The Suburban Book of the Dead - Armageddon III: The Remake (Armageddon Trilogy 3)

by Robert Rankin

  Laura studied her exquisite finger nails. Opening crates wasn’t really her ‘thing’.

  ‘Jonathan,’ Laura purred. ‘This stuff. Did you invent it?’

  ‘All my own work.’ The lad adjusted the torque of three screws in the top of an inter-rositor of advanced design.

  ‘So only you can assemble it correctly?’

  ‘Only me. What are you on about?’

  ‘Well, I was just thinking. There’s so much of it and so little time. Couldn’t you get one of your copies to help you?’

  ‘Oh no, they’re single-function only. I have to do all this myself.’

  ‘I rather thought so.’ Laura smiled to herself and leaned forwards to pry open the packing case. A keen observer, or possibly any male over the age of twelve, might well have noticed the small hand-gun nestling in her cleavage. Jonathan was a bit too busy, though.

  ‘Attention Police Headquarters. We don’t have all day. Release your prisoners now and make it easy on yourselves.’

  Cecil crept up behind Sam and poked him with his over-sized weapon. ‘All loaded up sir. Shall I blast the bastards?’

  ‘Not just yet. Who do we have in the cells?’

  ‘Usual complement from central casting. A drunk who takes his orders from a higher source. A pimp who’s “gonna be walking” as soon as his solicitor gets here. A brace of homeboys in headbands and the Count of Monte Cristo. Same old crowd.’ ‘No terrorists?’

  ‘None, sir.’

  ‘Fetch me my bullhorn, officer.’

  ‘Aw sir. You’re not going to try and reason with them? Let me blast the bastards.’

  ‘Fetch me my bullhorn!’

  ‘Spoil sport.’

  A convoy of five trucks moved out from MTWTV. The leading lorry was a large and swanky affair. A sort of luxury office suite on wheels. In it, seated around a grand-looking boardroom table in splendid high-backed chairs, were Mojo and Debbie Nixon, their agents, managers and solicitors. The head of MTWTV, his private secretary, right and left-hand men, accountants, concubines and confidants. Intense conversation was on the go, centered around product placement.

  ‘The way I see it,’ the head of MTWTV drew upon his big fat cigar. ‘We’re talking major marketing strategies here. Tell me Mojo, when your kid got snatched by the aliens, was he wearing any brand-name designer-label clothing?’

  ‘Barry.’ I pulled the little guy from my pocket and set him down on my desk. ‘It’s you.’

  ‘It’s me, chief. Barry to the rescue. Back from my vacation at glorious unsunny Bucket World. Refreshed, revived and reinvigorated. And really cheesed off about being left out of the action for so long. My agent is going to have plenty to say about this, I can tell you.’

  ‘Agent? I didn’t know you had an agent.’ And I didn’t. But then Barry has more sides to him than the Sunday Football League.

  ‘Agent? Did I say agent? I meant of course my . . . er . . . ageratum.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘Ageratum, chief. American tropical houseplant. Close personal friend.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I do. So how have you been making out without me, then? The going been getting pretty tough, I bet.’

  ‘Not a bit of it. I’ve nearly got the whole case sewn up. Piece of cake.’ I made a gesture that had more breeziness and gay abandon to it than a freezer full of fellators. The way I figured it; the little guy knew how much I’d missed him. And he knew I knew he knew. And he knew how much I needed him to wind up the case. And he knew I know he knew that too. But he also knew I have a hard bitten, tough as old boots, ice cool and unemotional image to keep up. He knew all this and he knew I knew it. Barry and me had an almost mystical rapport when it came to stuff like this. So the one thing he didn’t expect from me was a thank you.

  ‘No chance of a thank you, then? You ungrateful palooka.’

  ‘What’s that, Barry?’

  ‘Nothing, chief.’

  ‘OK.’ Rex wiped his mouth with a napkin. ‘You’re running the show. What do we do now?’

  ‘Well, I’m for another round of toast,’ said Chico.

  ‘And I’d like some more milk,’ said Harpo. ‘But I’d like some of me mum’s better.’

  ‘All well and good. But I want to know exactly what’s really going on here. I can piece some of it together, but you know the rest. I’ll help you, but I have to know it all. Are you going to tell me?’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask.’ Chico sipped coffee. ‘Of course I’ll tell you. Lean over here and let me whisper.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Rex shook his head. ‘This time I want to hear it out loud and see it in print.’

  ‘Show me that map again.’ Johnny Dee snatched the thing from Ed Kelley. ‘We’re lost, aren’t we?’

  ‘No, we’re not. I know exactly where we are.’

  ‘You lying git.’

  ‘I’m not. See that manhole cover up there?’

  ‘I see it.’

  “That’s just outside the Butcher Building.’

  Johnny Dee studied the map of the Presley City sewerage system.

  ‘You lying git,’ he said again.

  “This is Police Chief Sam Maggott.’ Sam shouted through the bullhorn. ‘Identify yourselves.’

  ‘We are the Children of the Revolution. 42nd Street chapter.’

  ‘What do you want from us?’

  ‘We want you to release all your prisoners.’

  ‘Let me blast the bastards, sir.’

  ‘Shut up, Cecil.’

  ‘Who are you telling to shut up? And my name’s not Cecil, it’s Kevin.’

  ‘I didn’t mean you. Do you have a specific prisoner you’d like released? We’d hate to lose all of them. Especially the Count of Monte Cristo.’

  ‘Send out Laura Lynch.’

  ‘Laura Lynch?’ Sam switched off his bullhorn. ‘Cecil, do we have a Laura Lynch here?’

  ‘We did.’ Cecil put on a lopsided smirk and giggled in his silly way. ‘Her and me “took tea with the parson” in the men’s locker-room a couple of days back.’

  ‘You disgusting pervert. You can be excommunicated for that, you know.’ Sam switched on his bullhorn again. ‘Hello, Children of the Revolution. Laura Lynch has left the building. She is no longer here. Now lay down your weapons and come out with your hands up. You are all under arrest.’

  ‘Fat chance.’ Kevin pressed buttons and further sections of Police Headquarters fell into ruination.

  Sam switched off his bullhorn. ‘Blast the bastards!’ he told Cecil.

  11.00

  The dirigibles had drifted away and the morning sky was dear and cloudless above the Butcher Building as the long black air-car dropped silently on to the roof. The driver’s door hissed open and the Anti-Rex stepped out. He consulted his watch. 10.59 and counting down.

  ‘Dee and Kelley will be in position by now,’ he inaccurately informed himself. ‘Everything is proceeding according to plan.’

  Battle waged wildly around Police Headquarters. Kevin’s commandeered military vehicle had some pretty awesome firepower. But Presley’s finest were now coming into their own with big guns blazing. Shells burst in many directions other than those intended. There had, as yet, been no loss of life. But there was no shortage of gung ho machismo posturing.

  Somewhere, right in the middle of no-man’s land in fact, a manhole cover flipped aside. ‘Bloody noisy up there,’ Ed complained.

  ‘Bit of thunder probably.’ Johnny prodded Ed in the trouser seat. ‘Go out and have a look around.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to get wet. I’ll just take a peep.’ Ed took a peep. A ricocheting bullet took the top off his head.

  ‘Which brings us to the matter of World Rights.’ The head of MTWTV sucked upon his cigar. ‘Naturally we shall expect to hold these. But I know you’ll agree that the up-front payment and future percentage scales are most favourable to you both. Cigar, Mojo?’ ‘I don’t mind if I do.’

  ‘Excuse me.’ The driver slid as
ide a little panel and addressed the assembled company. ‘Sorry to interrupt, but there seems to be some kind of disturbance going on around Police HQ. Should I stop and check it out?’

  ‘No.’ The station head spoke through a plume of cigar smoke. ‘We have important negotiations in progress here. Take a detour.’

  ‘As you say.’ The driver hung a left and left the combat zone.

  ‘Look at my head.’ Ed bobbed up and down in fury. ‘I just get my ears straight and this has to happen. It just won’t do.’

  ‘You go up there and tell them,’ Johnny urged. ‘I’ll back you up.’

  ‘You lying git.’

  ‘I will. Go on. Tell them.’

  ‘I bloody well will, too.’

  Ed climbed from the manhole. A bouncing grenade blew off his right arm. Ed bitterly regarded the gory stump. ‘You’re making me mad,’ he howled.

  ‘You’re telling me what?’ Rex howled. ‘This is all a what?’

  ‘A game.’ Chico offered Rex the kind of comforting smile Rex had offered him the night before. It was equally uncomforting. ‘A game. The game in fact. The only game in town, and you’re in it. Part of it.’

  ‘Do you mean like “life’s a funny old game”?’

  ‘No, I mean like “life’s a great big virtual-reality computer game being played with real people”.’

  ‘It’s the Phnaargs.’ Rex made a foul face. ‘It’s them behind it. Has to be.’

  ‘No, Rex. More powerful than them.’

  ‘More powerful than them?’ Rex scratched at his chin. A look of enlightenment, the like of which we haven’t seen in this entire book, appeared on his face. ‘The Gods. It’s the Gods.’

  ‘More powerful.’

  ‘More powerful? Who could be more powerful than the Gods?’

  ‘Their accountants, that’s who. Care for another coffee?’

  ‘Who’s that guy?’ Sam Maggott peeped through his shrapnel hole. ‘Where did he come from?’

  ‘Came out of a manhole, sir.’ Cecil hefted his over-sized weapon. ‘Shall I blast him?’

  ‘Looks like he just got blasted. Blast them.’

  ‘Sure thing.’ Cecil inserted another high-calibre short-range evil-doer into his assault cannon and pulled the trigger. The missile whistled past Ed Kelley, setting his clothes on fire.

  ‘I’m losing my temper!’ stormed the smoker.

  ‘Did you see that?’ Kevin gestured through a gun port. ‘They fired on an unarmed one-armed civilian. Strafe the blighters.’

  ‘Now just you all see here.’ Ed waved a charred arm in the air. Rapid machine-gun fire from the military vehicle engulfed him.

  ‘Right!’ screamed the ventilated Ed. ‘That’s the last straw.’

  The Anti-Rex climbed over the roof parapet of the Butcher Building and then proceeded down the wall, fly fashion. It wasn’t a pleasing thing to behold. But then, he wasn’t a particularly pleasing individual.

  I stood in the alleyway and took a shufty through my police-issue 200 x 6000 macroscopic laser-prism binoculars. ‘There’s a guy crawling down the wall up there,’ said I. ‘You wanna take a look, Barry?’

  ‘No, chief. I can make him out just fine, thanks. Now, as soon as the action switches to the next scene, let’s make a run for the Butcher Building. Then I’ll try and fix it for you to have your roof-top ending.’

  ‘Gotcha.’

  ‘Not that you deserve it.’

  ‘What’s that Barry?’

  ‘I said now, chief.’

  ‘AAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!’ went Ed Kelley, who was, as they say, going through changes.

  The arch-demon Balberith gets a mention in Joseph Glanvil’s Saducismus Triumphus. A volume bound in human skin which had once passed through the hands of a certain Jack Doveston. In it old Joe writes:

  . . . by eck as like lad I’ll tell thee this. Yon Balberith is reet big orrid ruffy beast wi gurt black beard full o rats and green teeth gnashing and a grinding and flames coming out o bum that’d take wallpaper off front parlor. And if thee don’t eat thy black pudding reet this minute he’ll come doon chimney and out o feature coal-effect bar fire and gobble thee op. Or I’ll go t’ foot of our stairs. Put kettle on, mother.

  It probably loses something in the translation from the original Latin.

  The beast which now tore its way from Ed Kelley’s shattered human form didn’t look like a lot of laughs. It was abominable, atavistic and atrocious, big, black and brutal, cruel, cold and callous, and so on. It rose, a good eight feet in height, a shimmering energy body pulsating with pure malignant evil.

  ‘I don’t like the look of that,’ croaked Sam Maggott. ‘Blast it, Cecil.’

  ‘I’m getting a bit low on ammo, sir. Best let the guys in the military vehicle take a pop, eh.’ ‘What in BAH-REAH’s name is that?’ Kevin gaped through the gun-port.

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ a Child of the Revolution replied. ‘You’re the one with the speaking part, you figure it out.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Kevin. ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘We want proper parts,’ another Child spoke up, ‘or we’re going home.’

  ‘This is hardly the time. Come on gang.’

  Silence reigned in the military vehicle. But not without.

  ‘Listen gang. Be fair.’ Kevin switched on the public address system and shouted into it. ‘Send out Laura Lynch!’

  ‘Eat my shit!’ cried Balberith, raising long black talons to the sky.

  ‘Er . . . um.’ Kevin dithered, but not for long. ‘She clearly isn’t in there,’ he told his nameless companions.‘I think we should try the Butcher Building now.’ He brrrrm’d the engine and put the vehicle into reverse.

  ‘Look at that!’ Sam did a silly dance. ‘They’re getting away. Officer Cecil, get the cars out.’

  ‘We’re going in pursuit, sir? You have to be kidding.’

  “The cars, officer.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  Balberith was up and running. His reptilian feet, with their three splayed claws, ripped chunks from the tarmac and left more enigmatic impressions for scholars to wonder over later. His long black scaled body rose into the air and fell upon the now swerving military vehicle. ‘Let’s get gone,’ cried Kevin.

  ‘After them!’ cried Sam Maggott.

  ‘What’s all the hubbub, bub?’ asked Johnny Dee. ‘Ed? Hello? Where are you?’

  He stuck his head out of the manhole and a police car drove over it.

  17

  67. And BAH-REAH spake unto Elvis saying wisely, ‘I think we’ve screwed up here, chief.’

  The Suburban Book of the Dead

  The Anti-Rex crawled down the wall of the Butcher Building and in through an open window. He dusted down his dark and dapper duds, drew out a really splendid hand-gun, which appeared to have been borrowed from the Robocop props cupboard, and released the safety catch

  One floor above, a light blinked from the implant on Jonathan’s left wrist, but he tinkered on with his impossible screwdriver. Information exchanged and fed into his cranium. Without looking up from his work, he flipped the top from his left thumb and spoke into the minuscule microphone housed within. ‘Intruder in room B, floor sixty-five. Seek and destroy. The intruder is AAA category. Proceed as previously informed. Also we have another, bumbling around in the lobby. DDD category. Best put a stop to him as well.’

  The armour-clad military vehicle was making considerable headway. Presley City’s up-town morning traffic was less than a match for it. The steel tracks ground along at a steady rate, flattening glorious highly-finned autos, scattering pedestrians and levelling lampposts.

  Inside there was a whole lot of arguing going on. Up on the roof Balberith drove his fists at the steel plate and howled obscenities, the way some of them do.

  Ahead, the MTWTV convoy was halted at a red light, and behind, Presley’s finest followed the armoured car with its onboard demon, at a leisurely and unhurried pace. ‘Get your foot down, Cecil,’ Sam shouted.

 
Cecil wasn’t keen. “There’s a speed limit in this city, sir, and as an officer of the law it’s my duty to set a good example.’

  Sam cuffed the dawdling example in the ear. ‘You cringing coward. Get your foot down.’

  ‘But sir, that’s an armoured car, bristling with hi-tech weapons and there’s that thing on its roof. It is my considered opinion that we should stay at a safe distance and await further developments.’

  ‘Get your foot down and switch on the siren.’

  ‘The siren?’ Officer Cecil crossed himself.

  ‘Now.’ The MTWTV station head sucked at his cigar. ‘We come to the matter of film rights. Obviously there is a TV movie in this. I suggest a three-parter, prime-time; how does The Harpo/Chico Story sound to you?’ He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘So shall we discuss possible actors for the lead roles?’ ‘

  ‘I’d rather like to play myself.’ Debbie fluttered her eyelashes.

  ‘And me me,’ said Mojo. ‘I’ve been taking acting lessons at the David Bowie Academy.’

  The station head nodded in agreement. ‘And what about Harpo/Chico?’

  ‘Animated model!’ said Mojo and Debbie.

  ‘My feelings entirely. But it will have to look convincing. We’ll need to hire a top animatronics team.’

  The driver slid back his little hatch. ‘Sorry to interrupt again, but the guys in the catering truck at the tail of our convoy are getting real excited. They say there’s a big army tank with a monster on its roof bearing down on them,’

  ‘Monster? What kind of monster?’

  ‘I’ll ask them, sir.’ The driver spoke into his handset. A torrent of words came in ready reply. ‘Golly, they say it’s about eight feet tall, black as pitch, covered in scales, breathing brimstone and smashing in the top of the army tank.’

  ‘I like the sound of that.’ The station head made further puffings. ‘We could write that in. Tell the catering guys to take some polaroids and email them through to us. And ask them if they can find out who’s doing the animatronics. We might well be on to something here.’