Barking

by Tom Holt

  The one thing Duncan didn’t do, for the same reason that people all over the world don’t unscrew light bulbs and jam their fingers in the sockets, was think about the people he’d left behind: Luke Ferris, for instance, or Pete, or Micky, Clive and Kevin. Or what’s-her-name, Veronica. Especially not her. He expressly and deliberately didn’t think about how he’d chosen to come here and do this so that thingummy wouldn’t die, which meant that somewhere out there she was still alive, presumably still waking up each morning and going to work and maybe possibly occasionally allowing her mind to drift, during the day’s more boring bits, and wondering, in a vague sort of a way, whatever happened to that Duncan Hughes . . . On that score, he was as self-disciplined as a Hindu mystic, single-minded as an ant. In fact, he’d got such a grip on his own brain that, if challenged to do so, he could quite possibly not have thought about an elephant.

  Maybe she missed him, too. In which case, surely it wouldn’t bloody well kill her to come looking for him, possibly even rescue him; after all, she and her chums had been quick enough to snatch him away from the Ferris Gang when they thought there was something in it for them, and there was a perfectly good window and they could fly, for crying out loud, so they wouldn’t have to fool around with scaffolding or helicopters or hang about waiting for him to grow his hair till it was seventy-three floors long. And if they were scared of heights or something, there was always good old brute force and violence - they might look all thin and willowy and left over from the 1970s but he knew from bitter personal experience that they were as strong as werewolves or possibly stronger, so bashing in a glass door and beating up a few dead people in the lobby shouldn’t present any problem. But of course, if they weren’t interested, if one of their number wasn’t constantly banging on and on about how they really ought to go and rescue poor Duncan, who was only trapped in that ghastly place because of a selfless and noble act, until the rest of them couldn’t stand it any more and were prepared to do anything just to get her to shut up—

  No. Nothing of that kind whatsoever crossed Duncan’s mind, not even for a fleeting instant. Which was just as well. A man could get depressed dwelling on stuff like that. It might even get to him to such an extent that he’d have difficulty concentrating on his work, and that would never do.

  After Duncan had been there an indefinite number of cycles, a visitor came to see him.

  ‘George,’ he said, remembering as the bald man put his tray down on the floor. One cheese sandwich and a glass of water. ‘That’s your name, isn’t it? You’re her chauffeur. I drove you into a wall or something.’

  George nodded. He was looking better now - not good, but better. The gashes in his face hadn’t healed, because only living flesh can do that; but somebody had done something clever with it along the lines of epoxy resin, body putty and wet-and-dry sandpaper. You wouldn’t notice it if you didn’t know it was there.

  ‘No hard feelings,’ George said, as Duncan made an effort to stop staring. ‘Actually, no feelings of any sort, but you know what I mean. If I could still bear a grudge, I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Ah. Well, that’s very mature of you.’

  ‘Oh, I’m very mature,’ George said. ‘Like blue cheese. Luckily, she’s got this chemical that stops me maturing any more, or else I’d leave a trail of me wherever I went. How’re you settling in?’

  Duncan thought for a moment. ‘If I concentrate on my work very hard indeed, sometimes I can forget about it for seconds at a time. Otherwise—’ He shrugged.

  ‘Wonderful thing, work,’ George agreed. ‘I brought you a new pencil, by the way. Old one must be worn down to a stub by now.’

  He laid it carefully on the floor, then stepped away from it. Duncan looked at it, but didn’t move.

  ‘She thinks of everything,’ he said.

  ‘Oh yes.’ George nodded a couple of times. It was like watching a puppet being operated by a master puppeteer; you could almost believe he was alive.

  ‘I’ve been trying to remember,’ Duncan went on. ‘Trouble is, I never liked horror movies. Always scared me stiff, even the really cheesy old black-and-white ones.’

  ‘Me too,’ George said. ‘Ironic.’

  ‘But there was one,’ Duncan went on, ‘about zombies. The hero had to kill a zombie, and I’ve been trying to remember how he went about it. I think he either cut off its head and buried it a long way away from the body, or else he drove a wooden stake through its heart.’ He glanced down quickly at the pencil. ‘One or the other, I’m sure. I mean, I’m pretty sure the stake through the heart is what you do with vampires, but maybe it works for zombies as well. I suppose you can’t help me out here?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Ah well,’ Duncan replied. ‘So, do you enjoy being Undead? Everything you hoped it’d be, career-wise?’

  George pursed his lips. ‘It’s a living,’ he said. ‘And I’ve got it better than most. I’m a trusty, you see. Great honour. Means I’ve got twenty per cent autonomous physical functions. Most of the lads are a hundred per cent controlled, but not me. It’s so I can do my job. She never learned to drive, so—’

  ‘I see.’ George turned his head sideways for a moment, and Duncan caught sight of a neat row of stitch marks. A seam. ‘And you can do other things for yourself besides driving the car? Doors, stuff like that?’

  ‘It saves her the bother. It’s not easy, controlling the movements of hundreds of thousands of bodies simultaneously. It’s marvellous, really, the way she manages it.’

  ‘Very impressive. Oh, while I think of it,’ Duncan added conversationally, ‘what’s ninety-seven plus forty-two-point-six, take away seventeen?’

  ‘I don’t do maths,’ George replied, straight-faced. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Not to worry.’ A seam; stitching. Implying that his head had been - what, sewn back on at some point? Implying in turn that someone had cut it off. But here he was. ‘Your previous existence, ’ he said. ‘Can you remember much about it?’

  ‘Not really,’ George replied. ‘Bits of it come back to me, when I’m driving, mostly. Slicker ways of changing gear, the exact balance of the clutch and accelerator, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Stuff you need for work?’

  George nodded. ‘But sometimes - well, I remember something about driving, and there’s other bits and pieces stuck to it, if you see what I mean, like things stick to your shoes and then you walk them all over the carpet. I forget them later, though. Mostly. Oh, and I can remember going through the windscreen at Le Mans at two hundred and ten miles an hour one time. Very vivid, that is. I remembered it the rest of my life.’ He grinned. According to the annoying little saying, it takes a hundred and something muscles to frown and only three to smile. Bowden Allshapes, presumably, cutting corners. ‘Not saying much, actually, since the rest of my life was about seven seconds. After that, I didn’t have anything to remember with, if you follow me.’

  ‘I remember her telling me,’ Duncan said. ‘You were a racing driver.’

  ‘Was. Now it’s mostly just sitting in traffic. And when I’m not driving, I stand in a corner.’

  Duncan turned to look at the window - blocked up again - and nodded. ‘A bit of a comedown, then.’

  ‘Less stress, though. Especially since they brought in the congestion charge. I miss some things, though. Fear, for one.’

  ‘Fear?’

  ‘Practically essential. Sharpens you up, fires up the reflexes. You try going round Marble Arch when it’s busy, not able to be afraid of anything. It’s worse than having your eyes shut.’

  So, Duncan thought: if decapitation’s been tried and failed, and if that rotten old movie had got its research right - which is unlikely, since the people who made it presumably didn’t even believe that such things as zombies exist . . . Even so.

  ‘You know what?’ he said, as he stood up and picked up the pencil. ‘Our little chat’s cheered me up no end.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh yes. You see, sitting here for hou
rs adding up these stupid numbers over and over again - knowing that they’re never ever going to balance, too, that really gets to you after a bit - really, I’d come to the conclusion that this has got to be as bad as it can possibly be. Then I listen to you, and I realise, no matter how awful it is, being alive’s still better than - well, the other thing.’

  ‘Quite right,’ George said. ‘Only, there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.’

  ‘Nothing you can do,’ Duncan said. ‘Changing the subject just for a moment, did you leave the keys in the car?’

  ‘Of course not. I may be dead, but I’m not stupid. They’re in my left-hand trouser pocket.’

  ‘Left-hand?’

  ‘Mphm.’ George walked over to the lift and touched the door. It slid open. ‘Silver Volvo. Parked right outside. Would you believe, I found a meter.’

  ‘Your lucky day,’ Duncan said, and jammed the pencil into George’s chest as hard as he could.

  It was just an average pencil, a touch under six inches long. But you only need to go in three inches to reach the heart, and what’s a pencil except a short thin wooden stick?

  Mightier than the sword, is what.

  George looked at the pencil stub sticking out of his shirt. There wasn’t much to see, apart from the little rubber on the end. No blood, of course. Then he smiled, and fell over on his face.

  Was it sheer luck that led him to fall in such as way as to block the lift door and stop it closing? Or did he, in his last second of not-life, plot a deliberate trajectory? The result was the same either way. Pausing only to snatch the file off the desk, Duncan jumped over the prone figure, fumbled in his pocket till he found the car keys, shoved him out of the way with his foot, and flattened himself against the back of the lift as the door snapped shut like sharks’ teeth.

  A lesser man, he told himself, listening to George’s wretched tale, would have told him to get a life. The exact opposite—

  Duncan watched the floor indicator as the lift went down. Not going to get away with it, he told himself, too easy . . . But the doors opened, and there across the lobby was the glass door. Visible through it was the street, bathed in amber light that glowed on the metallic paintwork of a silver Volvo. A quick dash, through the stupid door (literally through it if it wouldn’t open); then jump in the car, fire up the engine and go. He still had a wallet, he remembered, with credit cards in it; enough to buy him a certain amount of distance, though he’d need a passport for New Mexico. The destination didn’t really matter, though. Anywhere, so long as it was away—

  He shoulder-charged the glass door and bounced off it like a tennis ball.

  Landing didn’t hurt, of course, except in the cupboard under his mental stairs where he kept hope, along with all the other stuff he’d never use again but couldn’t bring himself to throw away. He’d rammed the door with the full force of his werewolf-enhanced strength, and it had chucked him back like a nightclub bouncer. Meticulous old Bowden Allshapes.

  He looked round. An alarm had gone off, and though he was pretty certain that there wasn’t another living soul in the building, that wasn’t much comfort. Of course, in the circumstances it took a special kind of malice to specify a glass door. He could see the outside world through it, clear as anything, but he couldn’t get there. Nasty old Bowden Allshapes.

  A ting noise behind him made him swivel round. The lift was on the move. He watched the floor indicator: going up, two, three, four, ting. Coming back down again, two, three—There was a reception desk. He dived behind it. No heavy books this time, no weapons of any sort. Sod.

  The lift door opened, and out came two men and a woman. You could tell they were Security by the way they walked; as if every step they took was an act of stamping on fingers clinging to a ledge. It occurred to him that, to a certain sort of mentality, a practically immortal, practically invulnerable victim would be a whole lot of fun. Lasts longer.

  Oh well, he thought.

  Security stumped round the lobby a couple of times, checked that the door wasn’t damaged, opened a walk-in cupboard to make sure he wasn’t in there hiding. They didn’t bother looking behind the desk because who in his right mind would choose to rely on such pathetically inadequate cover? One of them shut the alarm up. They stopped, looked at each other and got back in the lift. Going up, two, three, four, fifty-seven, seventy, seventy-three . . .

  Just for the hell of it, Duncan tried the door again. This time he took the longest run-up he could fit into the lobby. When the moment came to jump, he hurled himself into the air like a leaping salmon. He bounced back so hard that he ricocheted off a wall before hitting the floor. The stupid alarm went off again, of course. Ting, said the lift, smugly. Going down.

  He picked up the desk and hurled it at the door. Fortunately, he had the good sense to duck a split second later.

  He sighed, and picked up the file. Mental note: when they’d finished beating him up, he needed to ask them for another pencil. That’d be a good joke.

  He wandered over to the door for one last look before the lift came back down again. He could see George’s silver Volvo, glowing orange in the lamplight as though it had been heated in a furnace. Between it and him was a barrier he couldn’t even see, but strong enough to make all the difference. A bit like life, really.

  Well, he wouldn’t be needing the car after all, so there was no point holding on to the keys. It’d just make trouble for someone. He picked up the desk and stood it back upright again, then laid the keys on it where they’d be able to find them.

  Keys. Plural. How had George got into the building?

  The big one with the black plastic on it: that was the ignition and door key. A small, flat one: that’d be the petrol cap. The third one - long, silvery, not a car key at all. Surely not.

  Oh for crying out loud, Duncan said to himself, and unlocked the glass door.

  Ting went the lift behind him as he wrenched the door open. Not that it mattered. With the keys in his right hand and the file in his left, he hopped through, out of the building, into the street.

  And promptly dropped both the keys and the file. He hadn’t meant to. It just sort of happened automatically. That’s the thing about prehensile fingers and opposable thumbs. You only really miss them when you haven’t got them any more.

  Instead, he had paws. Four of them.

  For a tiny part of a second, he balanced on just two paws. It’s a trick that most dogs can do, standing on their hind legs, but only the specially trained ones can keep it up for very long. Of course, Duncan reflected as his forepaws hit the pavement, the window in my office, it’s been shuttered for the last couple of cycles. He looked up and saw the full moon, and howled.

  Security was right behind him, and dead people aren’t afraid of werewolves. Well, the car keys weren’t going to be much use now. Duncan grabbed the file in his teeth and broke into a run.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  In Year Ten, the maths teacher had been Mrs Hicks. The letters in front of her name implied that somewhere, at some stage, there had been a Mr Hicks, though nothing was known about him; nevertheless, he’d lodged in Duncan’s mind as a paradigm of reckless courage. There must have been a moment (candlelit restaurant, lazy summer afternoon beside the river, bright frosty morning in the park) when he’d turned to her, probably but not necessarily got down on one knee, and asked her to be his wife.

  There had been many afternoons (Wednesdays - double maths), when the yelp of Mrs Hicks’s voice had lost the atom-splitting feather of its edge and the distant whirr of maths going way over Duncan’s head had lulled him into a dreamy, meditative stupor, when he’d tried to reconstruct the scene. He had no idea what the real Mr Hicks looked like, of course, because nobody had ever seen him - Luke’s hypothesis, that she’d killed and eaten him the day after they got back from their honeymoon, was generally accepted throughout the school, so that no further speculation was necessary - but in his mind’s eye he had a clear picture of a small, thin weedy man (becaus
e that’s the type that huge women so frequently team up with), sometimes with a thin straggly ginger beard and glasses, sometimes bald, with little bleary eyes like a mole, clearing his throat nervously, presumably putting up his hand and waiting to be allowed to speak: Excuse me, miss, but . . . Then there’d be a short bit of mumbling, because Duncan really couldn’t imagine what form of words could’ve been used on that occasion. Then pan to Mrs Hicks; she scowls as she considers the request, and the little scrawny man waits for the answer, a single drop of sweat trickling its crooked, leisurely way down the full length of his nose. Then Yes, I suppose so or Well, all right, then, followed immediately by some grim imperative: But you’ve got to promise you’ll stop keeping terrapins and for pity’s sake shave off that ridiculous beard; and that’d be it. Subject closed, judges’ decision is final, no further communication will be entered into. Fast forward to a church (one side practically deserted, the other stuffed to bursting with her loud, enormous, ferocious relatives) and a great white shape barrelling up the aisle like the Bismarck bearing down on an unescorted convoy, her train frothing behind her like the incoming tide on a shallow beach.