The Complete Greyminster Chronicles

by Brian Hughes

  Jacob took the bundle from him. The pilot continued through a beaming smile, the edge of his whiskers releasing corkscrews of smoke.

  “Still, taught the Hun a lesson in manners, eh?” For a moment his expression sank. “Old Wog bought a sticky wicket though. Grenade through the gun turret. Decent chap, Wog. The lads’ll miss him.”

  Mary appeared. The two thankful parents were now more concerned with Joseph than anything that the pilot had to say.

  But worry began to grow in Jacob’s stomach. A feeling that all was far from over. He glanced at the column of energy that, now he came to look again, resembled a searchlight from the Second World War.

  A smudge of black smoke from the bomber had been scribbled across the clouds.

  “Where did you come from?” Jacob muttered, more to himself than anyone else.”What exactly’s in that thing, anyhow?”

  8:35 p.m. The sweat ran down Geoff Askew’s temples. Tonight was his big night. Months of standing in front of the mirror perfecting his timing, had lead to this occasion.

  The location, ‘The Partridge Road Workers’ Union Club. A yellow structure that wore the gasometer across its back like some sort of towering socialist emblem. The agenda, ‘Billy Badger’s Gag In.’ A raucous night of blue jokes and a 70’s sing-along to follow.

  Geoff resembled a pot-bellied pig. If it wasn’t for his jokes he would have amounted to nothing in life. Not that he amounted to much anyway. Beads of moisture had started to collect in his grubby collar.

  “Ladies and gentlemen...” announced the compere. “Billy Bodger!”

  A roar went up from the cloth caps.

  “Badger! It’s Badger y’ pillock!” Billy scrambled onto the stage and grabbed the microphone. He peered out across an ocean of thin white faces. “A Pakistani, a Scotsman and a Jew walked into a pub.”

  And that was the end of his act.

  A great many newcomers have died on stage the first night. But none quite as horrifically as Geoff Askew.

  And none by a telephone box materialising on their heads.

  The door of the kiosk opened and a very short man carrying an umbrella stepped out. He looked down at the trickle of blood on the stage.

  “Rubbish!”

  A tomato hit him on the jaw. Then another, closely followed by a sprout that bounced off his shoulder and span into the safety curtain.

  “Talentless crap!” The hostile crowd swelled. “Where’s the stripper?”

  Working class critics were not the easiest audiences to play for.

  “Geddoff the stage and get Bertha on!”

  Every insult was accompanied by a rotten vegetable. Moments later the interloper vanished. The telephone door slammed shut. It was followed by laughter and the chant of, “piss off, piss off” that had been cunningly reassembled into a hymn.

  The machine partially dissolved, the tick over of its engines increasing in resonance until the tankards rattled.

  The box rose, spearing the rotating globe just above it. One of the arched windows of the clubhouse shattered theatrically as the telephone-box hurtled through it and into the dark night beyond.

  8:45 p.m. Walking Edge. A barren rock on the Greyminster Fells.

  Old Lancashire legend told of an entrance hewn from the living rock, surrounded by mystical runes. It appeared once every 1,000 years and only then to the pure of heart.

  Nobody in living memory had ever come across ‘Merlin’s Entrance’, as it was locally known. A suggestive title that was seldom mentioned without a cocked eyebrow or two.

  However, tonight, the great stone gates were visible for all to see. Between the two craggy pillars the doors had opened just the tiniest of cracks. Now light spilled out accompanied by twists of sulphurous smoke.

  What a shame there was nobody around to see it.

  Deep down in the cavernous subterranean vaults of the dead. Here lie the sleepers in wait for the world’s end. Row upon row of snoring bodies clothed in rusted chainmail. Arthur’s Knights, lost in their slumber beneath the Greyminster Fells.

  “Obstreperous Vortigern. Well met by death.” An ancient voice, seemingly older than the hills themselves, pierced the stillness. “Arise now for England, On the Great Dragon’s Breath.”

  The figures stirred. Leggings rattled against shields.

  The wizened old man to whom the voice had belonged stepped out of the shadows. His beard was as white as the fresh fallen snow. It reached down to the floor and coiled around his feet. On his head sat a cotton night-cap. In his hand was a mighty carved staff, almost twice the height of the wizard himself.

  “Arthur?” He prodded the grumbling body of a shrunken old man on a stone altar. “Arthur? Are you awake?”

  “Bugger off.” When Arthur spoke his gums gnashed. Another prod in the ribs and Arthur winced.

  “Come Arthur. There is work to be done. ”

  “What time is it?” Arthur yawned. Barely able to keep his eyes open he surveyed his disordered fellowship.

  “Time enough!” snapped Merlin authoritatively.

  “About eight-thirty then...” Lancelot had rejoined the world of mortal man. Only just though. The centuries had not treated him well. He was haggard and toothless, sporting only the odd patch of yellowing hair.

  “Time...” Merlin threw his soiled night-cap into the pit. Then he conjured up a crumpled pointed hat. “...Time for the Last Great Battlefield.”

  The minuscule soothsayer turned to his old associates, most of whom were still having trouble setting their false teeth into position.

  “Time...” he said with a sneer. “For the End of the World.”

  9 o’clock sharp. The clock on St. Oliver’s struck the hour.

  Number 32, Old Bridge Lane. The cellar. Or more precisely the column of light.

  Constable Parkins was still on guard duty outside. And whilst guarding the building from stray cats was obviously important, there was nobody to witness what was happening in the cellar.

  The column had taken on a more frantic appearance. For the last hour it had vomited orbs. Some were striped, others spotted. They ground on the rough stone floor and rolled under boxes.

  From each one crawled a deadlier threat than before. Some were goblins with pointed ears. A handful played poker. Others sat around on suitcases, rolling the orbs in their sticky hands. Small demons scurried in and out of the junk, frightening spiders with their ochre fangs. They snarled and they snapped and their toes went scrabble scrabble.

  Patches of grey drifted transigently against the darkness. Translucent creatures from the other side of time. Gruesome characters from history built bridges from the books, then drove Dodos tied to model steam trains beneath them. Dickens, The Wright Brothers and Thomas Hardy. Hunched figures with pointed fingers and twisted bones.

  With a crooked smile on his lips, Thomas Hobson looked around the cellar in curiosity. Leaning forward on his stick, he rubbed his skeletal fingers against each other, laughing.

  In this light he could have been mistaken for Lucifer.

  The clock at St. Oliver’s tolled the ninth beleaguered bell. A doleful sound that rumbled across the town and hid itself in the darkest corners, whilst a Pierot doll played its fiddle on the crumbling spire.

  Chapter Eighteen: The Dark and Distant Future

  October 30th, 2037. Time unknown. However it was probably about 5:30 in the evening. On the mantelpiece a clock methodically chewed up the hours.

  Look at the books here. ‘Einstein’s Theory of Relativity’, ‘Dimensional Mathematics for the Beginner. Volume One.’

  It was forty-odd years in the future. This was the study of Thomas Hobson at Greyminster University, a dusty chamber filled with antique furniture. The study of a powerful, inquiring mind.

  Two middle-aged men, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Jess Hobson and Benjamin Foster, were tinkering with a machine.

  The one resembling Jess was perhaps a little more gaunt in his features. There were already the first signs of a curvature meddlin
g with his spine.

  The one resembling Benjamin Foster was a little wider round the stomach.

  This was a future built from renaissance. Inventions constructed from oak, embellished with gargoyles and wooden mice and multicoloured orbs that held notepapers down.

  “I’ve got to get it finished!” came a crabby voice from beneath the console. “Hand me the screwdriver.”

  “The one that looks like a French tickler? Or the one like a carrot with a knob on its head?”

  “Either. I’m not bothered!” Thomas’ bony fingers grappled for the tool before dragging it out of sight. “It’s the university funding committee! Bastards want to withdraw the expenses ’cos some git from the arts’ hall wants to make some poncy film about hermaphrodites!”

  “It’s an odd little contraption.” Samuel stuck his finger into a hole and felt an electric shock that made his glasses pop off his head. “How does it work?”

  “That’s difficult to explain.” There was a thud and the air turned blue. “Especially to a retard like yourself.” Fizzzzz. Pop. “Bastard! Have a look at the manual if you’re so bloody interested.”

  Samuel unearthed a glossy brochure that had been jammed between two levers. He squinted at the cover, struggling not to move his lips in time to the words. “Sheep Shagger’s Monthly?”

  A hand grabbed it from him. Moments later another brochure replaced it. Adjusting his granddad-shirt collar, Samuel started to read. At length he gave up. “So this thing’ll go, will it? Or is it just some expensive sex aid that bleats?”

  Fortunately Thomas hadn’t heard the comment. “Like the clappers mate. Whunsh! Straight out of time!”

  “It’s not some sort of antique coffee percolator, then?”

  “Not exactly.” Thomas wormed out from beneath his invention, grime etched into African tattoos across his cheeks. “Look, why don’t you help matron molest the students or something? Give your arse crack a rest.”

  “I just don’t understand the notes...” Sam stared down at the book again.

  “What notes in particular?”

  “All of them.” He pointed to a long line of symbols. “What’s this massive equation?”

  “Quantum theory expanded, Foster. I’ve exploded the mathematics to encompass the fifth dimension. Very tricky thing to do that. Have to have a brain the size of an elephant’s genitals injected with steroids.” Thomas fiddled with a few levers. “In order to get a working formula you have to take Einstein’s equation of E=MC squared. Then divide it by nought.”

  He wiped the oil from his emaciated hands onto a monogrammed rag. “Nought and infinity, y’ see? It’s all the same thing. A bit like your brain. There’s sod all of it there, but it’s infinitely dense. Complicated to understand but pretty straight forward once you’ve got the hang of it.”

  “But...” Samuel shook his head. “How can you have another dimension? Sort of like a black hole that sucks everything into a tiny space, you mean? Like Maidenhead?”

  Thomas thought for a moment then adopted a fresh track. “Imagine a circle.”

  He was sure that even Samuel was capable of that. Nonetheless he grabbed a pencil from his waistcoat and sketched one down on a sheet of paper.

  “Now...if you lived in two dimensions that would be a straight line.” He noticed the confusion written across Samuel’s face. “There would be no other way to draw it, right?”

  Samuel nodded. It was the sort of nod that said he agreed but hadn’t understood a word.

  “If you lived in three dimensions it would be impossible to imagine what a sphere would look like. The closest you could get would be the circle, yeah?”

  “Yeah...” Samuel consented reluctantly.

  “Imagine trying to work out the volume of a sphere when you don’t even know what volume is. But if you added a fourth dimension, such as time, then everything becomes exploded.”

  Samuel looked up, not because he understood, but because the silence was starting to bother him. “I’ve just about got that.” Actually, he hadn’t. But what the Hell? “So what’s that got to do with this?”

  He waved in the direction of the machine that Thomas had been working on. “What does it do?”

  Thomas blinked. How could anyone be so utterly stupid. One last try then.

  “No matter how many dimensions you live in, right, there’s always got to be another ‘Fixed Dimension’ for the others to exist. If you wanted to travel in time, you’d need to create a fifth dimension.”

  That really had puzzled Samuel.

  “What would that other dimension consist of?”

  Thomas seized his colleague by the wrist. “That’s what I’m about to find out!”

  And with the flick of a switch, followed by a blinding white flash, the two of them vanished from time.

  That was all a long, long time ago, now...in the future...

  December 6th, 1998. About 11:45 on a grim winter’s morning. 114 Applegate.

  Or at least what was left of the building that hadn’t tumbled down.

  Mrs Prune blinked at Benjamin, waiting for some sort of response. Her crab apple chin rested on her fat crinkled hands which in turn rested on the top of the yard brush handle.

  “So they both ended up trapped in 1896? That explains a lot.” What could be seen of Benjamin’s face around his glasses frowned. “But what about all the other stuff? All the ghosties and ghoulies? And the Lancaster bomber? And the number of phonecalls?”

  There had been another fifteen telephone calls that morning.

  “Dunno.” Mrs Prune shrugged, dislodged her head from the broom and started to brush up the snow. “All I know is w’at I read. An’ w’at I read was those notes. Found ’em ’idden in one of ’Obson’s bloody books about murderin’ witches!”

  There was a clatter of bricks. In the debris Jess sat up. His eyes were yellow and road-mapped with veins. “W’at’s ’appened to the ’ouse? Last thing I remember was staggerin’ ’ome about ’alf eleven.”

  “You mean you didn’t notice?” Ben jumped down from the rubble.

  “Well, I thought the bed was a bit more uncomfortable than normal. But I put that down t’ me liver developin’ a crust.” Jess winced as his nerve endings turned themselves on one by one.

  Let’s have a look at what’s become of the Victorian building then, shall we? Nothing much remained now. Just a smouldering heap of twisted metal, chewed up and spat out. Melted wires held the shreds together like jungle vines. One third of the house was occupied by the prehistoric skeleton of the bomber, everything having been dowsed by a light fall of snow.

  Jannice Applebotham grabbed the door knocker just as the door burst open.

  Mrs Prune hoisted a broomful of brick dust into the air. It covered the duffel coat Jannice was wearing. Several chunks of plaster landed in her red hair.

  “Sorry love. I didn’t see y’ there.” She tried to remove the granules from Jannice’s shoulders. Her fingers became entangled with Jannice’s own.

  “Is Jess in?” Jannice asked, somewhat embarassed.

  Mrs Prune paused, stunned at the enquiry. It wasn’t often Jess received female callers. At least, not ones that hadn’t been paid first.

  Jannice noticed her consternation. “We were on the electronics course together at college,” she reassured Mrs Prune. “We made a film together once.”

  Mrs Prune cocked one eyebrow. Jess loomed into view behind her.

  “Oh God! Not you?! What d’ you want now?” Jess snarled. “Come for the cure from bein’ a thespian?”

  He stared at the bright yellow badge on Jannice’s duffel coat that read: All Men Are Potential Rapists.

  Not in your case, he thought.

  “No I haven’t. And it’s ‘lesbian!’ for your information.”

  Mrs Prune looked the visitor over, trying to decide whether she liked her or not. Jannice was a solid girl with the sort of legs you could stand umbrellas in. She was so bedecked with cheap plastic jewellery that she rattled when she wal
ked. Most of her features were hidden by a stratum of foundation. Her eyes were surrounded by shadow so that she resembled a panda.

  Mrs Prune reached the conclusion that she liked what she saw. Anyone stupid enough to wear Jesus boots in the snow couldn’t be all bad.

  “So, what d’ you want?” Jess snapped.

  “I’m now in the fourth year of my women’s studies. As part of the course I’m preparing a thesis on ‘Ethnic Attitudes towards Women in Modern Society.’”

  Jess frowned, still none the wiser.

  “You’re about as ethnic as it gets in Greyminster,” Jannice admitted.

  “So, y’ want a job?”

  “I just want to take notes and watch your methods.”

  “It’ll cost y’!”

  “Don’t be such a daft great pillock!” Mrs Prune bustled past him with the stubbornness of a warthog. “’Course ’ee’ll employ you me dear. And ’ee’ll pay you as well.”

  She hadn’t quite understood the exchange of words, but she understood Jess and his bigoted attitude. Taking Jannice by her arm she led her into the charcoaled hallway.

  Jannice looked around and blinked. “Is this the house that was hit by the plane last night?”

  “What shall we employ you as? A psychic?” Jess knocked the soot from the bomber’s nose. Suddenly Mrs Prune was on him, her leathery face purple with frustration.

  “You listen ’ere, Jess ’Obson. This young woman wants to ’elp. And from what I’ve seen so far, y’ need all the bloody ’elp y’ can get!”

  She turned back to Jannice who stood meekly in the door. “Don’t let this ’un give you any trouble, dear. ’Ee’s a bully but ’ee knows what’s good for ’im.”

  She snapped back round to Jess, who flinched automatically. “The whole of ’Ell’s breakin’ loose out there! So answer some of these calls we’ve bin ’avin’. There’s something we don’t know yet, and it’s obviously important!”

  “Like what?”