Black Rock
Page 32
As James spun around, mouth open in a scream of agony, Martin was glad that there was no sound accompanying the images.
James batted at his shoulder sending sparks flying, realized it wasn’t going to work and tore the shirt right off. The flame seemed to be confined to the material. James had a large burn on his shoulder, but at least his skin wasn’t on fire.
For all the difference that’s going to make, Martin thought bitterly as James began to leap again - towards Black Rock. At best, James has five minutes to live.
Ten seconds later, Martin realized he’d been wildly optimistic in his estimate of how long James would last.
Behind the dirty brown fire cloud, Peter Perfect sat in his haunted house clattering the keys of his computer (or perhaps waving a wand) in order to alter reality. And he did this, Martin would later acknowledge, by making a single simple addition to the storyline.
He wrote in an obstacle that James couldn’t see.
Martin didn’t see it either. What happened was that the beleaguered James leapt towards a clear spot just ahead of the unbroken wall of fire between him and the house and, although there was nothing on the ground which could have tripped him, suddenly he was falling forwards. Towards that wall of fire.
Martin could barely believe it. Although his chosen patch of ground was clear, James appeared to land right in front of something the size of a steamer trunk. After each previous jump it had taken him a single forwards pace to check his momentum. This time, the pace couldn’t be taken because both his feet had jammed against that invisible thing. The result was that James flew over the top of the obstruction and shot straight into the wall of fire.
Martin looked at the spot where James had vanished, half expecting him to dart back out of the flame looking pretty much like the human torch he’d read about in American comics when he was a kid.
This did not happen.
A few moments later, the vision began to fade.
Finally there was just the huge empty ice block floating in his mind’s eye, and good old Harold standing a hundred yards ahead of him in the centre of the road.
‘What happened?’ Harold called in a shaky voice. ‘I could smell burning!’
‘Nothing to worry you,’ Martin said bitterly.
‘You aren’t going to bring that thing back to the motel with you, are you?’ Harold shouted, ‘Because if you are, I’m not letting you come.’
I’ve just watched someone burn to death and here’s Harold laying down conditions, Martin thought.
He gritted his teeth. ‘How many times do I have to tell you?’ he shouted back. ‘None of this has anything to do with you. You’re safe.’
‘Promise?’
‘Don’t be childish, Harold.’
‘Do you promise?’
‘Cross my heart and hope to fucking well die!’ Martin seethed, wishing the man was nearer so he could take him by the neck and shake him gently until he stopped bleating.
That’s a wish I can grant you, the voice said inside his mind. Just come on down to Black Rock and I’ll show you a real good time.
‘What?’ Harold said. ‘What was that? I heard it again.’ He turned and began speed walking again. He got so far ahead that he could no longer be seen and when Martin turned into the drive, he fully expected the door to be closed and locked against him.
But there was Harold, standing just inside the open reception door, waiting.
There is a God, after all, Martin thought bemusedly.
‘My wife has a car too,’ Harold said as Martin entered. ‘If it starts you can borrow it. It’s only an old Mini, but it’s never failed us yet. If you wait here, I’ll get the keys.’
He wants you out of here as soon as possible, Martin told himself and then added, You and me both, Harold. During the walk back from the Dino he’d had thoughts about James’ presence at Black Rock, and they worried him. Had he gone there at the behest of Essenjay? Was he, too, trying to rescue her?
Martin thought that Peter Perfect wanted him to believe the latter scenario, so he refused to do it. Perfect didn’t have Essenjay yet. If he did, there wouldn’t be any point in his keeping Martin away. So James had probably gone there because Essenjay had been worried about the place and had asked him to.
How James and Essenjay were connected was patently obvious. They were connected by the genitalia. Essenjay evidently hadn’t wasted any time missing her old lover, she’d gone straight out and got a new one. Martin might have felt a very large measure of jealousy if it hadn’t been for the fact that he’d just watched James die. For which reason, all he felt towards the man was pity.
His feelings towards Essenjay, however, were ambivalent. James had admittedly had quite a physique, but Martin would have expected more from Essenjay. She had apparently lowered her sights since his day. It hurt him to imagine her riding this tyre and exhaust fitter like a racehorse and he wanted to punish her for that, but he still felt an oddly aching kind of love. It was as if he wanted to hold her tenderly and beat her black and blue at the same time.
How he felt, however, was not the important thing. That could be worked out later. The important thing was that Essenjay needed rescuing and her chosen rescuer had fallen at the first fence. Which meant that Martin was now her only hope.
And if he got to her before Peter Perfect, everything was going to be plain sailing.
‘Here we go,’ Harold said, dripping his way back across the lobby and dangling a set of keys. ‘If this doesn’t get you out of here, then… then…’
‘Nothing will?’ Martin suggested.
Harold shrugged, ‘Whatever,’ he said, opening the front door.
Mrs Harold’s Mini turned out to be exactly as Martin had anticipated: unroadworthy. He didn’t care a great deal. If, at that moment, someone had offered him a rusty bicycle with flat tyres he would have accepted it gladly.
As long as it runs … he thought.
Harold opened the driver’s door of the Mini and got in.
Martin noticed the - fairly deep - pool of water Harold’s feet were now resting in and didn’t care about this either. He had a good feeling about this car. This car was going to start. And it would continue to run. Martin knew this. Like a character from a book, he could feel it, in his very bones.
Harold turned the ignition on. Warning lights lit. He twisted the key. The engine didn’t so much burst into life, it woke up; smoothly and gradually.
‘Sounds OK,’ Martin said.
‘Been looked after,’ Harold replied. ‘Mechanically, anyway.’
He gunned the engine, let it settle, then climbed out. The Mini idled away happily.
‘All yours,’ Harold said, looking very relieved indeed. He motioned towards the driver’s seat, an eager expression on his face.
Anything to get me out of here, Martin thought. He thanked Harold, assured him tha
t the car would be returned undamaged and got in.
The engine didn’t fail until he’d selected first gear and let out the clutch.
‘Not enough revs,’ Harold advised. ‘Put your foot down harder.’
Martin turned the key.
The engine didn’t start.
Martin suddenly reached the end of his tether. ‘Oh fuck this!’ he screamed.
Harold leaned in through the open window. ‘Let me try,’ he said.
Martin climbed out, and while Harold got back into the Mini, he searched his right-hand trouser pocket. He’d had an idea. A very good idea it is too, he told himself, but this congratulatory statement lacked any conviction at all. It was an exceedingly lousy idea, but it was all he had so he clung to it.
Amongst all the junk in that right-hand trouser pocket was a weapon with which, if he could find it, he could put things back on the right track.
Harold turned the key and the car started.
‘Open the passenger door,’ Martin said. ‘I want to see if the car stops when I’m in it.’
Martin went to the far side of the car, frantically searching his pocket. And there it was, underneath the Colibri lighter he’d stolen from Lulu Kaminsky to teach her a lesson. Kaminsky had gone down the tube - literally - without ever knowing what had happened to the gem-encrusted lighter.
The weapon - also stolen, but from Essenjay this time and unintentionally - was a Swiss Army knife. Except that it wasn’t what most people envisaged when they thought of a Swiss Army knife. This wasn’t one of those great fat things with a blade for every purpose but one of the tiny ones people sometimes put on their key-rings. It had a nail file in it and a knife blade which was barely an inch and a half long. There was a minute pair of scissors mounted in the other side, but it was the knife blade Martin was interested in.
He didn’t think that it was going to look very convincing at all, but he was desperate and he didn’t think Harold would need too much convincing.
Martin opened the tiny knife blade and got into the car.
The engine didn’t stop.
That’s something, Martin told himself.
‘It’s going to be OK now,’ Harold said, as though desperately trying to convince himself. ‘It’s warmed up a bit. It didn’t stop because you got in it.’
Yeah, but it’ll stop when I get behind the wheel, Martin thought. And I’m not going to allow that to happen.
‘Just put her in gear and ease her forward a little way,’ he said, ‘so that we can prove she doesn’t stop when you try to drive her.’
Harold glanced over at him, questioningly. The word suspicion might as well have been written all over his face. ‘You try it,’ he said, and reached for the door handle.
Martin grabbed his left arm and pulled him back. ‘You try it first,’ he said, trying to summon up a smile that would look a little like a shark that’s just spotted its dinner.
The expression he attained felt as if it ought to look hilarious, but it worked on Harold anyway.
‘OK,’ Harold said and sighed.
When he put the Mini in gear and let out the clutch, the car rolled forward exactly as cars should. Harold brought it to a standstill, took it out of gear, turned to Martin, and asked, ‘How’s that?’
‘Not out, I’d say,’ Martin said, still trying to grin his horrible grin.
Harold now began to look extremely worried. Martin knew why. He was sitting less than a foot away from a man he’d first thought was haunted, and now thought to be deranged as well. He thought that he was about to be murdered so the madman wouldn’t have to bother returning his wife’s car.
And like almost no one in real life did when presented with something that bothered them, Harold performed a literary cliche. Like Billy Bunter before him, he blinked. Several times. In quick succession.
‘What?’ he said when he’d finished blinking.
‘Gosh! Not out, old bean, as they say in jolly old cricket,’ Martin said pointedly in case he was talking to Peter Perfect again. He didn’t think so, but Harold hadn’t acted like this before.
‘I’m going,’ Harold said as though he’d suddenly made up his mind and there wasn’t a second to lose. Take the car.’
‘That’s what I meant,’ Martin said, laying a restraining hand on his arm. ‘Not out. You. You’re not out.’
‘I don’t quite understand you,’ Harold said with a distinct trace of hysteria in his voice.
Martin nodded. ‘Yes, you do,’ he said. ‘When I try to drive the car, it stops. When you drive it, it doesn’t. Therefore, you are going to drive me back to Bude.’
‘I can’t,’ Harold said.
‘Why not?’
‘My motel.’
‘It’ll wait until tomorrow. You’ll be back by lunchtime if we leave now. Your wife will look after things, I’m sure.’
‘But I don’t want to go,’ he complained.
‘Nothing will happen to you. I’ll pay you. Handsomely.’
Harold shook his head. ‘No, I’m getting out now,’ he said. He tore his arm away from Martin’s grasp and snatched at the door handle. The door began to open and Harold moved towards it, seemingly pouring out of the opening while it was still only a few inches wide.
Martin saw red. He was very accomplished at losing his temper, but this time he surprised himself by acting violently.
The tiny Swiss Army knife was clutched in the hand Harold had just shaken away from his arm. Harold hadn’t noticed the blade protruding from between Martin’s forefinger and thumb and Martin hadn’t yet been ready to threaten him with it.
But suddenly his hand was holding the knife in the right position to strike and Martin lashed out with it.
The tiny blade caught the back of Harold’s left hand and skated across it. It all happened in a blur, and afterwards Martin had the feeling that Peter Perfect wasn’t the only one who could change reality at a stroke. He seemed to have accomplished much the same thing.
Harold was now sitting upright in his seat staring in horror at the wound on the back of his hand. Blood was welling up from it and dripping off its edges into his lap.
A part of Martin (the civilized part, he assumed) was horrified at what he’d done and another part was grinning wildly. The second part apparently had control of his facial muscles because that inner grin had communicated itself to his face. The sum total of the feeling was power. Martin had wielded quite a lot of power for a long time now, but intellectually rather than physically. Physical power had quite a lot going for it, he distantly decided.
‘Shut the door,’ he told Harold and was delighted when the man complied.
‘You cut me,’ Harold said in a small voice.
‘And I’ll cut you again if you don’t start driving me towards Cornwall,’ Martin said.
‘But I’m hurt! I’m bleeding!’ Harold whined.
‘It’s just a small cut,’ Martin said. ‘You’re not going to die. Your tendons aren’t severed a
nd your veins and arteries are intact. Give me your hand.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Harold cried.
‘Look at it and see how bad it is, for Christ’s sake!’ Martin spat. ‘Now give it to me or I’ll make it worse!’
Harold reluctantly gave his left hand to Martin who dabbed at it with his handkerchief. The cut, Martin was distantly disappointed to discover, was little more than a scratch. The army knife evidently hadn’t been as sharp as he’d thought. There wasn’t any real damage. Martin bound his handkerchief around Harold’s hand and told Harold that he could expect to live.
‘Can I go now?’ Harold asked, sounding as if he expected the answer to be negative.
Martin didn’t disappoint him. He shook his head.
‘But I can’t drive the car like this,’ Harold said, holding up his hand like a dog would give its paw.
‘You’d better be able to,’ Martin said. He waved the blade of the Swiss Army knife in front of Harold’s face and added, ‘Or I’ll kill you.’
Martin privately doubted that it would be possible to kill someone with a knife blade the size of the one he was waving, short of putting it through an eye socket and pushing into the brain. And even that sounded unlikely. You could probably stab someone all day with the knife and they’d survive.
This thought didn’t seem to occur to Harold, however, but there was no good reason for it to. Harold might not have been in fear for his life, but he certainly didn’t want any knife blade, no matter how tiny, inserted into any part of his body.
Martin reached over and squeezed Harold’s left bicep, digging his fingers into the inside of the man’s arm. ‘There’s an artery that runs down here,’ he explained, ‘It’s called the brachial artery and right where I’m squeezing it’s close to the surface. Now I might not be able to hit any of your vital organs with a knife this small, and I might not even be able to hit your brachial artery, but I’ll certainly be able to take out your eyes. So don’t cause me any trouble. OK?’