Uncanny Kingdom: An Eleven Book Urban Fantasy Collection (Uncanny Kingdom Omnibus 1)

by David Bussell

  Shaking with adrenalin, I came up on my knees and slithered out from under the train, exiting through the gap between the carriage and the platform. For a while I just lay there on my back panting. I had just witnessed a bona-fide miracle after all – a death-defying escape worthy of Houdini himself.

  When I opened my eyes, I found an elderly gentleman stood over me, looking down with a broad, pearly smile. He was dressed in an Underground uniform, though not the blue shirt and orange hi-vis combo I’d grown used to seeing. His outfit was a black, single-breasted suit with gold trim and polished buttons, all topped off with a flat brimmed cap.

  ‘You okay there, sonny?’ he asked, offering me his hand.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I told him, still trembling. ‘And I’ll be even better once I figure out who shoved me under a moving train.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about that,’ the old man told me, smiling benignly. ‘That’s all in the past now.’

  With all due respect, I assured him, it really didn’t feel that way. In fact, it still felt pretty bloody pertinent at that point. Maybe the old feller was used to seeing people bumped onto the tracks, but the sensation was new on me.

  ‘You’ve got cameras, right?’ I asked. ‘One of those big banks of monitors you can check?’

  ‘Sure we do, sonny. Now why don’t you head on up the lift there? There are some folks upstairs waiting to help you.’

  He helped me to my feet and smoothed down the lapels of my suit. I was pretty shaken up still, but the old guy had a real calming effect on me. ‘Up the lift there?’ I parroted. ‘Waiting to help me?’

  He gave me that smile again and my eyes followed the sweep of his hand to the station’s Way Out sign.

  ‘Good luck, sonny,’ he said, and shook me warmly by the hand.

  I made my way to the lift, waited for it to arrive and climbed aboard. I was surprised to find the interior decorated in wall-to-wall gold, as though Transport for London had decided to splash out and hire King Tut’s interior designer. Had it always been that way? I didn’t think so, but then I’d never been the most observant of guys. When your business is death, sometimes you don’t pay enough attention to the living world.

  I realised I was trembling, skin cold and damp, a mixture of adrenalin and shock coursing around my body. Someone had tried to murder me. Me!

  The doors swished closed and the lift began its climb to street-level. I stood listening to the piped muzak, trying to get my shakes under control. I recognised the song that was playing. Was that… no, it couldn’t be… was that Bruce Dickinson? It was! Bruce Dickinson singing Iron Maiden, my absolute favourite Iron Maiden song. Holy shit! What were the chances?

  The lift continued to ascend. For about five more minutes in fact. Surely that wasn’t possible? The trip usually only took about thirty seconds. Had they built some extra storeys on the station that I didn’t know about?

  Eventually, the lift came to a cushioned halt, pinged and opened its doors to reveal a place I’d never seen before. This wasn’t the ticket hall of Mornington Crescent station. Matter of fact, this wasn’t even Camden.

  The first thing that hit me was a smell like fresh pine, and not the kind that comes in a spray can. Stretching out before me was a long, bright corridor – bright enough to make you squint. The place was spotless. I dare say it was even cleaner than how Sarah kept our place, and that’s saying something.

  A beautiful, raven-haired woman in a skintight, red cocktail dress stood balancing a tumbler on a silver tray. A whiskey sour if I wasn’t mistaken. The woman was exactly my type, and the drink too. Something very peculiar was going down.

  ‘Good day, sir,’ she said, greeting me in a cut-glass accent. ‘You’ve had yourself quite a tumble, haven’t you?’

  She handed me the cocktail as I exited the lift, and I snatched it from her and had myself a substantial swig.

  Yep, a whisky sour.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, wiping my mouth, ‘I needed that. Some absolute shit trench just tried to murder me.’

  ‘Yes, sir. If you’d like to head down the corridor and go through the door at the end there, you’ll be all set.’

  ‘Where am I?’ I asked.

  ‘Head on through that door and all will be explained,’ she said, cocking a hip.

  ‘But—’

  ‘—Through the door, sir. Do hurry along now.’

  5

  I emerged through the door into some kind of waiting room. It was a far cry from the one at my dentist’s office though. Instead of fluorescent strip lights, the room was suffused with a warm, celestial glow that leant the place a bit of a dreamlike quality.

  Rather than posters of rotting molars, the walls were decorated with murals of beaches depicting beautiful, turquoise waves rolling gently onto shores of idyllic sand. And instead of coffee tables heaving under piles of outdated fitness magazines, there were refreshment stands brimming with exotic fruit juices and baskets of delicious, healthy muffins. About the only thing that was the same were the chairs, dozens upon dozens of them, full of people sat in neatly arranged rows.

  There were plenty of spaces for me to take a seat, but being as I didn’t know what I was supposed to be waiting for, I thought it prudent to enquire with the receptionist. As I approached the front desk, a fifty-something woman with silver hair, high green eye shadow, and a kind face looked up at me through a pair of pince-nez.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ she asked, batting her lashes and making her eyelids flash like Kermit’s belly.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘I was wondering if you could tell me what’s going on. I was in an accident just now, well, not an accident, an attempted murder, and—’

  ‘Name, please?’

  I told her, and she pulled my file from a cabinet and set it to one side. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I just need to know how to get—’

  But before I could finish, she pointed me to a ticket dispenser attached to a pillar behind me. ‘Just take a number and you’ll be called momentarily.’

  ‘A number for what? I don’t even know what I’m doing here.’

  Instead of answering, she handed me a pamphlet. Confused, I flipped it over and scanned the title. It read, So, You’re Dead…

  I laughed. What else was I supposed to do?

  ‘What’s this about?’ I asked.

  ‘Try not to think of it as an ending,’ she said, all peaches and cream, ‘think of it as... a change in your state of being.’ I narrowed my eyes at her, but she only beamed back at me. ‘If you’re having trouble, why don’t you talk to one of the others?’ she suggested.

  ‘Others?’ I looked around the room at the strangers surrounding me. I started to see some familiar faces among them. Pete Burns from that Eighties band, Dead or Alive. The guy who played Manuel in Fawlty Towers. Alan fucking Rickman.

  But they were all dead, weren’t they? Stiffs. Bereft of life. Resting in peace. Shuffled off their mortals coils. Run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible.

  And that meant...

  God damn it.

  ‘There must be some mistake,’ I told the receptionist, suddenly flushed.

  She sighed gently and aimed a painted fingernail at a sign that simply read, THERE HAS BEEN NO MISTAKE.

  Well, I wasn’t having any of that. I gave her a piece of my mind, let me tell you; a whole bloody fistful of it. She wouldn’t be swayed though. For some reason quite beyond me, she remained entirely sure that I was dead.

  ‘You didn’t think it all convenient that the train just... passed over you?’ she asked, finally beginning to lose her patience.

  It did seem a tad unlikely, I’ll give her that, so I changed the conversation. ‘What are you saying then?’ I asked, whirling around and flailing my arms in the air. ‘That I’m in purgatory?’

  ‘Hardly,’ she whispered, in a transparent bid to have me do the same. ‘This is the waiting room for the afterlife.’

  Oh, simple as that. Nothing major. Just a waiting room. For the afte
rlife.

  I wasn’t having it.

  ‘Listen, love,’ I told her, ‘if you’re going to muck me about, at least get your facts straight. When a person dies a traumatic death like the one I supposedly did, their spirit stays earthbound until their killer is brought to justice.’ I mean come on, she must have at least seen that Demi Moore movie with all the sexy pottery. ‘Trust me,’ I said, ‘I know these things. I’m an exorcist by trade.’

  ‘Sir, according to our records, you are an ex-exorcist. And no, I did not stutter.’

  I held up a finger to get a word in, but she barrelled on.

  She flipped through my file. ‘The only reason you’re not haunting Mornington Crescent station right now is because He wants to talk to you especially.’

  There was a real note of menace in that last sentence. He? Especially? What the hell was that supposed mean?

  ‘If it’s all the same with you,’ I said, ‘I’d rather be getting back to the whole living thing. I’ve got a wife back home who loves me very much. Well, I have a wife. Sometimes.’

  The receptionist took off her glasses, pinched the bridge of her nose and spoke to me very slowly, as though she were carving her words in granite. ‘Sir, are you going to take a seat, or are we going to have a problem?’

  Sensing that was exactly what was about to occur, two burly security guards stepped up, biceps ballooning from the sleeves of their crisp, white shirts. Who knew God had bouncers? Seemed a bit suspect to me. What’s an all-powerful deity need with a couple of wide-necked doormen? It’s like the Pope riding around in his bullet-proof Popemobile of his: either the Lord Almighty has his shit on lock, or he’s as helpless as the rest of us.

  Anyway, I have to say, I wasn’t much enjoying the reception I was getting so far. If this really was the staging area for the Great Hereafter, I’d be leaving the place a pretty iffy review on TripAdvisor.

  I backed away from the two pituitary cases, hands raised in surrender. ‘Okay, fellers,’ I said, trying to act nonchalant. ‘I’ll take a number...’

  Their eyes followed me to the ticket dispenser, and then to my chair. I begrudgingly took a seat next to a young man in his twenties with a neat haircut and a cleft chin. ‘What are you in for?’ I asked him.

  ‘Cancer,’ he replied.

  I shook my head in commiseration. ‘Gets us all in the end, doesn’t it? Well, except me, apparently. They’re telling me I got flattened by a train.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  We chatted some more. Just two dead guys, chewing the fat, you know how it is.

  ‘So, what do you reckon comes next?’ I asked the bloke.

  ‘I dunno,’ he replied, then opened his pamphlet to a page showing a veritable paradise; a bright blue sky over a lush green meadow surrounded by snow-capped mountains. ‘I just hope I go there. You know, to the Good Place.’

  ‘I’m sure you will,’ I told him. ‘A young guy, dead from cancer? You’ll be a shoo-on, mate.’

  He sucked some air through his teeth. ‘Yeah, but it’s not like I was always on my best behaviour. Not my whole life. I mean, we all make mistakes, don’t we?’

  ‘What are we talking about here?’ I asked. ‘Did you rob someone? Steal another guy’s girlfriend? Jesus Christ, you weren’t a Two Broke Girls fan, were you?’

  He laughed. ‘Man, of all the places you shouldn’t blaspheme…’

  He had a point. I looked across the room to see the two muscle-heads giving me hate-rays, and elected to keep the volume down.

  ‘So?’ said the guy next to me, ‘what about you? You going through the pearly gates?’

  It was a good question. I was brought up Catholic, paid my taxes (mostly) and it’s not like I’d ever murdered anyone. On the other hand, I’d dabbled with the dark arts and still had a couple of LoveFilm DVDs sat at home collecting dust. And then there was the way that receptionist spoke to me, like a supply teacher about to send me to the headmaster’s office. I couldn’t shake the idea that I wasn’t going to the Good Place at all. And if I wasn’t going there, where did that leave me?

  I suddenly decided I’d rather not meet the man behind the curtain.

  I looked across the room to find the two heavies looking the other way. They were distracted by Lemmy from Motorhead, who’d apparently been sat waiting since 2015 and was becoming quite upset about it.

  ‘See you later, pal,’ I told the kid next to me. ‘Good luck with the interview.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I don’t know, mate. Anywhere but here.’

  The only other exit from the room led through a set of giant doors that were sure to lead me into more trouble, so I double-checked the coast was clear and started making for the lift I came up in. As I sidled across the room, a voice called out. The Receptionist had spotted me sneaking away and raised the alarm.

  ‘You there! Stay where you are!’

  I ignored her, making good with my legs and scrambling down a gangway between two rows of chairs. The guards cannonballed after me, yelling for me to stop, but I carried on regardless. The rest of the waiting room’s occupants froze as I made my escape bid, all except for one, who stuck out his leg and sent one of the guards sprawling across the floor.

  ‘Rebel, rebel!’ the man called after me.

  From the look I caught over my shoulder, I’m pretty sure it was David Bowie, or at least a Bowie impersonator. Probably the latter, now I think about it. Anyway, I flashed the bloke a thumbs-up, ran off down the corridor, passed the bit of fluff in the cocktail dress, and threw myself into the lift, which I was pleased to find ready and waiting.

  I turned back to see the remaining security guard barrelling in my direction, the size of a bloody Coke machine. I slammed my palm against the button for the ground floor about a half-dozen times. Finally, the lift door slid shut just in time to stop the guard grabbing me by the lapels and dragging me back the way I came, which I was pretty grateful for, all things considered. The guard pounded his fists on the other side of the door, leaving great big divots in the thing. This guy was no angel, that was for sure. I jabbed the button to send the lift down again, but the bastard thing wouldn’t budge.

  ‘Come on!’ I screamed, praying to God then realising the futility of it.

  I don’t know what possessed me, but instead of pounding the button some more I started to concentrate on it. Hard. Really hard. Willing it to work. Demanding it stop buggering about and send me home. I channelled everything I had into that stupid button, and only when I was absolutely sure it had gotten the message did I finally make my move. I put my palm to it, gently this time, like I was laying on hands.

  And the lift’s Down light lit up.

  Hallelujah! By this point the door to the lift looked like shredded tin foil, so I was pretty glad when it shuddered to life and began its downward descent. Well, until it started dropping like its cord had been cut.

  ‘Going down,’ spoke a piped-in voice as the lift dived into the depths.

  Metal twisted and buckled, screaming like a kitten petted by Freddy Kreuger. As the g-force pushed me to the ceiling, I felt the temperature turn suddenly hotter, as though I were plunging into the bowels of hell itself.

  This really was turning into one of those days.

  BANG.

  There was a terrific explosion and everything went dark. The fact that I was able to observe this led me to believe that I’d somehow managed to survive. This came as quite a shock, as I’m sure you’ll agree.

  I lay flat, stunned, not daring to move for all the broken bones I must have sustained. Eventually, I worked up enough bravery to wiggle my fingers. Oddly, they seemed to still be attached to me. Even more surprisingly, they moved just fine, and didn’t cause me the least bit of pain. I used my still-attached fingers to feel for my head, which was also where it was meant to be. Hell of a thing.

  The darkness subsided as the smoke from the crash cleared, and I found myself lying among the pancaked heap of metal that used to be a lift; a regular lift
now, not a gold-plated one. I was back where I’d started, in Mornington Crescent Tube station.

  I staggered to my feet and called for help, but no one lifted a finger. I surveyed my body to check for damage, but I looked fine, not a mark on me. Christ, even the suit I was wearing was still in good nick. I was lost for words, and for thoughts, or at least any that made sense. I was in fine fettle. Perfect fettle. I put a hand to my chest to still my beating heart, but it wasn’t racing at all. Matter of fact, I couldn’t even feel the thing.

  A crowd gathered around the crash site, hands over their mouths, staring at the devastation before them. Not one of them was looking at me though. It’s like I wasn’t there. Like I was invisible. That’s when the pieces finally fell into place.

  I couldn’t be seen, I wasn’t injured and I didn’t have a heartbeat.

  An existential dread came over me that left me feeling like someone had packed my guts in ice.

  I was a frigging ghost, wasn’t I?

  No Wayze, Swayze.

  6

  So, apparently I’d escaped the afterlife and snuck back to Earth as a ghost. Yay for me. I don’t know how I pulled it off exactly, but somehow I’d found a way to take a shit on about six-thousand years of God’s holy law. In case you're wondering how I did it—perhaps hoping you can use the information to duck the reaper’s blade when your time comes—I’m sorry to say your guess is as good as mine. I wish I could tell you, I really do, but I’ve got nothing.

  The best guess I have is that it has something to do with my job. Spend fifteen years mucking about with tallow candles and pentacles and you’re going to learn a thing or two about life and death. I mean, how many spirits have I sent to the Great Beyond in my time. Hundreds? Thousands? You lose track after a while. It all starts to become routine in the end—business as usual—bust a ghost, grab some lunch, lather, rinse, repeat.