by Kim Newman
He’d been knocking around with Dolar for years. They once lived in the same flat in Muswell Hill. The others just put up with him. Syreeta was a fat cow with no sense of humour, and Ferg was on a one-way time trip back to 1977. He hoped the punk would disappear completely, because he might have a go at Juicy Jessica. Mike had never had a girlfriend for more than three weeks. Dozy cunts, the lot of them. Most weren’t even good for much of a shaft. Pam had been promising, but got lost in the crowds. Her sister—and whatever had happened to her?—was another headcase. Not as bad as Allison or Terry, but still a vicious bitch.
A barbed tendril lashed his face, scratching. Blood trickled past his mouth. The woods were thinning. Sunlight dimly penetrated to the forest floor. Listening, he heard birds—the after-dawn chorus—but nothing else alive. No human sounds, and nothing from Terry the Wolf either. He couldn’t get out of his mind the picture of Terry burying his face in the woman they’d killed, and he couldn’t get out of his craw the taste of human meat. He’d changed, too. He was blooded.
Jokes just came to him. People would feel the need to unburden themselves by giving him jokes. Sometimes, jokes would literally appear out of nowhere and slip from his mouth, especially when related to a recent news item. What does NASA stand for? he’d asked the day after the space-shuttle crash. Need Another Seven Astronauts. After a stadium fire, how can you identify a Bradford supporter? Dental records. When he was little, he’d had an imaginary friend called Pat. That was where his name started, with Pat and Mike. Sometimes, he thought Pat was the one supplying the jokes. Pat always listened to his riddles, well after he’d pissed off all the adults with them. Who was the skeleton in the closet? A Biafran bank manager.
There was a building ahead, cocooned by trees bending over a red-tiled roof. It was a country pub. The sign hanging outside showed long female legs, with a dress raised far enough to flash red pubic hair. An aroma of beer hung around, getting into Mike’s head, making him almost drunk. Outside the pub stood a short, fat man with carroty hair under his derby hat, an emerald-green shamrock pinned to his fully stuffed waistcoat. He had a couple of cans of tartan paint set down beside him, and he was smoking a clay pipe upside down, tugging at leprechaun side whiskers.
‘Ahh, Moike, me boy, ’tis a deloight to be seein’ you,’ said Pat. ‘Oi I’m just waitin’ fer de Queen’s Legs to open so’s we can wet oor mouths.’
By the time Mike had fought his way up close, the landlord had unlocked the doors, and Pat had pushed into the warm, welcoming dark beyond, beckoning Mike to follow. Beer ran out of the windows and dripped brownly on the wall, staining the white plaster like faecal gravy. Terry the Wolf was after him, but Mike reckoned he always had time for a couple of pints. He barged through bat-wing doors, and found himself in the snug of the Queen’s Legs. The pub smelled of tobacco and urine and semen and lager. There were patches of red light in the gloom, and rows of glinting bottles covered one of the walls. At first, Mike couldn’t make out anyone in the darkness, just Pat standing against the bar.
‘Did’ja hear about de Oirish garden-chair manufacturer comes in here? Patty O’Fumiture,’ Pat said, laughing.
Pat’s laugh was a scraping sound, choking up from deep inside his rounded chest. He had a pint of Guinness up on the bar beside him, another one coming for Mike. The Irishman greeted him like a long-lost friend.
‘D’ja know, Moike, Oi was down de Job Centre an’ dere was nottin’ in de cards fer an honest painter, so Oi walked away. An’ outsoide de p’lice station dere was a big sign up wit’ a slogan, “West Indian wanted fer rape”, so Oi says to mesself, “Dem niggers gets all de best jobs.”’
Pat’s face split open, and laughter puked from his mouth.
‘D’ja get it, Moike, d’ja get it?’
Pat slapped his back, sending him reeling. He laughed like a drain.
‘Ya haff ta laff, Moike me boy, ya haff ta laff…’
From the populated darkness, laughter came. Mike made out the shapes of drinkers, black shadows outlined red. He smelled their sweat, their drinks. A jukebox, lit up like Piccadilly Circus, was pouring forth Sinful Rugby Songs, shouted choruses over a rinky-dink electric organ. Pat poured Guinness into his mouth, letting it flow dark over his chin on to his chest.
‘Ah, ’tis a treat, dis Liffey water,’ the Irishman said, ‘an’ ’tis a treat ta drink wit’out bein’ disturbed by de terrible, terrible people dat usually comes in here. Terrible, terrible people.’
Mike held his Guinness in both hands, unable to get a singlehanded grip on the glass. It was more like a quart than a pint.
‘D’ja hear ’bout de black and sticky dead poet laureate comes in here? Sir John Bitumen. D’ja hear ’bout de ‘merican blue fillum star comes in here? Hugh G. Rection.’
A near-nude woman stood behind the bar, watermelon breasts plopped in rolling puddles of lager. She had puckered nipples the size of pancakes and no face. Between her stiff fringe and her chin was a stretch of lumpy dough, expressionless and curdled. She was laughing inside, but it couldn’t get out. Her tits shook like giant jellies, rolls of fat under her chin rippling.
‘D’ja hear ’bout de mad Russian murderer comes in here? Knocker Bolockoff.’
The background chatter died like a switched-off tape.
‘Terrible man,’ Pat reflected, ‘terrible, terrible man.’
Pat called for another pint. The faceless barmaid hauled on a handle, filling up a bucket with green-yellow froth. As the pump spewed drink, the works gurgled like an old-fashioned chain-pull bog flush. Leaning over the bar, Mike saw the barmaid had an arse the size of a steamroller, enormous cheeks bulging around a tiny, stretched-to-bursting pair of frilled French oo-la-la knickers.
‘D’ja hear ’bout de t’ree nancy boys in de Jacuzzi?’
The barmaid plunked Pat’s bucket on the bar. He looked into his drink, and saw surface scum clearing.
‘Terrible drink,’ Pat said, ‘but ’tis fer me health.’
The Irishman opened his mouth wide as a letterbox, and tipped the green beer into it. His belly swelled like a toad’s neck as the drink went down, and buttons popped from his waistcoat.
‘Dey was gropin’ away in de bubbles when a dorty great lump o’ sperm floats up, an’ one o’ de pansies says, “Shush me gobbie, but who farted?”’
The gale of laughter came again. Everyone convulsed, laughter blending in with the squelching of the jukebox. The snug was crowded, dark shadows screeching hysterically in every corner, at every table. The red patches had got brighter, but the dark around them was darker than ever. Mike couldn’t make out faces.
The barmaid was near Pat and Mike, mammoth breasts on display between the pump handles. Mike couldn’t help but look at them. There were acres of white flesh, veined with subtle blue lines, with creases a man’s hand could get lost in. Her no-face was shadowed now, and the red light fell only on the breasts.
‘Moike, me boy,’ Pat said, ‘would ya loike to feel a tit?’
Immediately, Mike had an agonizing hard-on that wouldn’t go away. His mouth went dry, and he bent his head to his Guinness, sucking up a mouthful of ice-cold stout. He gagged, but kept it down.
The doors opened, and a fiercely bearded cossack exploded into the Queen’s Legs, puffy trousers stuffed into the tops of his shiny boots, thick-pelted chest bare, tall fur cap on his head, bottle of vodka in his king-sized hand.
‘’Tis Knocker Bolockoff,’ Pat said, trembling.
Winds and snows roared in around the Russian. He gnashed his teeth, and flames sparked in his misaligned eyes. He slapped a long whip on the floor, and stalked towards the bar with a lion-tamer’s tread, glaring at Mike. He began cursing him in Russian. As the red light grew brighter, darkness shrank like a salted slug.
Mike began to recognize the people in the pub. Inchworm-crawling forwards past the Russian’s boots was a dead baby, blue face wrapped in clingfilm, forks in its eyes, sharp little teeth in its mouth. And there, by the Ladies’, was a legless
woman walking on her hands, glistening trail behind her, red vulva throbbing like a hungry wound. And a loose-limbed black buck tap-danced slowly, three feet of tattooed dick stuffed into his jockstrap. They were all laughing at Mike.
He tried to turn away, but the barmaid’s laugh had finally escaped and was swarming around him. There was a bloody hole in the middle of her no-face, ragged where the laughter was gushing out. Screeches of laughter came from the jukebox too. A ewe in a black suspender belt and brassiere and a spade-bearded Welshman appeared from a booth in disarray, and added their braying, bawling and belching laughs to the rest. Dead seals, brains spilling, squeezed in among the babies.
Mike looked at the crowd pressing into the pub, and knew he was to be killed. Pushing away from the bar, he ran through the laughter, mirth ripping his skin like fishhooks. Knocker Bolockoff was guarding the front door, long arms outspread to catch him, so Mike careened past, and slammed into the door of the Gents’.
The urinal was brightly striplit, white glare bouncing back at him from all the enamel surfaces. A condom-vending machine slowly burped rubber johnnies inflated into dick-shaped balloons. There was an inch-thick lake of still piss on the floor. It rippled and splashed under his shoes. The light hurt his eyes. There was a thin window, high on the wall, paned over with chickenwire-inset glass. Stark messages were felt-tip-penned on the walls.
THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD IS IN YOUR HANDS. BEWARE LIMBO DANCERS. MIKE TOAD, EAT SHIT AND DIE.
Mike reached for the window, and thumped. Glass cracked and bent, but didn’t break. The smell rose, stinging Mike’s eyes like teargas.
The door opened, and Knocker Bolockoff, whip thrown aside, came into the Gents’. His chest heaved as he changed, bones shifting under his fur, muscles expanding.
The others crowded in. Pat, face red as a beetroot, eyes squeezed too close together. A farmer’s daughter, ping-pong-ball eyes vacant, bursting out of her too low, too short checked pinafore. A crèche of dead babies, crawling like maggots, mewling for bloody milk. A man with a huge vagina in the centre of his face, displacing all his other features. The sheep, anus red and bleeding, fury in its eyes. Naked men and women without faces but with swollen and disproportionate genitals. Dead astronauts, ferryboat passengers, politicians, football fans.
Knocker Bolockoff bent over as he came for Mike, Terry the Wolf looming out from inside him. The Somerset werewolf’s face pressed out through the Russian’s, snout and fangs emerging from the gap between Knocker’s beard and moustache.
Mike tried to climb the slick wall, and fell. Stinking damp seeped through his clothes. He slid along the floor, face pressed into the wet. A moving weight landed on his back, pushing him down, pulling him along. The taste of piss flooded his throat, and he choked.
Everyone was laughing. The heavy body on top of him eased up and turned him over. He felt the wet through his back and buttocks. Knocker Bolockoff s face was a transparent mask now. Terry was in control, abundant facial hair streaming away from angry eyes and red mouth.
Pat gingerly knelt by Mike, watching as the werewolf played with his food. He was changing too, expanding out of his clothes, skin mottling crimson, jagged and grinding teeth forming in his foot-wide mouth. He popped a lump of granite into his gob, and began to chew it to powder.
‘Ah, Moike, me boy,’ said the Big Red Rock-Eater…
Terry’s claws penetrated his cheeks, and a killing growl built up in his throat. Mike felt death catch in his throat.
‘…Oi bet ya feel a roight tit now.’
3
‘The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass,’ Jenny read, brass-bound Bible heavy on her knees, as she sat outside Beloved’s rooms. ‘Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein…’
This morning, the sun had risen on a changed world. Knowledge had been granted Beloved, and He had passed it to His Brethren.
‘…for the Time is at hand.’
She set the Bible down, open to Revelations. Standing, she was nervous, unsure. Knees tingling from sitting so long, her whole body felt funny, on the edge of elation. The waiting was nearly over. She still had last doubts to overcome. The bulk of humanity would be cast into the Pit. Parents, schoolfriends, people she’d known all her life. All doomed unredeemably. Only the Chosen would ascend. On such terms, how could she bear to accept her own salvation?
Today, there had been no regular early-morning services. Beloved remained in His rooms with the Sister-Love. His last Sister-Love. Jenny, their handmaiden, waited. She had come close to being Beloved’s last and most favoured, but there was no disappointment in her heart. She was proud simply to be the handmaiden.
The Brethren were awake, intent on their purpose. Nothing had been said but everyone knew. Few had been able to sleep. Through the night, she’d heard them. They’d be travelling together, but most had taken the opportunity to be alone with themselves a last time. Jenny imagined she heard their thoughts rustling throughout the Agapemone. Hopes and fears, prayers and curses.
The sun was risen. This was the Last Day.
Mick had gathered most of the Chosen in the chapel, but several had their own paths to pursue, and were by themselves, praying intently, searching for something. From her position at Beloved’s door, Jenny saw the stairs and the landings that wound through the house. Marie-Laure was abased two storeys down, forehead to the carpet, arms cast out, wailing. Derek was looking in all the rooms, searching for Wendy. No one had seen Beloved’s first Sister-Love since yesterday. Jenny wondered if she’d been transported by the rapture, removed without suffering to Heaven as a recompense for all she had endured upon Earth.
It was hot with a dry heat that grew as if the heart of the house were an invisible furnace. Cracks spread as if the trapped heat were swelling, pushing bricks apart, straining wood. Plaster dust danced in the sunlight flooding from the cupola. Floorboards complained as they stretched. With a gunshot report, a nail burst out of the floor yards along the landing, force spent in the folds of a carpet. Before the elevation of the Agapemone, the community’s earthly form would have to be smashed. There’d be resurrection in the flesh, but all the other things would be left behind, destroyed. Jenny loved this old building, but knew it would be nothing compared to the palaces of Paradise.
Jenny knew she was summoned to His side. Bowing, she opened the door and entered. She was surrounded by a formless, sourceless Light and, heart pumping, looked up. A warm breeze—light in motion—spread her hair. Beloved stood by His bed, arrayed in white, eyes aflame. Taller, earthly form transcended, He was complete, the Lord God in all His forms. Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Lion and Lamb; Gentle Saviour of the Chosen, and Righteous Scourge of the Damned; Love Everlasting, Mercy Unknown and Wrath of the Lord.
She sank to her knees as if a weight had settled on her shoulders, bending forwards to present the nape of her neck. Even if she shut her eyes, Light was all around, cleansing her soul. She rejoiced in the Light that was Love transformed. She’d been unsteady, fearful that the Light would be too much for her poor flesh, but, in a calming instant, the cares of her body were washed away and she lost all sense of frailty, standing as if floating, the flame of her heart kindled for ever.
Forcing her eyes open and her head up, Jenny saw the Light was a solid thing, shaped around Beloved like a high-backed armchair. There was a rainbow about the throne, the Light split into its elements, then sucked into a mass that was at once black and white, all colours and no colour. Beloved floated above the seat, on invisible cushions. He settled, body blending with the Light. Unconsuming fire burned around Him. The Light, as pure and delighting as an angel’s kiss, didn’t hurt her eyes. Jenny was at the point of rapture.
Hazel was in Beloved’s bed, sleeping the sleep of the innocent, sheets wrinkled over her. She’d become as a little child, Jenny knew. It was her duty to help Hazel through the battle
to come, to help the Sister-Love stand by the Lamb.
A thundercrack sounded, and the wall beside Beloved’s bed exploded out, bricks showering into the room beyond. Behind Jenny, the door was hurled off its hinges and over the landing banister, falling four storeys. The doorjamb splintered and burst, tearing chunks of wall with it. The ceiling went concave, beams bending, roof above lifting. Sunlight lanced in through gaps in the tiles and rents in the ceiling, drawn to focal points within the throne’s back, making a halo around Beloved’s head.
Others ventured into Beloved’s rooms. Mick, Marie-Laure, Janet, Kate. All were driven to their knees, crawling forwards to worship. No one spoke, but there was music—trumpets and a choir—coming from nowhere, from Beloved, from everywhere at once. It was like nothing earthly, the music of Paradise. Behind Beloved, a section of the exterior wall dissolved like ice in the sun, and Jenny saw tree branches, blue skies, a white curl of cloud. Sun flooded the room, and was sucked into the Light. Beloved’s halo grew, pulsing like a living thing.
Marie-Laure threw herself forwards, at Beloved’s feet, and babbled in delirium, kissing the throne, face disappearing into Light. Mick sagged against Jenny, eyes staring, lips drawn back over his teeth, heart bursting. Janet kept repeating, ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.’ Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle, Jenny remembered.
On the floor, seven flames jetted up like geysers from Aladdin lamps in the pattern of the Plough. Most of the walls were gone now, the Chosen crowded into the space, those on the landing pressing close. Beams were broken, but the roof, if it fell, fell outwards. Beloved kept the debris from crushing the Chosen, casting it aside harmlessly. Electrical wires stretched in the wreck of the ceiling, and the shaded lightbulb burst. The whole mess was thrown out through the gap in the roof, clattering out of sight.
The trumpets sounded, a call to arms. Mick was jolted by Light, and fell, face up, before Jenny. Face red and swollen with blood, rips in his cheeks and around his eyes, he was gone, transported from his body. Just empty meat, he was consumed by Light, the seven flames bursting from his body, every scrap of his flesh gone in an instant.