by Brian Hughes
“And you get to meet people,” he added with some reserve.
“Get a lot of ’em round ’ere, then?”
“One or two. Some rum buggers amongst them. We had one a few years back. What was his name now?”
He brought a finger up to his lips, trying to remember.
“Adolph Hitler,” he said at length. “You mentioned him before.”
He drew in a deep breath, what was visible of his mouth puckered up like a tiny volcano.
“Not the sort to have as a neighbour that one. Tried to bite Danny on the head.”
“Who’s Danny?” asked Jannice.
“Danny. Oh he’s the tea boy. Helps out with odd jobs around the place.”
Mrs Prune and Jannice both nodded at each other.
That sort of Danny.
“What ’appened to ’im?” Mrs Prune ventured further. “’Itler I mean.”
“Don’t know exactly. He did a runner with the tea coffers shortly after he’d arrived. I meant to lock him up somewhere safe. Still you can’t win them all. I can’t be sure about this...”
His voice trailed off into speculation. “I think he ended up as a member of the Conservative party.”
The rumpled Jew shook the reverie from his head and looked back at the map before them.
The time for conversation was over.
“Now then ladies? What do you fancy?”
“I want to go ’ome.” Mrs Prune’s wraith said with determination.
“Ah...” The old man snuffled. “That’s a bit impractical.”
And he pointed at the grey smudge that was now even smaller than before.
“There’s not much going for that particular universe.”
That much was true.
The rabbi felt that Mrs Prune was giving him a dirty look, though he couldn’t be sure.
It wasn’t his fault. After all he had no say in the ‘Great Design’ of things. Nonetheless, he added an apathetic, “Sorry…”
“Then I’ll just wait ’ere and see what ’appens. Thank you!”
At which statement, the rabbi grew flustered. The prospect of having Mrs Prune hanging around for the rest of eternity wasn’t something to look forward to. She looked the sort who’d have away with all the tea bags. And never brew up for herself. And make sure the stock cupboard was always clean and tidy. And no smoking.
Definitely no smoking.
No. She’d have to go, somehow.
“It’s down to about half a square mile,” he pointed out, his voice starting to tremble. “And closing fast. Not much anyone can do to save it, I’m afraid.”
He presented her with a crooked brown smile that represented an end to the matter.
It had about as much effect on Mrs Prune as discovering the cricket had been cancelled.
In other words, bugger all.
“I’ll still wait,” Mrs Prune said. “I ’ave every confidence in Our Jess.”
Somehow the purple smear folded its arms and assumed a haughty appearance.
Confused by this display of stubbornness the guardian turned back to Jannice.
He cast an open palm across the map.
Mrs Prune shuddered as she felt a ghostly hand grab onto hers. She squeezed it gently in as reassuring a manner as was inhumanly possible.
“No...thank you all the same,” said Jannice politely. “But, I think I’ll stay with Mrs Prune.”
Chapter Twenty-Three: Darkness Falls
3:55 p.m. December 6th. The smouldering ruins of 114 Applegate. Jess Hobson rummaged beneath the charcoaled remains of his bed. Following the dramatic end of the wicker man, not to mention Jannice, Jess had set off in a random direction. (Fortunately, it happened to be the opposite direction to the great wall of darkness.)
He’d worked his way across town. Anybody blocking his path had received an unfriendly elbow in the mouth.
Greyminster was becoming the shape of a kidney dish and still getting smaller.
The darkness moved on devouring lampposts. It nibbled the gates of the park and licked the statues as though they were lollipops. But most peculiarly, it had followed Jess right across the town.
That was suspicious.
There was a grunt and a number of old socks were thrown from beneath Jess’ bed. They stuck with a squelch to the bricks where the walls had once stood.
Jess had definitely had better days.
Several long forgotten boxer shorts were unearthed. Sad rigid squares of material that had survived by evolving into flame retardant monsters.
It was at the great Bogg Street Terminus, a huge Victorian cylinder of latticed windows, that the most bizarre sight that day had caught his attention.
Charging around the station was a badly sketched ghost train. It looked as though somebody had drawn it with a very soft pencil and then couldn’t be bothered to finish the job off.
The engine was being controlled by an extremely ugly phantom. With a shock of purple hair and eyeballs that resembled fried eggs, it clung to the funnel with its toes.
It hurtled round in circles, crashing into people as though they were nothing more than straw bales.
That was when Jess decided he’d had enough.
After wrenching the iron shutters from the ticket office, he’d made his way onto the platform and sat down on its edge.
His legs dangled over the tracks, his head in his hands.
It wasn’t the goblins that bothered him now. Most of them were eyeing him suspiciously and keeping a discreet distance.
No…he could handle them. All he needed were his sturdy boots and a steadfast stomach.
But the encroaching darkness, that was the problem.
There was nothing Jess could recall from Benjamin’s ‘Nursery book of Ghoulies’ that dealt with the universe disappearing in a sickening fizzle.
The darkness was connected to the other problems, he’d figured that out. After that it got vague.
It had something to do with the column of light. The rip in reality as Benjamin had called it.
And Thomas Hobson.
And the End of the World.
Suddenly Jess felt the urge to do something positive.
He wanted his box of personal belongings that he kept under his bed.
There wasn’t much in it. Just a few odds and ends he’d collected over the years. But if he was going to die he wanted something that would remind people of who he was.
Even if he was only a lonely middle-aged cynic with no ambition in life.
And even if there weren’t any people left to remind.
So there he was, frantically searching for his personal possessions. At length he emerged, a sock draped across his stubbled head and his box in one hand.
A satisfied grin ran across his sweating features.
Suddenly a scrabbling noise startled Jess into vigilance.
“Here we go again.”
He turned round and stared into the eyes of Joseph Wambach.
Not the Joseph Wambach he remembered from the photographs back in November, but a sharper, more demonic child.
A child with pointed fangs glistening with saliva.
Behind Joseph, number 113 was slowly vanishing. The darkness had arrived, devouring the ground with what appeared to be an unstoppable force.
Joseph spoke. A scratchy rasp of a sound that resembled snapping fronds.
“The Master would like to see you...”
Jess narrowed his eyes. With his box tucked beneath his arm, he approached the child threateningly.
“You’re the cause of all this, aren’t y’?”
“What?”
An expression of surprise crossed the child’s face. For a moment Joseph almost looked human again. An innocent toddler on the edge of having his bottom paddled.
“It all started the night y’ first disappeared!”
Jess closed the gap.
He clenched his fist, the knuckles turning white.
“The Master would like to see you...” Joseph reiterate
d.
“What Master?”
“THE Master.”
Yes, the little bastard was obviously asking for a smack in the gob.
However, Jess held onto his patience. If he could only get some sort of answer before he booted him into the darkness.
“’Oo is the Master?” Jess carefully pronounced each word.
“THE Master.”
Jess tightened his fist some more so that his knuckles cracked like old knots. He breathed out through his nostrils.
“The creator and destroyer of the universe...”
Jess gritted his teeth. Demons evidently aren’t quite so dumb as people believe. At least this one had the sense to recognise danger.
“Mr Hobson...” Joseph hissed.
Jess’ knuckles relaxed slightly.
“Thomas ’Obson? Creator of the universe? So it is that bastard who’s be’ind all this?”
Jess might have been as quick witted as a bull that thought its holiday destination was a place called “Be Castrated,” but with a little mental effort he always got there in the end.
“Where is the ‘Great Master’ then?” He spat the words.
“At the source of all reality.”
Joseph studied Jess’ face for a moment, then swallowed nervously.
“Number 32, Old Bridge Lane,” he added meekly.
“Thanks!”
Jess’ toecap swung into Joseph’s sheepish grin.
The grin vanished into a hole of broken flesh.
With a scream Joseph span off the bricks, his nappy coming undone in the process.
There was a fizzle from the darkness as he crumbled to dust and disappeared.
“I’ll find me own way,” Jess added.
The darkness reached out.
Jess span around and headed off towards the centre of the town.
What was left of Greyminster writhed with frightened pedestrians.
The Knights of the Round Table were gathered around the huge glass orb. They were concentrating on an extraordinary light-bulb covered figure squirming about in the gutter.
“Hold his head,” bellowed Arthur. “I’ll see if I can cut him free.”
He attacked the crackling creature with enthusiasm.
“How did he get entangled in that lot, anyhow?” asked Sir Bedevere.
“Well,” Sir Percival began, glancing at the metal hook protruding from the corner of number thirty-nine. “He was trying to climb on the top of that glass thing. Said he’d got an idea from some acrobat he’d seen at Camelot rolling about on a ball.”
“Sounds nasty...” Bedevere snuffled. Looking back at Gawain wrapped up in the Christmas lights, he continued, “And he got caught up in this lot when he leapt from the window ledge, right?”
“Yeah...no idea what sort of creature it is though.” Percival leaned on his walking stick, prodding his dentures back onto their gum with a slippery tongue. “But once it’s got a lock on you it doesn’t let up.”
At which point Jess’ silhouette appeared at the end of the avenue.
A sprinting outline, his knees almost touching his chin with each giant leap.
Behind Jess the darkness was in close pursuit.
He skidded to a halt when the Green Knight blocked his path. A few speckles of blood sprayed up from his boots, dappling the Green Knight’s armour.
“Thou shalt not enter!”
“What?” Jess doubled up, gasping and wheezing, his hands on his knees.
“All who wish to enter must first battle with the Green Knight.”
Jess took in another difficult breath, feeling his chest tighten.
Vicar’s Underpants!
“Look mate...the worlds’ about to end an’…”
“None shall pass!”
Behind him Jess could hear Martha Sonneman. Her voice fluttered through the window at number thirty-two.
It was followed by the sound of a laser gun being fired.
Then a screech and then smell of burning and finally silence.
Jess tilted his head.
The gargantuan warrior was still standing guard. He wasn’t sure why the knight felt it important to do this. But it was probably connected with the fact that Mrs Prune had gone inside and not come back out again.
Not even Jess’ hobnailed boots could have made a dent in that armour. Unlike the sword the knight nonchalantly rested on. One simple swing from that would cleave Jess in half. He’d need a bloody tin opener before he stood any chance.
Then he saw the guardian’s one tiny flaw.
A small patch of fabric that, no matter how tightly filled, was undoubtedly penetrable.
Fortunately Jess wasn’t chivalrous.
Whereas knights have a tendency towards fair play, he didn’t.
The phrase ‘its just not cricket’ in Jess’ vocabulary translated into ‘...well, it’s probably football then.’
Seconds later the Green Knight doubled-up, his eyes watering.
Jess muscled him aside and darted beneath the tape.
Then he was gone.
Behind him the darkness ate into the orb. Arthur and his knights stood firm to the last, each one being picked off and swallowed.
“Cry Havoc!” Arthur shouted bravely against the unstoppable tide. “And let slip...ah...no...”
He took a step backwards, rocked on the bubbled dome and had another try.
“My horse, my horse. England is a horse.” Gazing down at his boots, Arthur frowned.
“No, no. That wasn’t it.”
He gazed back up into the face of death and added, “Bollox.”
Then there was nothing.
Nothing apart from thirty-two, Old Bridge Lane, with its column of light.
And, of course, Jess’ boots scrabbling in through the battered front door.
Chapter Twenty-Four: A Confrontation at the World’s End
4:21 p.m. December 6th...not that it matters. In about seven minutes time there’ll be no one left to bother about such things. No more universe, no more dates, no more time. Where the Hell is Jess?
Take one last look at the cellar of number thirty-two if you would. This is where the adventure ends. The darkness has already taken a bite from the ceiling. It’s chewed up the beams across the roof and has inched down the walls.
An upturned crate from India that once contained tea leaves now serves as a seat to a hump-backed figure. Hobson leans on his stick, his eyes pulsing red. His teeth look as though they’re made from the amber and his skin appears to be sewn together from scraps.
At last there comes the thundering of boots.
The cellar door crashes open. Jess bounds down the steps, several stairs at a time. His face is flushed red as though it’s been rather badly sunburnt. He hits the floor and hears the crackle of the column. Then he turns to the ancient hobgoblin, who cackles the laugh of an imbecile. And he points a meaty finger accusingly at Hobson’s head.
“What’s goin’ on? ’Ow do I stop this, y’ shitty old weasel?”
“You don’t!”
Old man Hobson clutched his knees, a clucking noise in his throat and a mischievous glint in his eyes.
“Oh yes y’ do!” Jess grabbed his throat, his nails piercing the flesh. “You’re not tellin’ me that you’d start the end of the world and let yourself get killed along with it! Not after God knows ’ow many centuries of trying t’ get back!”
Despite his windpipe being partially crushed, Thomas Hobson still managed a laugh.
A laugh full of irony.
The darkness took another noiseless step.
“Jess...my boy.”
Jess felt a bony hand on his shoulder.
A weird squeak escaped from Hobson’s oesophagus as Jess tightened his grip.
“Or should I say...Father...?” Thomas tried to cock his head on one side but found that he couldn’t. “I’m not responsible for all of this.”
Jess closed his fingers another fraction as the darkness followed his every movement.
�
��Just remember that one little squeeze might snap your spinal cord.”
He narrowed his eyes as Thomas felt another slight increase of pressure. It was accompanied by what might have been a trickle of blood.
“If you’re not responsible...” Jess chose the words carefully, making sure there was no room for misunderstanding. “Then, ’oo the ’Ell is?”
Thomas tried to swallow but there was nowhere for the saliva to go. So instead he watched the walls as the darkness pruned them into weird shapes.
“Why? You are, my dear boy...” he said with a grin.
Jess had already suffered several nasty shocks that day.
In fact, it was a wonder his nervous system hadn’t collapsed beneath the onslaught.
But nothing had prepared him for that snippet of information.
There was a gurgle and Jess looked down. He released his hand, realising that if Hobson’s windpipe was crushed, entertaining as the concept might have been, he wouldn’t get the answers he wanted.
Clutching his box beneath his arm, Jess stepped back.
“I want to understand!”
“There’s not enough time!”
Thomas Hobson rubbed the scrag of creased skin around his neck. He coughed a sliver of tissue into the air before him. “It’d take too long to explain it to a dullard like yourself.”
“Try me...” Jess watched another corner of the ceiling buckle.
“There’s no point, Jess. There’s not enough time for explanations.”
“MAKE TIME!” shouted Jess, overpowered by fatigue. “That’s what you do isn’t it? Make Time!?”
He brought his purple face up against the old man’s.
Hobson flinched.
“You don’t make time.” Thomas shook his head thoughtfully. “You just break into it...what you make is the space to set the time free.”
“’Ow?”
“How? What do you mean ‘how?’ You add another dimension. Like turning an architect’s two-dimensional drawing into a real building. Add another dimension and let it all hang out.”
Thomas obviously found that highly amusing.
He coughed a laugh from his gagging mouth.