A Dog Called Demolition

by Robert Rankin

  ‘I could hang about for lunch,’ said Danny. ‘I don’t have anything pressing on today.’

  ‘That’s the spirit. I think you’re going to be a real asset to us, Mr Orion.’

  ‘Oh, I do hope so,’ said Danny.

  ‘Was that sarcasm?’ the gentleman asked.

  ‘It certainly was.’

  ‘Refreshing. Most refreshing.’

  ‘My pleasure. Did I just take a late breakfast, by the way? Is it time for the mid-morning coffee-break?’

  The gentleman rang a little bell and presently coffee arrived on a tray. In a pot, but the pot was on a tray. Danny didn’t waste too much time on the semantics, he got stuck in. ‘Oh, biscuits too. Splendid.’

  ‘When you are quite finished, Mr Orion, we really do have most important matters to discuss.’

  ‘About the aliens?’

  ‘The aliens, quite so.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Danny. ‘I think quite a lot, you know. Although nobody gives me any credit. Probably because I never tell them what I’m thinking. But while I’ve been eating, I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘That’s very interesting.’

  Danny waggled a bourbon bicky at the gentleman. ‘And that’s sarcasm.’

  ‘What have you been thinking?’

  ‘Nukes,’ said Danny.

  ‘Sorry?’ said the gentleman.

  ‘Nuclear weapons. It’s the only way. That or the common cold. The common cold killed the aliens in War of the Worlds. I do a lot of thinking about movies.’

  ‘Mr Vrane did mention it.’

  ‘I met him before,’ said Danny, ‘in old Sam Sprout’s house. I’ve got terrible memories in my head.’

  ‘You’re bearing up very well.’

  ‘You have to laugh,’ said Danny. ‘You’d cry if you didn’t.’

  ‘Please spare me the working-class homilies. You’ll be singing Roll out the barrel next. Can we get on, please?’

  Danny finished his coffee and biscuits. ‘My time is all yours,’ said he. ‘Until lunch and possibly through till tea.’

  ‘Perish the thought.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘I want to know how you came to be clear. I want to know what happened to the dog.’

  ‘The dog in my shed?’

  ‘The dog in your head.’

  ‘You what!’

  The gentleman sighed. ‘I will have to explain everything to you. It is a long story, you’d better make yourself comfortable.’

  ‘Before I do,’ said Danny, ‘do you think I could use your toilet?’

  It was nearing lunch-time by the time the gentleman had finished filling Danny in on all the gory details. Danny sat throughout the talk, opening and shutting his mouth, shaking his head and adding the occasional ‘Oh my God’, or ‘This is terrible’. When the gentleman had finally done, he smiled across to Danny and said, ‘And there you have it.’

  And Danny did.

  But he didn’t know quite where to start.

  ‘So you’re saying,’ he said, ‘that I’ve had one of these Rider things on me since the moment I was born?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘But then this new one, this one that calls itself Demolition, also got on me at old Sam’s house? But has now got off me and got into the dog that was built in my shed.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Which is why I can see them now?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘No, not correct. I shouldn’t be able to see them, because I should still have the Rider I got when I was born, on me.’

  ‘Yes, that’s correct also. That’s what puzzles us.’

  ‘It puzzles me too. Unless—’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Unless the Demolition one killed the one that was already on me. After all, if the Demolition one drives men to kill other men and the other men have these things on them, when they get killed, the things on them get killed too.’

  ‘That would appear to be the case.’

  ‘But why do they do it? Why kill their own?’

  ‘That’s something we’d like to know. If we could capture Demolition we might persuade him to tell us.’

  ‘Some hopes,’ said Danny. ‘No, the best way is definitely nukes. Get all the clears together in a deep bomb shelter somewhere. Then nuke the entire planet. That would be my solution.’

  ‘Wipe out everyone on the face of the earth?’

  ‘It’s the cruel-to-be-kind approach. It may seem drastic, but it will get the job done.’

  ‘We have considered it,’ said the gentleman.

  ‘You swine, I was only joking.’

  ‘I wasn’t. But it’s not a practical option. We must purge the planet of these things. But not at the expense of the human race.’

  ‘Have you thought about trying to communicate with them?’ Danny asked. ‘Perhaps they have a leader. You could talk to him.’

  The gentleman tried to remember whether he had a moustache or not. Concluding that he had, he stroked it thoughtfully.

  ‘That is a new suggestion,’ he said.

  ‘I’m full of bright ideas,’ said Danny. ‘I’m feeling a bit peckish too.’

  ‘Communicate with their leader,’ the gentleman said, steering the conversation away from food. ‘It is an interesting thought. But who would their leader be?’

  ‘Come on,’ said Danny. ‘That’s obvious, isn’t it?’

  ‘Strangely, not to me.’

  Danny shook his head. ‘Well, it is to me. These things settle upon you the moment you’re born. They manipulate your thoughts, they make you do what they want you to do, right?’

  ‘Right. I mean, correct.’

  ‘So if one’s really smart and ambitious it will urge its human host to do smart things, advance himself, correct? Get to the top.’

  ‘That would seem logical.’

  ‘So the smartest one will be the leader, and he’ll be the one who has urged on his human host to—’

  ‘I get it,’ said the gentleman. ‘You mean that—’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Danny.

  ‘The Prime Minister,’ said the gentleman.

  ‘Richard Branson,’ said Danny. ‘Is it lunch-time yet?’

  18

  SHORT CHAPTER, BUT AN IMPORTANT ONE

  Danny talked to the gentleman through lunch, through the afternoon, through high tea (which gentlemen take), into the early evening and then into dinner (which is sometimes called supper by those who eat lunch at dinner-time and unwittingly support the National Opera House). The conversation took many tortuous routes, which wound through much rich and fantastic countryside, to finally arrive back pretty much at the point where it had begun.

  The gentleman concluded that Danny really did not possess any insights and Danny concluded that the gentleman really did not possess any insights and then the two of them shared wine and brandy and cigars and eventually came to the conclusion that each and the other shared all sorts of insights, were the absolute salt of the earth, a soul-buddy, a hail-fellow-well-met, a really good bloke and a dear, dear friend.

  ‘I don’t really hate the working class,’ said the gentleman, leaning heavily on Danny’s shoulder. ‘They’re rough diamonds, but they’re sound enough, do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Not half,’ Danny put his arm about the gentleman. ‘Actually they’re rubbish,’ he slurred. ‘Posh is where it’s at. Posh is good. I like posh.’

  ‘I’m posh,’ said the gentleman, trying to focus his monocle.

  ‘I can see you’re posh. But I’m not posh. I’m common as muck, me.’

  ‘But a really good bloke. May I call you a bloke, by the way?’

  ‘You call me one. I don’t mind.’

  ‘Good bloke. Really good bloke.’

  ‘Really good brandy,’ said Danny. ‘Shall we have some more?’

  ‘Let’s do.’ The gentleman poured more brandy. Some even went into the glasses. ‘You’re a good bloke,’ he said. ‘Did I tell you you’re a r
eally good bloke?’

  ‘You did. But I’m not posh.’

  ‘Posh is rubbish,’ said the gentleman. ‘Rubbish.’

  ‘Is it?’ Danny asked.

  ‘We posh have to go to the opera.’

  ‘Urgh,’ said Danny. ‘I wouldn’t fancy that.’

  ‘I don’t fancy it. No-one fancies it. If it wasn’t for you blokes and your damned lottery tickets, we wouldn’t have to have a damned opera.’

  ‘I’ve never bought a lottery ticket,’ said Danny. ‘I reckon it’s a conspiracy. I reckon it’s a fix. That bloke Paul Daniels, he could make any ball he wanted come up.’

  ‘I can do that,’ said the gentleman. ‘Learned it at Sandhurst. You take a deep breath and sort of hitch up one side of your groin.’

  Danny collapsed in drunken laughter. ‘You prat,’ he said.

  ‘See,’ said the gentleman. ‘See. Not posh. We wouldn’t say that. We would say...er, what would we say?’

  ‘Have another drink?’ Danny suggested.

  ‘Yes, that’s what we’d say. Have another drink.’

  ‘Well, just you say it. You say it.’

  ‘I will.’ The gentleman swayed to and fro. ‘What was it I was going to say?’

  ‘I’ve forgotten,’ said Danny. ‘I think it was about balls. But not yours.’

  ‘Are you saying I’ve got no balls?’

  ‘Lottery balls,’ said Danny.

  ‘Listen,’ said the gentleman, drawing Danny near and making conspiratorial hushing movements with his hand. ‘That’s a fit up, you know, that lottery.’

  ‘Get away,’ said Danny.

  ‘Sorry, am I too close?’

  ‘No. I meant, a fit up. I said that just now, didn’t I?’

  ‘You said it was that magician. That Paul Robeson.’

  ‘Paul who?’

  ‘Paul McCartney.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘He was a Beatle. Like Parton Vrane.’ The gentleman laughed foolishly.

  ‘Parton Vrane was never in The Beatles.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No, he was in The Small Faces.’

  ‘He was in Predator Two,’ said the gentleman, hiccuping loudly.

  ‘Who, Steve Marriot?’

  ‘No, Gary Busey. He looks like Gary Busey, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Who, Steve Marriot?’

  ‘No, Parton Vrane. He looks like Parton Vrane.’

  ‘Who, Steve Marriot?’

  ‘Did you say, I’d like a claret?’

  ‘No, you said that. I saw your mouth moving.’

  ‘Ventriloquists,’ said the gentleman. ‘You never see their mouths moving. Now that’s magic.’

  ‘Paul Daniels,’ said Danny. ‘Now that’s magic. Paul Daniels.’

  ‘That’s the fellow,’ said the gentleman. ‘That’s who you said fixes The National Lottery. You’re right. It is him.’

  ‘What, he really does fix it?’

  ‘Of course. You didn’t think it was real, did you?’

  ‘No,’ said Danny. ‘I told you it’s not real.’

  ‘You’re right,’ the gentleman agreed. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Paul Daniels,’ said Danny. ‘Whoever would have thought it?’

  ‘You’ve got me,’ said the gentleman. ‘I’d never have guessed.’

  ‘Makes you think,’ said Danny. ‘That Paul Daniels, he can put his wife in a box, saw her in half, move the bits apart, then put them back together and she’s not even harmed.’

  ‘Well,’ said the gentleman, ‘actually that’s a pretty rubbish old trick, when you come to think of it.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ said Danny. ‘Are we sitting, or standing?’

  ‘Sitting.’

  ‘Ah good, I thought I’d fallen onto my bottom in a sitting position. Easy mistake.’

  ‘Rubbish trick though.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. Rubbish trick. That David Copperfield, he—’

  ‘Liked him, hated her.’

  ‘Who her?’

  ‘Woman who got jilted on her wedding day, sat about in her dress with mice running all over the cake. You know the woman, can’t abide her.’

  ‘Debbie Magee? And you mean Great Expectations, not David Copperfield.’

  ‘Are you trying to confuse me, young man?’

  ‘David Bloody Copperfield,’ Danny shouted this. ‘Sorry,’ he continued. ‘He’s a real magician. He made the Statue of Liberty vanish.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Yes, and a passenger train.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Yes. And Australia. I think. He’s a real magician. He could make anything vanish, he could. Anything.’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Even you.’

  ‘Even me?’

  ‘You. He could make you vanish. He’d put a cloth over your head, then there’d be a bit of jiggery-pokery out of sight of the camera. Then you’d vanish – gone!’

  ‘Gone? I’d be gone?’ The gentleman, who was sitting down, sat down further and a tear came to his monocle. ‘I’d just be vanished away?’

  ‘Like you’d never been born,’ said Danny, snapping his fingers.

  ‘Boo hoo,’ grizzled the gentleman. ‘I’d be like I’d never been bom. Horrid magician. Take him away.’

  ‘Eh?’ went Danny.

  ‘I don’t want to be vanished,’ wept the gentleman. ‘Horrid magician.’

  ‘Don’t take it personally,’ said Danny, patting the gentleman. ‘Cheer up now, do.’

  ‘I don’t want to be vanished,’ blubbered the gentleman. ‘You tell him for me, will you? Next time you see him. Tell him to vanish someone else.’

  ‘I will.’ Danny patted the gentleman again. ‘I’ll tell him, you leave my friend alone. Vanish someone else. Who would you like him to vanish?’

  The gentleman scratched his toupee, which took an alarming list to the port side. ‘Tell him to vanish The Riders,’ said he. ‘Make them disappear.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s what I’ll tell him. Here—’ and Danny did that sobering up that you do when something really dramatic happens, like you run into a tree driving home, or a nun, or a Bigfoot, or something. ‘That’s it! You’ve got it!’

  ‘I have? I have? Get it off me then.’

  ‘That’s the answer.’ Danny punched his left palm with his right fist. ‘We’ll vanish them. Magic them away.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the gentleman, dabbing at his eyes with an oversized red gingham handkerchief from another story. ‘So this David Copperfield can magic The Riders away, can he?’

  ‘Not him,’ said Danny. ‘But I know a man who can.’

  19

  LEGION

  In his suddenly sober state Danny began to expand upon the thoughts that were now entering his head. He named Mickey Merlin and spoke of the spell of Temporary Temporal Transference.

  This indeed would be the kiddie for getting to meet the King, or Emperor, or President or whatever of The Riders. A volunteer, suitably confined in a padded cell or suchlike, would recite the spell and temporarily change bodies with whoever the King, Emperor or whatnot controlled. Assuming, of course, that when you changed minds, then the controller of that mind would come along with it. There were lots of loose ends and probably a great deal of risk involved. But it was worth a go.

  And if it failed, well, Mickey might just have a spell to vanish the lot of them. Well, he might.

  Anything was possible.

  Danny spoke most eloquently of his thoughts. And it would have been evident to anyone who heard him speak, that here was a young man who was definitely coining into his own. Sadly, however, there was no-one to hear him speak, as the gentleman had passed out and lay upon one of the Chesterfields, snoring softly.

  Danny finally tired of talking to himself. His discourse was wandering into esoteric fields, ballroom dancing, crop rotation, the direction the water might go down the plug hole if you emptied your bath on a satellite circling the globe, and how, all things considered, if he ever go
t out of this alive and all became normal, he was not going to buy a Labrador, but a really big Rottweiler.

  And then Danny became aware that he was drunk once more and fell down behind the Chesterfield and slept.

  It would be a comfortable night for Danny this time, as the rug was thick and cosy and he was sufficiently drunk as to sleep without being haunted by dreams of his dreadful doings.

  And while Danny sleeps and the gentleman sleeps and for all we know The King of The Riders sleeps also, we might chance our arms to relate one final unrelated tale. It could be argued that it might not be one of the best. But it’s not too long and it is the last, and these two points alone must surely act in its favour. It does concern possession and it somehow got left out earlier.

  This is it.

  Every Thursday evening at six of the clock, Lester Total would sit in his greenhouse amongst the forced tomatoes and fill in his football pools. He would rub the coupon with his lucky Joan the Wad, fold it with care and tuck it into the brown envelope. When sealing the flap and sticking on the stamp, he would wish very hard for a win.

  Lester Total would then creep from his greenhouse, shin over his garden fence and pop the coupon into the post box on the corner of Sprite Street.

  Normally this was akin to clockwork, but this particular Thursday had been fraught with strange perils. Somehow his greenhouse had caught fire and been reduced to ashes, he had spilled ink onto his coupon and had to stick the envelope down with Sellotape.

  Worse was to come.

  Grumbling and cursing he had climbed over his fence, only to rip his trouser turn-up upon a nail which had certainly not been there the previous week.

  Worse was to come.

  Upon eventually reaching the post box, Lester had tried to pop his coupon into the slot. A rumble like thunder had issued from the hole and the envelope shot out to flutter onto the pavement at his feet.

  Worse, however, was to come.

  ‘What gives?’ asked Lester, who read a lot of Lazlo Woodbine novels. ‘What the God-damn gives?’

  His second attempt proved as fruitless, in fact even more so, the precious envelope was returned to him in shreds.

  Lester stared at these shreds in disbelief...his chance of a million pounds in little chewed up pieces. ‘You mother f-—’ Lester screamed, kicking at the post box and damaging a winkle-pickered toe.