“Bollocks,” said Danny. “Buckfutters would love to take us off the street once and for all.”
There were cheers all around the bar. I hadn’t realised until then just how busy the place was. If I’d known, I might not have climbed up onto that table for my ‘president out of Independence Day’ speech. Still, it was too late now. I was on a roll, so to speak.
“In taking that DeLorean back through time, and shagging the then-Prime Minister of Great Britain” I said. “You and your brothers altered the future.”
“You shagged John Major?” asked Marla.
“Maggie Thatcher,” corrected Sammy Barry, with no small amount of pride.
“I don’t know which is worse,” replied Marla.
“In doing such a disgusting thing, you somehow brought dinosaurs back from the dead.” I shuddered, though not at the thought of prehistoric monsters roaming the streets. It was the thought of Mrs Thatcher bereft of clothes which did it. My balls crawled up inside me, and I doubted I would ever see them again. “I don’t know how you did it, but we have to go back and fix it, before we end up as toothpaste for a T-Rex.”
“Great band, Toothpaste for a T-Rex,” said Keith the Toilet Attendant, grinning a mouthful of pearly whites. “Saw them when they supported Rabid Weasel at Covent Garden.”
“Let me get this straight,” said John, who, I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it, was my best-est friend in the whole wide world. “You’re thinking of taking that DeLorean out there, going back in time, and un-shagging Maggie Thatcher?”
“We,” I corrected him. “This is our chance to save the day. Haven’t you always wanted to rescue Buckfutt from unimaginable terrors? Have your John McClane moment, like we always talked about at our Die Hard marathons?”
“Yes, but my white vest is in the wash,” said John, and I knew it was because he was wearing his sky-blue one tonight. “I can’t go saving the day in a sky-blue vest. I’d look like a right pillock.”
“I think you’d look sexy,” said Marla, and she licked her lips and ran her perfectly-manicured fingernails over John’s bald and sweat-shiny head. I was jealous, and make no mistake about it.
“Okay, I’m ready to save the world,” said John, and he sucked in his gut and winked at Marla. “Lead the way to the DeLorean, Al. We’ve got a PM to un-shag.”
I leapt down from the table (and twisted my ankle in the process, but the little dance I did covered it pretty well, otherwise I’d have looked like a right c**t) and made my way to the bar door. People were applauding and whistling, but then they weren’t the ones about to endanger their lives, were they?
“You guys are amazing!” said Marla. “Like Cagney and Lacey, Bodie and Doyle, Dennis and Gnasher—”
“Well, we are best friends,” said John. “And best friends do crazy shit together, even if it means putting their lives at risk for a roomful of people they don’t particularly give two hoots for. Except for you, of course.”
“Of course,” said Marla.
“This is all very noble and stuff,” said Keith. “But do you think we can get a wriggle on? This isn’t my only job, you know, and I’m buggered if I’m setting foot out that door if there are prehistoric monsters a-waltzing through the village.”
I swung open the door, saw what was out there – and more importantly what wasn’t – and quickly shut it again, this time sliding the huge bolt across.
“What’s the matter?” said Danny Barry. “I thought you and your bum-chum were going to be all heroic and save the day.”
“Change of plan,” I said, moving across the bar, to where a stool and a bowl of dusty peanuts awaited me. Also something extremely alcoholic, preferably with the power to make me forget the horrors I had just witnessed beyond the pub’s doors. “Can I get something extremely alcoholic?” I asked Marla. “Preferably with the power to make me forget the horrors I have just witnessed beyond those doors?”
Marla poured me a large whiskey. “John’s round, is it?” she said.
“I believe so,” I said. “In fact, John is going to want to start a tab after I tell you of the horrors I just witnessed beyond those doors.”
“This is all very suspenseful,” said Keith. “Like something by Linford Christie.”
“Agatha,” said Marla.
“There are horrors beyond those doors that will haunt me for the rest of my natural life,” I said, mainly because the Agatha-Linford mix-up wasn’t that funny and certainly not worth dwelling upon.
“That might not be all that long,” said Willy Barry. “Swing and roundabouts, and all that.”
“What’s out there?” said John. My reliable, non-condescending best buddy in the whole wide world, John. “What did you see, and why have you gone that ungodly shade of white, man?”
“There are horrors out there that will—”
26
“Haunt you for the rest of your sodding life,” said the doctor. “You’ve said that already, and suspense is all well and good, but this has been going on for quite some time, now. It’d be nice to hear what the bloody hell you saw out there.”
“What do you think I saw out there?” I said. “I’ve been foreshadowing them for twenty-odd shagging chapters, and I almost got my balls chewed off by one in the men’s lav.”
“Dinosaurs?” said the doctor. “You expect me to believe that there were dinosaurs outside the pub?”
“Everywhere, they were. As far as the eye could see, and I could see pretty far because I hadn’t had a wank for many moons. Little Shiva Sidhu was being eaten by a T-Rex over at the corner-shop.”
“That poor girl always gets it the worse,” said the doctor. I wasn’t sure if he was patronising me or not, and so I nodded and said:
“I’d never seen a dinosaur before.”
“Apart from the one which tried to eat your nethers in the lavatory,” the doctor said.
“Yes, but that one was a rabid weasel compared to this one. This one was a big bastard, and it looked just like the one from that film with Richard Attenborough.”
“Wasn’t that an elephant man?”
“It was a T-Rex,” I said. “And it made short work of the shopkeeper’s daughter, I can tell you that much. In the short time that I was standing there in the doorway of The Fox, she was snatched up, chewed up, and swallowed.”
“Which would explain your ghostly white appearance,” said the doctor.
“Only partly,” I said. “You see, the dinosaurs weren’t the only thing that put the wind up me. The DeLorean…the DeLorean was—”
27
“What do you mean ‘gone’?” asked John. “It was there a minute ago. Those tit-headed boys in blue saw it.”
“Impound,” said Danny Barry, who had turned his attention to the fruit machine. “They’d have had it away, towed and stowed down at the impound.”
“They wouldn’t do that, would they?” I said. “Put a stone cold classic like that in amongst the Ford Escorts and Fiat Unos.”
“They once impounded a Lambo Diablo and parked it next to a Vauxhall Velox,” said Sammy Barry. “I remember it well, because I was still asleep in the Velox when they brought the Lambo in.”
“This is terrible news,” I said. “Without that DeLorean, we’re at the mercy of those beasts out there. The whole town will be dead before sun-up.”
“So you’re not going to save us all?” asked Marla. “What about the presidential speech and John McClane undergarments?”
“Of course we’re still going to save you,” I said. “We just need a new plan of action, so to speak.”
“We could always snatch the DeLorean back from the impound,” said John.
“We could!” I said. “Except I’ve left my impound blueprints at home, along with my balls of steel and police-repellent.” I scratched my head, ordered another whiskey, and said, “Now, if we had some weapons, we could take down some of those creatures out there. Unfortunately, we live in a civilised society where such things are unnecessary, and I doubt a Swis
s army knife will make much of a dent in a T-Rex.”
“Mister Sidhu’s son has a shotgun,” said John. “Remember? Mister Sidhu gave it him to rob the shop with?”
“You’re right!” I said. “So all we have to do is track down Sidhu Jnr, who is probably in hiding, might I add, and ask him for a borrow of his Remington. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“I detect a soupcon of sarcasm in there,” said John, who was often right about such things and this instance was no different.
“Well, my friend, it would take a lot of balls and a copious amount of sheer luck just to make it to the corner-shop.” I liked to think I had the balls, but I had never seen much in the way of luck. I was the only man in recorded history to have actually fallen into a barrel of tits and come up sucking a willy – it was in the paper and everything. “No, I think we’re going to have to be stealthier than that. If only invisibility cloaks were a real thing.”
While I was pondering the creation and internal workings of such a device and whether it would be possible to knock one up at short notice, the elderly couple finished their drinks, stood up, made their way across the floor – sticky with beer, as they always are – undid the slide-bolt and walked out the front door of the pub, hand-in-hand.
“Somebody stop them!” I yelled, but it was too late. Danny Barry leapt to his feet and slid the bolt back across, thusly locking the door once again. There was a an almighty roar which shook the very foundations of The Fox, and then blood and viscera splattered up the frosted-glass windows of the door, causing several of the regulars to upchuck in their own laps. “What were they thinking?” I said, incredulous.
“That was Jack and Joan Mayflower,” said Marla, sobbing into a handkerchief. “They were both riddled with Alzheimer’s.”
“They forgot what I just told them?” I said. “What’s the point of a rousing speech of the Independence Day variety if no-one is going to take it in?”
John, peering out through the one window on that side of the room, said, “I don’t think you can blame the Mayflowers for their ignorance. If it’s any consolation, they’re being ripped apart by a flock of ravenous pterodactyls.”
“Oh, my, we’re all going to die!” gasped Marla. “And me, still a virgin and whatnot.”
I don’t know why that affected me so much, but I leapt to my feet, revitalised, and said, “We are not going to die. I am going to get to that DeLorean if it is the last thing I do.” I turned to The Barry Boys, who were gathered around the fruit machine as if it was the font of all wisdom. “Since this is all your fault, I would like to ask you to volunteer your services to this cause.”
Danny Barry collected a handful of coins from the tray. “Fine,” he said. “Ask away.”
“Will you volunteer your services to this cause?”
“Not on your nelly,” said Danny, feeding coins back into the machine. “I don’t know much about dinosaurs, but what I do know is that they’re hungry bastards, often with whopping great big claws and teeth. We might be good in a fight with the rozzers, but I wouldn’t fancy our chances against a twenty-foot beast with anger issues. On this occasion, therefore, I’m afraid we’re going to have to pass.”
“Free beer for the rest of your lives if you help Al and John save the day,” said Marla. “And I’ll throw in the key to that gambler.”
The Barry Boys turned in unison, like something from a One Direction concert. I expected a key-change any moment. “Okay,” said Danny. “We’ll do it, but we’re not taking orders from that numpty and his bum-chum.”
“Fine,” I said. “You’re in charge of getting us into the impound. Once we have the DeLorean, your job is complete. You can come back to the pub to enjoy a lifetime of free booze and your own recycled money from the fruit machine. John and I will do the rest.” I paused, for a moment, as something sunk in. “Hang on. Do John and I get free booze in perpetuity?”
“If you manage to save the day,” said Marla. “You can help yourself to the bar, and anything you find attractive behind it.” She winked. I crossed my legs. John punched me in the ribs.
“Time to tool up, boys,” I said. “If this were a film, we’d be slap-bang in the middle of a heroic montage right about now, slapping magazines into rifles and tucking knives into our belts, but since we have nothing like that available, grab yourself a pool cue.”
“What about these?” said John. I turned to discover that my best friend had, in the space of ten seconds, created a line of Molotov cocktails from various alcopops and the like. “Reckon we can frighten those carnivorous bastards off with incendiaries?”
I grinned, and it was a large grin. It had a touch of the Cheshire Cat about it. By the time I was finished, my jaw was sore. “By jove, man, you’re a genius. I didn’t know you were into arson.”
“My old man was in the IRA,” said John. “We used to have bombing weekends when I was a bairn.”
“Sounds lovely,” I said. “But wasn’t your old man from Somerset?”
“He was very eager to be a part of something,” said John.
“He could have joined the library,” said I. “Either way, at least something good has come from it. Those are some particularly nasty looking bombs you’ve got there. I particularly like the Hooch one. Reckon that will take down a diplodocus?”
“Probably, but I would suggest we only use them on the man-eating dinosaurs. You know what people get like if you maim or murder a harmless animal.” John finished pushing napkins into the bottles and rifled about in his jacket pocket for his lighter.
“Does anyone here know anything about dinosaurs?” I said, turning to face the pub and its wild-eyed punters. I could see that none of us were sober, and this wasn’t perhaps the best idea in the world, but I was so close to fornicating with Marla the Stereotypical Barmaid-cum-Landlady that I could practically taste the bubblegum. “Anything at all?”
The chavs in the corner of the room, who were interchangeable and therefore not possessed of actual names, began to mutter amongst themselves.
“Would you care to share with the rest of the group?” said I. I had never felt more like a high school Geography teacher in my life.
The leader of the chavs shrugged and put down his pint. “I don’t think T-Rexes can see you if you’re not moving.”
“Actually,” said one of his chav mates. “That’s a fallacy. The T-Rex has a binocular range of 55 degrees, which is far superior to that of a hawk.”
“But I saw it in a film,” said the chav leader, who looked hurt beyond comprehension.
“I also saw Samuel L. Jackson in that film,” I said. “But I don’t think he’s actually a chief engineer of a dinosaur theme park in real life, so I’m inclined to go with your mate on this one.”
“Anyone else?” asked John. When no-one was forthcoming, he said, “Come on. Some of you must have been paying attention in palaeontology class.”
“Sid knew a load of stuff about dinosaurs,” said Marla, pouring herself a large gin and tonic. “Are you sure he’s dead in there?”
“Pretty certain,” I said. “I saw a raptor emerge from his chest cavity. I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure old Sid would have found that even a step too far.” I kicked the fruit machine, much to the chagrin of The Barry Boys, and said, “Well, we’re just going to have to watch each other’s backs out there. I suggest we leave via the back door. Let us away, into the night, where almost certain death awaits!”
“Hang on,” said John, skipping past me with a Molotov cocktail in one hand and his crotch in the other. “I need a piss first.”
28
I could see that the doctor was biting his lip, and had been for the past ten minutes. It was awfully unsettling. “Why,” said I, “are you gnawing upon your own mouth so ferociously?”
The doctor ceased his chewing momentarily. “I’m just finding it hard to believe,” he said. “Do you mean to tell me that you went out there to do battle with the dinosaurs, beasts from millions of years ago which are tw
enty times larger than yourself, all because you and your friend had recently partook in a marathon of Die Hard movies?”
I did some furrowing of the brow. “Well…that and the fact I was on a promise from Marla the Stereotypical Landlady.”
“You don’t think she was just saying that she would engage you in intercourse simply to get you out the door?”
“How very dare you!” I said. “Marla might be many things, but a prick-tease is not one of them. No, she meant what she said, and I won’t hear another word about it.”
The doctor relit his pipe and exhaled a plume of blue smoke into the atmosphere. He had a smug look about his face. Annoying, it was. “So there you were,” he said. “You, with your pool cue, your friend John with his Molotov cocktails, and The Barry Boys with their various penknives and knuckle-dusters. And, after witnessing the brutal murders of Jack and Joan Mayflower at the front door, you decided to vacate the premises by the back door?”
“Who’s telling this story, me or you?” I said. “Yes, we went through the back door, once Marla located the key, and that was when we realised we were up against it.”
29
“Holy shit!” said John. “What’s all this stuff?”
Marla simply shrugged and said, “I’m guessing it’s what Peter Muffin left behind when he wanked himself to death. I had no idea it was out here. We’ve never really had cause to use the rear exit.”
I looked about the yard with more than a modicum of incredulity. There were old barrels, broken pumps, tubing of various lengths and diameters, wrought-iron gates, rusty playground items, torn trampolines, stacks of rat-eaten mattresses, fridge-freezers and things of that nature generally. It was like looking into a gypsy’s back-garden, which was remarkable, really, as Peter Muffin had never even been on a caravanning holiday. How he had managed to accumulate all this tat was beyond me.
“Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait this thing out in the pub,” said Danny Barry, and he went to turn.
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