Then I saw the fire. At first just a glow, an ominous red tinge in the haze. Then the flames themselves, bright tiny tongues flashing and flickering between the trees. There were hundreds, thousands, millions of them, stretching all across from left to right. The fire was burning on a wide unbroken front. There was no possible way through.
I couldn’t believe it. I felt betrayed. Crazily, furiously, I shouted out aloud: “What is this? Why me? Why against me?”
And then I seemed to hear a reply. It was the multitude of voices again, the violent hatefilled voices. Only this time they roared and crackled in the noise of the flames.
“Smash! Strike! Smite! Revenge! Destroy! Finish!”
A reply? But they were just saying the same as before! I tried to protest.
“But I’ve – ”
But I couldn’t finish my sentence. I broke out in a fit of coughing. The smoke had found its way right down into my lungs.
“Revenge! Destroy! Finish! Finish! Finish! Finish!”
I had to retreat. I didn’t understand, but I knew I was being driven back to Morbing Vyle.
The flames leaped forward from tree to tree, progressing at a phenomenal speed. They were almost like live things, jumping and flying through the air.
I turned and blundered back the way I had come. The smoke was choking me, and my eyes were stinging and streaming with tears. I could hardly see. I held my arms stretched out in front, sleepwalker-style.
The retreat was easier than the advance. The low-hanging branches and spiky twigs didn’t seem to block my path so much as before. I even had the impression that the twigs were pointing the way for me – like black crooked fingers all turned in the direction of Morbing Vyle. I walked fast – fast enough to keep ahead of the fire. If I bumped into a tree or slowed down for a moment, the roar of the flames grew suddenly louder. But otherwise the fire kept pace behind. And so I came out into the clearing again. No more trees, no more violent crying voices. I walked on a few paces, then stopped. I spat and blew my nose. I breathed deeply in and out, in and out. Clean wholesome air filled my lungs. I rubbed the film of tears from my eyes. The Caulkisses and Quodes were waiting for me. When I raised my head and looked round, they were all standing there in a line. They had formed up on the other side of the trench, about fifteen yards away. They were giving me a look that made my blood run cold.
∨ The Vicar of Morbing Vile ∧
Sixty-One
“Thought you could escape, did you?” said Mr Caulkiss. “Thought you were different?”
“You goody-goody!” cried Craylene.
“But now you’re back with us just the same,” said Mr Quode.
“Now you can never escape,” said Mr Caulkiss. “Look around you, Mr Smythe!” He gestured with his arm. I followed the gesture and saw what he meant. Smoke was rising up all around the clearing. All around the choir and all around the nave, over behind the vicarage and over behind the South Transept. There were flames too, glowing red and orange, just visible through the trees. The fires seemed to have ignited simultaneously on every side of the forest.
“Only the Lord could have led us out.”
“But no Lord now! And no escape!”
“You destroyed Him, Mr Smythe!”
“The Hope of the World destroyed!”
“It’s all your fault!”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” I objected. “You can’t blame me. I didn’t destroy Him.”
“You burst open the bag.”
“Yes. But I didn’t turn Him into maggots.”
“You burst open the bag too soon.”
“What difference did that make? I mean, He’d rotted away long ago.”
“Too soon. He should have emerged when He was ready.”
“How can you say that? There was nothing there to emerge! You saw for yourselves what was inside the bag! Face facts!”
“There are no facts!”
“Oh come on. Be reasonable!”
“We don’t want to be reasonable!”
“But just consider – ”
“No more considering!”
“The truth is – ”
“No more truth!”
“If you just think calmly about – ”
“No more thinking! No more calmness! No more nothing!”
If I’d thought they were crazy before, I now discovered the real extremity of their madness.
In a terrifying frenzy they ranted and raged:
“Nothing to live for! Because of you Mr Smythe! You have taken away the meaning of our existence! You have reduced us! You have pulled us down!”
“No power! No greatness! No intensity!”
“It is the End!”
“All doomed! All doomed!”
“O woe! O woe! O woe! O woe!”
“Despair! Despair! Despair!”
All in a line on the other side of the trench, they gnashed their teeth and beat their breasts.
Mr Caulkiss was on the left of the line, then Craylene, then Mr Quode, then Melestrina on the right.
Melestrina not only beat her breasts but punched herself in the face as well.
“Expire my Soul!” she raved. “Let Void and Vacuum reign! Let every Thing be small and shrivelled!”
She gave herself a mighty backhander across the nose.
“Dread cumber all my Parts! Brain darken! Heartbeat cease! Lungs rift thy Cavity and Kidneys sunder!”
She boxed her ears with simultaneous blows to both sides of her head.
“Our Glory dashed! And I must weep! Then let Synapses now implode! All Mental Functions run amok! Incontinent!”
She pointed at me with her arm and stared accusingly.
“O Blame! O Guilt! Behold the Cause!”
Her stare was so violent that the blood vessels burst in her eyeballs. Two trickles of red ran down the sides of her face.
“It’s all your fault, Mr Smythe!” screamed Mr Quode.
He tore off his trousers and his long silken underpants. Naked below the waist, he waggled himself from side to side.
“Because of you I’m foaming at the mouth!” yelled Mr Caulkiss. He opened his mouth and discharged a stream of whitish froth.
“Oh Mr Smythe! Look what you’re making me do!” Craylene raked her fingernails over her cheeks, stripping away whole slabs of make-up. Then she took a grip on her left ear and ripped it right off from her head.
“See how we suffer!”
“And you will too!”
“Even more, Mr Smythe!”
“A million times more!”
“We shall make you pay!”
Instinctively I took a step backwards. But something got in the way of my step and tripped me up. It was Melestrina’s hat. Baby Panker must have crept around and positioned himself deliberately behind my feet. I lost my balance and fell flat on my back.
“Get him! Get him! Get him!”
They and raced for the plank bridge over the trench. One after the other they came charging across. Mr Quode waggling, Mr Caulkiss dribbling froth, Melestrina bleeding at the eyes, Craylene with her face all cracked and broken…
That would have been the end of me for sure. But suddenly there was a sharp puff of wind and a mass of swirling smoke billowed out from the forest. Everything was instantly enveloped in a thick grey cloud. The Caulkisses and Quodes faltered in their rush, momentarily baffled, coughing and choking.
I jumped up off the ground and fled for my life.
∨ The Vicar of Morbing Vile ∧
Sixty-Two
I was better prepared for the smoke than the Caulkisses and Quodes. Again I held the sleeve of my coat across my mouth, using the cloth as a filter. I ran around by the side of the choir, along by the edge of the trench.
After the first overwhelming cloud, the smoke thinned out to a general haze. It seemed to extend everywhere across the clearing. I could see to a distance of only ten or twenty yards. It was like looking through a veil.
I made my plans on the run. Since
the forest refused to let me through, I would have to find a hiding-place somewhere in Morbing Vyle itself. That shouldn’t be too difficult – once I had got well away from the Caulkisses and Quodes. I would just have to lie low for a while.
I found another plank bridge over the trench and crossed back towards the centre of the choir. I couldn’t see the Caulkisses and Quodes, but I could hear their cries in the smoke. They seemed to be running along behind me. I wondered how they knew which way to follow…
“Wipperwaff! Wipperwaff! Wipperwaff! Oik!”
Suddenly Gambels appeared out of the smoke ahead. He was still tied up to the leg of the chair – only now he was dragging the whole chair along on the end of his reins. He looked like a husky pulling a sled.
“Oikapaff! Oikapaff! Oikapaff! Wippp!!!”
I veered to the side. I don’t think he even noticed me. He just rushed right past and kept on going. In a moment he had vanished back into the smoke again.
I kept on running. I ran down the length of the choir, past half built columns and fragments of wall. I could run much faster than the Caulkisses and Quodes. Soon I had left them far behind.
But somehow I couldn’t shake them off altogether. I swerved to the left, I swerved to the right, yet still they clung to my trail. How did they manage to keep following?
Then I realised. Of course! I was leaving a clear set of footprints behind in the snow! No use trying to hide if my footsteps led straight to my hiding-place! I would have to think of a way to cover my tracks…
It didn’t take me long to have an idea. I ran until I was probably half way down the clearing and a good hundred yards in front of the Caulkisses and Quodes. Then I changed direction and headed towards the South Transept. I unwrapped the fox fur from around my neck – Craylene’s fox fur which I had been wearing ever since the previous evening.
Soon I came to a suitable deep trench. I kept on going right up to the edge, planting my last footprint on the very brink. Then I retreated backwards, stepping carefully into the footprints I had just made. After a dozen paces, I jumped away to the side and continued walking backwards over the fresh snow. But now I disguised my new footprints by brushing them over with the fox fur. The snow where I had brushed looked almost as smooth as the untouched snow.
I was twenty yards away when the Caulkisses and Quodes came up. I could barely see their shadowy shapes through the smoke. The massive shape of Melestrina was in the lead, followed by the rotund shape of Mr Quode, then the tiny frilly shape of Craylene and the scarecrow shape of Mr Caulkiss. I dropped down onto the snow and continued my retreat on my hands and knees.
They halted at the edge of the trench. I could hear them talking and arguing. Had I jumped clean across? Had I fallen in? They were totally baffled. I smiled to myself. My idea was working just as I’d hoped.
But I smiled too soon. Suddenly, close by, came a piercing high-pitched squeak. “WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!”
It was the squeak of baby Panker. How had he found me out? I leaped to my feet. Somehow he must have spotted my brushed-over tracks. I looked around but I couldn’t see Melestrina’s hat. Perhaps he was now hiding in something else?
But there was no time to think about it. Already the others had turned to his summons. I leaped to my feet and took off running. They yelled and shreiked as they pounded towards me.
“Grab him! Grab him! The enemy! Grab him!”
Back towards the centre of the clearing I ran. Once I got going they couldn’t keep up. Soon they had disappeared back into the smoke again. I couldn’t see them and they couldn’t see me. But still they had my footprints to follow.
My next idea came when I was somewhere down at the nave end of the church. I was running along beside a half built wall, far ahead of the Caulkisses and Quodes. Near the end of the wall was a large stack of building materials: tiles and bricks and hunks of stone, all heaped up higgledy piggledy. I could see that the snow had settled only in the hollows of the stack, leaving the points and ridges bare. Here was an opportunity!
I repeated my previous backwards-stepping trick. I ran a few paces on beyond the stack, then reversed over the same distance in my own footprints. Then I made a huge sidewards spring through the air and landed on the side of the stack. As long as I stepped only on the points and ridges, there was no snow to take the mark of my feet. Quickly but carefully I clambered across. Then I made another huge leap from the far side of the stack, flying clean over the top of the half-built wall. I wriggled along in the shelter of the wall and headed back parallel to the way I had come.
A minute or two later, the Caulkisses and Quodes turned up. They ran right past me on the other side of the wall, huffing and puffing. When they came to the end of my footprints, there was the same bafflement as before.
“It can’t be!”
“He was heading this way!”
“Where has he gone?”
But baby Panker wasn’t so easily fooled. Once more my ears were blasted by a piercing squeak. While the others stood debating, Panker had unerringly tracked me down.
“WHEEEEEEEEEEEP!”
It seemed almost supernatural! Again I jumped up and rushed off, just eluding the outstretched arms of my pursuers. Again I accelerated and left them floundering. It was crazy. I could always leave them behind but I could never get clean away. Not while Panker was on my trail.
Still I kept thinking up new ideas for covering my tracks. What about doubling back over my previous route? I looped around in a wide circle. The snow where we had run before was trampled flat under multiple sets of footprints. How could anyone distinguish a further set of footprints on top of all the others?
But Panker could. I tried that trick not once but several times. Sometimes I ran along the route in my original direction, sometimes in the reverse direction. The five sets of footprints turned into ten sets, fifteen sets, twenty sets. The route became an inextricable mishmash of footprints. But it seemed that it was never inextricable enough to confuse Panker. Just when I thought I was safely away, there was that squeak, that inescapable squeak in my ears. Over and again he signalled my true location, bringing the Caulkisses and Quodes back after me.
What else could I do? I tried everything I could think of. I tried walking backwards so that my footprints would appear to be heading in the opposite direction. I tried using a plank as a vaulting pole, traversing long distances without leaving a print. Nothing made any difference. Somehow, miraculously, Panker could always follow.
In the end I just ran out of ideas. I gave up hope of a clean escape. I no longer attempted to accelerate away from my pursuers. Instead I slowed to a steady jog and concentrated on maintaining a constant lead of about fifty paces. If only I could tire them out…
But that was impossible too. For all their physical oddities, the Caulkisses and Quodes had no lack of staying power. They were implacable. Round and round and back and forth they chased me, until it seemed that we had covered the entire clearing many times over. I had the feeling that this strange state of balance could go on forever. But then the balance changed against me. My pursuers gained the benefit of reinforcements.
∨ The Vicar of Morbing Vile ∧
Sixty-Three
It was my own fault for running too close to the vicarage. I had gone past the building a couple of times before, seeing it only as a looming dark rectangle through the smoke. But this time I noticed a strange light glowing in the windows. And a tremendous din from the animals in the barn. I ran closer to take a look.
The whole building was on fire. There were tiny blue flames burning on the outside walls, smouldering in the ivy. Inside, behind the windows, large yellow flames consumed the furniture and curtains. Somehow the fire must have crossed over from the forest. A drifting spark in the air perhaps…
I ran past the parlour window and the front door. Even Gambels’ kennel was blazing like a bonfire. Behind me I heard the startled cries of the Caulkisses and Quodes. Obviously they too had caught sight of the flames.
&
nbsp; I stopped and looked back. I could just make out the shapes of my pursuers through the smoke. But they were no longer in pursuit. Now they had turned towards the vicarage.
“Open the barn doors!” shouted Mr Caulkiss. “Bring forth the animals! Bring forth Mr Scrab!”
Melestrina, Craylene and Mr Quode headed for the back of the building. Mr Caulkiss himself rushed straight up to the front door. He flung it open and plunged inside.
For a moment I thought that they might be more concerned to save their home than to continue chasing me. But only for a moment. As soon as the animals emerged from the barn, Melestrina, Craylene and Mr Quode clapped and yelled and urged them into the hunt.
“After the enemy!”
“Bring him down!”
“Go get him!”
The animals responded with a mighty outburst of bleats and quacks and bellows. Wings flapped, breath snorted, hooves drummed on the ground. I took to my heels and fled.
I headed back towards the centre of the clearing. But it was not so easy to outrun the animals. They moved much faster than the Caulkisses and Quodes. When I glanced back over my shoulder, I could see them all quite clearly: hen, ducks, pigs, goats, sheep and cows. They were massed in a pack, with the sheep and the hen at the front.
Then I fell foul of a thick drift of snow. I ploughed my way through, running in slow motion. The animals ploughed through behind – not quite so slowly. Then I tripped and almost fell on some brick or stone hidden under the snow. The animals were gaining all the time.
Suddenly a trench opened up right in front of me. A particularly deep trench, about ten feet down to the bottom. I made a ninety degree turn and ran along at the side. The animals swung across diagonally, reducing my lead yet again. Now I could hear their eager panting and see their open mouths. Their open mouths glittered with metal teeth.
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