstar equipment. The rented camera. Cans of exposed footage. Stacks of video cassettes in neat white numbered boxes. Russell did shifty over-the-shoulder glances. But there was no-one about, he was all alone in Hangar 18. He’d locked himself in.

  ‘Right,’ said Russell, pulling out a stack of videos.

  On the studio floor Russell settled himself in for a private viewing. He plugged in the monitor, slotted the first video, poured himself another Scotch, took up the remote controller and parked his bottom on Mr Fudgepacker’s personal chair.

  ‘Right,’ said Russell once more. ‘Roll them old cameras. Let there be movie.’

  Russell sat there and pressed ‘play’.

  The monitor screen popped with static and then a clapperboard appeared. On this were scrawled the words NOSTRADAMUS ATE MY HAMSTER. Act one. Scene one. Take one.

  Russell hmmphed. ‘I don’t think much of that for a title,’ he said.

  ‘You know, I don’t think much of this for a title,’ said the voice of Bobby Boy.

  ‘Just clap the bloody clapperboard,’ said the voice of Mr Fudgepacker. Clap went the clapperboard.

  Act one, scene one, was the interior of a public house. A gentleman in a white shirt and dicky bow stood behind the bar counter. His surroundings were in colour, but he was in black and white.

  ‘Oh,’ said Russell, ‘it’s David Niven. I like David Niven, but why is he in black and white?’ This question was echoed by the voice of Mr Fudgepacker. Although he phrased it in a manner which included the use of words such as ‘bloody’ and ‘bastard’.

  The screen blacked and there were raised voices off. Then the clapperboard returned with the words ‘take two’ written on it. Now Charlton Heston stood behind the bar, he was in full colour. And a toga.

  The screen blacked again and the voices off were raised to greater heights. Russell shook his head and took another taste of Scotch. The clapperboard returned once more. It was time for ‘take three

  Tony Curtis replaced Charlton Heston. Tony wore a smart evening suit. He smiled towards the camera, raised his right hand in a curious fashion and then strode, ghost-like through the bar counter.

  ‘Cut!’ shouted Mr Fudgepacker. ‘What the fugg are you doing?’

  ‘It’s tricky,’ Bobby Boy’s voice had a certain edge to it. ‘He’s a hologram. He can’t lift up the counter flap. We’ll have to rig some strings, or something.’

  Russell gave his head another shake and fast-forwarded. By ‘take eighteen’ Bobby Boy had managed to steer Tony from behind the counter and nearly halfway across the bar floor. Tony was carrying a Christmas tree fairy. Or rather, Tony was not carrying it. The fairy was dangling on a length of fishing line and it was rarely to be found in the same place as Tony’s outstretched hand.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Russell, ‘it’s not very convincing, is it? But fair dos, I can see how difficult it is. They’ve certainly been working hard.’

  Russell fast-forwarded once more. After many unsuccessful attempts, Mr Curtis finally managed to hang the fairy on the top of a Christmas tree. And then the tape ran out.

  ‘That would be about ten seconds in the can,’ said Russell, who had picked up all kinds of movie-speak. ‘Not much for a full day’s shooting. Perhaps I’ll go straight on to tape number five.’

  Russell went straight on to tape number five and now it was party time in the pub. And quite a Cyberstar-studded occasion it was.

  Humphrey Bogart was there and Lauren Bacall and Orson Welles and Ramon Navarro, and even Rondo Hatton, who was one of Russell’s very favourites. But they weren’t doing very much. In fact, they weren’t doing anything at all. They were just standing there like statues, with dangling glasses going in and out of their hands.

  ‘Ah,’ said Russell. ‘I see the problem here. The machine can project their images, but there’s only one programmer, so you can only work one at a time. Pity.’

  Bobby Boy made his first on-screen appearance. Dressed in his usual black, he walked carefully and awkwardly between the holograms. ‘A pint of Large please, Neville,’ he told Tony
Curtis and then, ‘You’ll have to work him, Ernie. Waggle the joy stick.’

  ‘You can’t talk to me while you’re acting, you bloody fool. Cut!’

  Russell did further head shaking. ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ he sighed. And then he said, ‘Hang about,’ and he fast-forwarded the tape.

  ‘I’m the Johnny G Band, sir,’ said Elvis Presley.

  ‘What?’ went Russell, as tape number five ran out.

  Russell rushed back to the safe and returned with an armful of video cassettes. Out of the monitor came number five and in went number ten.

  ‘It’s the Ark of the Covenant,’ said Norman Wisdom. ‘I dug it up the other week on my allotment.’

  ‘What?’ Russell put on the freeze-frame. Norman’s now legendary grin lit up the screen. It didn’t light up Russell.

  ‘That’s the story Morgan told me,’ he mumbled. ‘About Pooley and Omally and The Flying Swan. The story that started all this off. But they can’t film that. Surely that came out of a book. We don’t hold the copyright; we’ll get sued for it. Oh dear, oh dear.’

  Russell ejected tape number ten and slotted in tape number fifteen. An outside shot this time. A little yard.

  ‘Location footage,’ said Russell. ‘I thought they were going to shoot it all here in the hangar.’ Someone crept across the little yard. It was Bobby Boy and it had to be said, Bobby Boy could notact. He moved like something out of a Hal Roach silent comedy, knees going high, shoulders hunched. He turned to face the camera and put his finger to his lips.

  ‘Cut,’ said Russell, but Mr Fudgepacker didn’t. Bobby Boy crept across the little yard to a clap-board shed with an open window and ducked down beneath it. Russell looked on, that shed and that window seemed rather familiar.

  The camera tracked forward, passed the crouching ham actor and panned up towards the open window. Sounds of ranting came from that window. Ranting in German.

  ‘Oh no!’ gasped Russell. But it was ‘Oh yes!’ Through the window moved the camera, like that really clever bit in Citizen Kane and there, seated at a table, with two SS types standing before him was— ‘Alec bloody Guinness,’ whispered Russell. ‘And he’s playing—’

  ‘Herr Führer,’ went Anton Diffring , one of the SS types.

  ‘Bloody Hell!’ Russell thumbed the fast-forward and sent Bobby Boy scurrying through The Bricklayer’s Arms and off up the Ealing Road ‘What’s going on here? He’s playing me. Why is he playing me? Morgan! Morgan must have told them what I told him. But why put it in a movie? This doesn’t make any sense.’

  Russell ejected the tape and put it carefully to one side. He would be having stern words to say about this. No-one had asked his permission to do this. It was invasion of privacy, or something. He could sue over this. Sue the producer of the picture.

  ‘Hm,’ went Russell, who could see a bit of a flaw in that.

  ‘Right then.’ Russell rooted through further cassettes. Two were in black boxes. 23A and 23B. Russell slotted 23A into the monitor.

  Black and white this time. A street scene set in the nineteen fifties. It looked very authentic.

  ‘Old stock footage?’ Russell asked. ‘Oh no, here he comes again.’

  This time Bobby Boy was dressed as a policeman.

  He was camping it up with exaggerated knee bends and thumbs in top pockets.

  ‘Well, at least he’s not playing me this time. So what’s all this about?’ Russell fast-forwarded, stopping here and there to see what was on the go. Sid James was in this one, and Charles Hawtrey and Kenneth Williams. But this wasn’t a remake of Carry on Constable, anything but.

  Russell viewed a final scene. It was set in a police station. A man was being held down on a table by a number of soldiers. The cast of Cockleshell Heroes, the great David Lodge amongst them.

  But what were they doing? They were tearing at the man. They were pulling him to pieces. Russell slammed the off button and rammed a knuckle into his mouth. ‘A snuff movie,’ he gagged.

  ‘They’ve made a snuff movie. Oh dear God, no.’

  Russell tore tape 23A from the monitor, held it a moment in his hand and then threw it down in horror and disgust. This was bad. This was very bad. What did they think they were up to? What else had they done? Russell steeled himself with further Scotch and took to pacing up and down. There were loads more tapes. He’d have to view them all. He didn’t want to, but he knew he’d have to.

  Russell made fists. ‘Right,’ he said.

  In went a tape at random. Russell settled back nervously in Mr Fudgepacker’s chair.

  Colour again and more location stuff, filmed this time in one of those super-duper shopping malls. Very flash and ultra modern. Russell didn’t recognize the place, or the extras, handsome young men with blond hair, wearing black uniforms and fabulous women in gold-scaled dresses. They walked about, looking in the windows and talking amongst themselves. They were not Cyberstars. But there was something odd about them. The way they moved, very stiff and straight-backed, almost as if they wore suits of armour under their clothes. Strange that.

  Russell shrugged and looked on.

  Out of a shop doorway came Bobby Boy. And Julie was with him. And she was wearing that dress, that golden dress. The one she’d worn when she appeared to Russell in The Ape of Thoth.

  Russell sat up and took notice.

  ‘They’ll kill you,’ said Julie. ‘If you stay here in the future, you’ll die.’

  ‘I can’t leave yet,’ said Bobby Boy. ‘Not with Him here. Not if there’s a chance to destroy Him.’

  ‘I won’t go back alone. I won’t.’

  ‘You must. Take the programmer. Go back to the date I told you and the time. I’ll be in the pub with Morgan. Give me the programmer there. Leave the rest to me.

  ‘But the you-back-then won’t know what’s going to happen. The you-back-then won’t know how to stop it.’

  ‘I’m not an idiot,’ said Bobby Boy. ‘I’ll figure it out. I’ll make them do the right thing and stop all this from ever happening. Trust me, I can do it.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Russell.

  ‘I love you,’ said Julie, taking the thin man in her arms and kissing him passionately. ‘Tell that to the me-back-then. Now hurry, go on, we don’t have time. There is no time.’

  Julie kissed him again and then she touched something on her belt and vanished. Terrible clanking sounds echoed in the shopping mall, Bobby Boy turned and stared and then he ran. And then the picture on the screen slewed to one side as the tape got snarled up in the monitor.

  ‘Oh no no no no!’ cried Russell, leaping from the chair. ‘Don’t do that, I have to see what happens.’ Russell fought the cassette from the monitor. The tape was chewed to pieces, Russell tried to wind it in, but it broke. ‘Oh no, oh dear.’ Russell snatched up another cassette and rammed it into the monitor. ‘Work,’ he pleaded. ‘Just work.’

  The screen lit up to another interior. It was Fudgepacker’s Emporium. Russell recalled Frank’s paperwork for this scene, the hire of half the props in the place, plus the rental for location. It ran to many hundreds of pages. But that really wasn’t important now. It hadn’t been important then, actually, as Russell had binned the lot.

  The camera’s eye took in the aisles and iron walkways, moving slowly and lingering here upon a nail-studded Congolese power figure and there upon a mummified mermaid.

  Then on.

  Two figures were approaching. One was the inevitable Bobby Boy. The other was Peter Cushing. Peter wore thick-lensed horn-rimmed glasses. He was evidently playing the part of Mr Fudgepacker.

  ‘Do not look directly upon Him,’ said Peter Cushing. ‘And never, never into His eyes. Just keep your head bowed and kneel when I tell you.’

  ‘How long?’ asked Bobby Boy. ‘How long has He been with you?’

  ‘For many years. I am His guardian. All this, all this in the Emporium is His. Time captured, you see, in the taxidermy, in the religious relics and the pickled parts. That is how He likes it. How it m
ust be.’

  ‘Now what is all this about?’ Russell asked.

  ‘Will He know me?’ asked Bobby Boy. ‘Will He know why I’m here? What I want?’

  ‘He knows all. He knows that you want more time. More time to correct the mistake you made. The mistake that changed the future.’

  Russell put his hands to his face. ‘What did I do? Or what didn’t I do? This is bad. This is really bad. And who is this He?’

  The figures on screen approached a small Gothic door at the end of the aisle. ‘There’s no door there,’ said Russell. ‘How did they do that?’

  Bobby Boy pressed open the door and the two men passed through the narrow opening. The camera followed them down a flight of steps and into a boiler room.

  ‘And there’s no boiler room,’ said Russell. ‘Or at least I don’t think there’s one.’

  ‘This way,’ Peter led Bobby Boy between piles of ancient luggage, old portmanteaus, Gladstone bags, towards a curtained-off corner of the room.

  ‘Part the curtain,’ said Peter, ‘and avert your gaze.’

  Bobby Boy drew the curtain aside.

  Russell looked on.

  Something moved in the semi-darkness, an indistinct form. Russell squinted at the screen.

  Something lifted itself into the light. Russell gaped in horror.

  The terrible thing sat upon a throne-like chair, its grinning insect face a vivid red. A face that moved and swam with many forms. The black maw of a mouth turned upwards in a V-shaped leer. The fathomless eyes blinked open.

  ‘Aaaaaaaaaagh!’ screamed Russell, falling back-wards off the chair.

  The face gazed out from the screen. Tiny naked human figures writhed upon its skin, drifting in and out of focus.

  Russell scrambled up and stared. ‘Holy God,’ he whispered.

  The eyes bulged from the screen. ‘I am your God,’ cried the one voice which was many. ‘Kneel before your God and I will give you more time.’