by K. W. Jeter
"I-"
"Right." He thrust me forward. "Come on, we gotta get going; those funny-looking fuckers'll be here any minute now. There's some more of these highbutton nightgowns in the what-d'ya-call-it – yeah, the vestry – get him decked out, will ya? I'll get the rest of the stuff." He turned and strode quickly down the nave.
Smiling, Miss McThane folded her arm into mine. "Sure thing," she said. "Jeez, you're all wet. Don't worry; I'll take care of you."
I was still too weak to resist as she guided me towards a side door beyond the altar. Within moments I found myself in a dimly lit room, the air thick with that peculiar mustiness that comes with spaces too long shuttered. Miss McThane closed the door and leaned back against it, surveying my forlornly dripping figure before her.
"Here." She took a long priest's robe from a wall hook, raising a cloud of grey dust from the fabric, and draped it over the back of a sagging chair. Stepping close to me, she deftly undid the buttons of my waistcoat, then those of the sodden shirt underneath. My breath caught in my throat as she laid her pale hand upon the bare skin of my chest. "You're just about frozen," she whispered. I remembered the smile she gave me from the incident in my shop. "We better get you thawed out…"
I backed away, toppling a candle-stand and a stack of mouldy breviaries behind me. "That's… that's not necessary," I said feebly. "I assure you – I can manage quite nicely, thank you-"
My avenues of escape – were blocked by the debris cluttering the small room. Miss McThane, advancing dauntless, soon had me cornered between a small pump-organ and an upended pew bench. The eyes of my pursuer glittered with a disturbing avidity; the organ gave a despairing wheeze as I leaned back, my hand braced against its yellowed keyboard. Her voice was a lewd pianissimo counterpoint: "Come on, you sonuvabitch…"
What! I had thought was a curtained wall behind me parted, allowing me to fall back on to the floor of a small alcove. Above me, when I looked up, was a face that trembled my heart even more than had that of Miss McThane: the smooth, porcelain and wax visage of a clockwork choirboy, one blue eye staring open at me, the other sealed by a rusty spring as though· winking at my undignified circumstances.
Miss McThane loomed over her prey, but I was scarcely aware of her. With rapidly mounting horror, I realised where I was and why the small church had seemed so oddly familiar to me. Though I had been here only once before, the terror engendered on that occasion had impressed the building's aspect permanently on my memory. I had been led from the river straight to the portals of Saint Mary Alderhythe, the site of the disastrous, even blasphemous resurrection of Dower's Patented Clerical Automata. That which I had taken to be a curtain was in fact the robe of the chorister whose mock-cherubic face now leered at me; rising up on my elbow and twisting about, I could see a whole row of the mechanical creatures, lined up in the alcove like soldiers on parade; beneath me was the brass track set into the church's floor to guide the singing mannikins on their appointed circuit through the church; A mocking fate had led me to the precincts where my meddling ignorance had unleashed those scenes of clattering, spring-driven chaos. Not just painful to my recollection, but the source of angry loathing from such as the crippled pastor (his injury the direct result of that dread evening) who had chased me from his desk only a day previously.
"Good God." I gazed up, stricken. "All I feared has come upon me."
"For Christ's sake," Miss McThane knelt down and grasped my shirt in her small fists. "It's not gonna be that bad. Sheesh-"
At that moment, the the vestry's door flew open; the church's light fell across us. "Not now;" said Scape, seeing us. "Goddamn it; you can do that later. We gotta get this friggin' church ready." He dumped on the floor an awkwardly shaped bag, which immediately split, spewing its contents. "Come on," he ordered as he strode back out the door.
Miss McThane stood up, tucking a few disordered strands of her auburn hair behind her ears. "Next time," she assured me, straightening out her vestments. She picked up the other garments and tossed them to me.
When she had gone to join her larcenous companion, I quickly completed the undressing she had commenced and scrambled into the musty-smelling robes – the damp and chill of my own clothes had seeped into my bones. Any escape from this ill-favoured place would be as easily accomplished rigged out as a peripatetic priest, as it would be for a dripping, sneezing near-corpse traversing the night streets.
For escape was now even more firmly centred in my mind. As I fastened a dust-grey reversed collar about my neck, I took stock of my predicament. That Scape was using the church of Saint Mary Alderhythe for some criminal purpose – if not technically sacrilegious, the building having been hastily de-consecrated after my own ignominious experiences there – of this I had no doubt. (I had already perceived, at this early stage of acquaintanceship, that none of Scape's activities were free of illicit intent.) They were "getting the church ready" – for whom? What ritual was planned? It did not seem to have anything to do with the Clerical Automata my father had built and installed here; I investigated further into the room's various niches, and found all the figures, some with cobwebs filling the angles of their mechanical limbs, undisturbed since the aftermath of my own botched attentions upon them.
I stumbled across the bag Scape had deposited in the middle of the floor. Bending down, I saw that the spilled contents were books, the bindings tattered with use: they were the church's breviaries and hymnals gathered up as though by a purloining bibliophile and cached here. I began to wonder if Scape's actions were perhaps governed more by insanity than dishonesty.
As I peered round the vestry door, hoping to see a clear path to the front of the church and the freedom of the darkness beyond, I was instead spotted by Scape, as he hurriedly lugged another bag down the nave. He signalled me over to him.
"You look sharp, man; really." He pulled the bag up against the hem of my vestment. "Start putting these out, okay?"
"Pardon?" I said. I wished him to go on believing that I had somehow been recruited into this conspiracy by another the better to lull any suspicions and thus make an unhindered exit when the opportunity came – but his rapid speech skittered past before I could comprehend it.
"The pews, man-" He shouted over his shoulder, already bolting towards the church door. "Stick 'em in the pews!"
I opened the bag and found more books inside. But not of a religious nature; instead, in such varying editions and states of wear as to indicate they had been salvaged from every penny bookstall in London, copies of Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler. For a moment, I did not doubt Scape's sanity as much as my own. The dream-like nature of my adventures again impressed itself upon me; events had gone from puzzling to ludicrous, as they are wont to do when our sleeping visions course to a confusing end, all resemblance to waking nature abandoned. Surely I was about to raise my head from my pillow, blinking at the morning light, eventually (and with relief) to find no evidence of strange visitors and disastrous excursions? My thin breakfast and placid life restored to me? The notion gave comfort.
I glanced up from the dog-eared volume in my hand. From the corner of my eye I had seen where Miss McThane was arranging something upon the altar. The mock priest smiled and raised a hand signal consisting of her thumb and forefinger brought together in an O, the meaning of which eluded me. I turned away and, as instructed by Scape, began distributing the Anglers, dragging the bag between the pews and placing a copy of the Walton tome in each wooden rack or, when such were missing, on the seat itself.
This task had scarcely been completed when I heard the approaching clatter of another carriage outside the church. With the empty bag wadded in one hand, I made my way back through the pews to the nave, where I encountered a gesticulating Scape in company with another man. The latter was a gentleman considerably greyed and thinned by age, his wraith-like figure distinguished by the elegant, if somewhat antique, cut of his suit, and by the haughty bearing exhibited in his step and the angle of his head. He gave me a cur
sory glance as he passed by, like a lord of the manor reviewing his household staff, while absently listening to Scape's voluble description of the preparations that had been made.
"There, that's done," spoke Miss McThane at my elbow. "Hope this old bastard likes it." I looked round to where she had been busily engaged while I was setting out the books, and saw that the altar, in the manner of those rural churches that display notable examples of the parishioner's crops at harvest time, was here festooned with fishing tackle. Rods and creels, lines and barbed hooks, all formed a decorative arrangement in place of the expected cross and chalice. Dream upon dream; I felt quite giddy to see that more of the impedimenta of angling had also been strewn about the church, beneath every window and entwined about the rail.
No sooner had I perceived this bizarre transformation of the little church, than a murmur of voices came from outside. "Come on!" shouted Scape, sprinting down the nave. He grabbed my arm and Miss McThane's, and hustled us towards the vestry. "They're here – Bendray thinks it'll make a better effect if they don't see us yet."
We were soon installed in the vestry's darkness, with Scape peering out through the crack of the door. Standing behind him, I could see over his head where the elderly gentleman – the mysterious Bendray, I presumed – was waiting at the church's entrance. Miss McThane, exhibiting every sign of boredom, had placed herself upon the bench of the pumporgan, and was examining the condition of her fingernails. "Here they come," whispered Scape at last. "Christ, they're an ugly-looking bunch – give me the flippin' creeps."
I saw them then, peering apprehensively around the open church doors. The elderly gentleman raised his arms wide in a gesture of benevolent welcome. Slowly with anxious glances around the building's interior, the odd looking residents of that district to which I had been delivered at the start of this nightmare filed in, caps in hand. The people of Wetwick had arrived.
"Just look at those bug-eyed suckers." Scape shook his head as he peered through the narrow aperture. "Whoops – now they're getting excited, all right."
From my position, leaning over his bowed back, I could see Bendray turn grandly about, his arms spreading wider, his gesture obviously inviting the goggling crowd to inspect the church's premises. Indeed, some of the Wetwick residents had already filtered through the pews, and had excitedly picked up copies of The Compleat Angler from the hymnal racks. Their extraordinary eyes grew even larger as the books were excitedly handed around. Others, with strangely accented cries, had discovered the fishing tackle draped at various points; their jabbering grew louder as the barbed hooks were brandished before each face. Soon the church was filled with their voices as a group of them ran down the nave towards the tacklestrewn altar.
Scape pulled the door shut. "Old Bendray's not gonna need us for a while," he said, straightening up. "Looks like he's getting his point across." I greatly desired to ask what that point was, but refrained. The conspirators' proximity dictated that I continue my charade. I maintained a discreet silence as Scape paced about the vestry's confined area, rubbing the small of his back.
"Goddamn books were heavy," he muttered. "Plus all that other crap – should hit on the old goat for a hazardous-duty bonus." He gestured towards Miss McThane and myself. "Take five, guys – I think we're in here until the fish-eye brigade out there gets their fill."
Miss McThane glanced up at me, smiled before turning to silently regard her companion, then went back to the of her manicure. I backed as far away as I could in the cluttered room.
"Hey, what's this stuff?"
I looked round and saw that Scape had discovered the alcove behind the pump-organ. As I watched, he drew one of the clockwork choristers out along the brass track laid into the floor.
"No!" I shouted involuntarily. "Don't – that is… I don't think you should tamper with that."
He disregarded my warning, bending down to examine the device. "This is some of your old man's stuff, isn't it?" He looked up at me, then back to the choirboy mannikin. "Far out."
"It's – it's very delicate." I stepped across and laid my hand on his arm. "Extremely so. I think it would be best if you refrained-"
"Screw that." He shook me off, then knelt down for a closer look. His hands had already found the small panel at the back and had pried it open. "I've been itching to get a hold of one of these."
"Please… I beg of you." Dreadful memories urged my anxiety. "Desist-"
"Forget it," said Miss McThane to me. "There's no stopping him when he's got a new toy." She gazed with an expression of disgust as Scape explored further into the choristers' alcove.
"All right." His voice came muffled from the depths, beyond the row of mannikins. A flaring safety match threw his shadow back towards me. "I think I found the master controls."
So he had; I recognised the assemblage of levers and gears from the last time. No doubt the apparatus was still in the state of erroneous adjustment in which I had left it; I could see that the great coil of the central driving spring was still wound tight.
I left off wringing my hands and grasped the back of Scape's vestments to pull him away from the machinery. "You mustn't," I cried. "The devices are misaligned and malfunctioning-"
He shook me off with considerable violence, sending me sprawling upon the floor. His brow furrowed in anger above the blue lenses. "I've been studying your old man's gizmos for years," he said sharply. "There ain't anything I don't know about them."
I made another attempt to ward off tragedy, grasping him about his robed knees. He toppled backwards and, flailing about for balance, grabbed hold of the centremost lever. "Watch out!"
Scraping through a layer of rust, the lever swung in an arc under Scape's weight. For a moment there was silence, then a soft, unmistakable tick. Our combat ceased, with Scape supine on the alcove's floor and I halfway above him; we both arched our necks to see the machinery beyond us.
Another tick, and a groan of metal shifting from its long-confined position. The noises began to rattle and clatter faster, as the escapements and ratchets of the apparatus woke into their spurious life.
"Christ Almighty-" I scrambled across my opponent's form and yanked the lever. It resisted all my efforts; I might as well have been tugging at the balustraded stones of the church in a Samson-like attempt to bring the entire edifice down upon our heads. The row of mechanical choristers shifted, the jointed limbs beneath the robes creaking, the porcelain faces swivelling above the ruffled collars. In the manner of an owl, the head of the lead chorister swung all the way round, its glass eyes beatifically regarding us. The rosined wheels that my father had installed in the device's throat engaged; " Glo – ri – a," it sang in a piercing treble.
Scape got to his feet and joined me in tugging at the lever. "We gotta get this thing shut off before those creeps out in the church hear it." Our efforts were to no avail as the lever remained in its position.
A creaking noise sounded from the other alcoves around the perimeter of the vestry, as the remainder of my father's devices stirred into life from their rusting sleep. Looking behind me, I saw a white-haired priest emerge into the room's open space; the figure was entirely lifelike except for the maniacally rolling glass eyes and the hand repeating its blessing over the pump-organ. "And with thy spirit," it pronounced, or rather, the wheels inside its throat did.
"Nice going," said Miss McThane. Her sarcasm was cut short as she was forced to duck away from the benediction of the clockwork priest, now spinning about rapidly enough to lift the hem of its vestment as though it were a dervish. Light flooded into the room as the door, also connected to the machinery, flew open. A number of the Wetwick residents gaped at this sudden apparition revealed to them. The choristers rocked back and forth along the metal track, and then began filing towards the onlookers; an off-tune Latin chant sounded from the porcelain throats.
"Stop those little shits." Scape pushed past me and grabbed the robe of the last chorister in the procession. The rotten fabric tore away, showing the c
licking armatures and spinning gears of the device as it marched on. He grasped one brass strut, but succeeded only in dislodging the cherub head askew so that it hung sideways and groaned in basso profundo. The priest ceased its gyrations and followed after the choir.
The Wetwick residents were now entirely alerted by the noise and commotion. They ceased their roundeyed goggling at the copies of The Compleat Angler and watched in amazement the erratic progress of the automata into the church; the machinery, having fallen into such a state of decay, now jerked about with appalling violence. The actions of the choristers were further deranged by the fact that Scape's billowing vestments had become entangled in the exposed workings of the one figure with which he had attempted to interfere; flailing about, his face reddening with his shouted curses, he was being dragged on his back behind the choir as they made their way. The terrified onlookers scrambled away, trampling each other in their haste to avoid this apparition. Miss McThane, her long hair in wild disarray, tugged at her companion in a futile attempt at rescue.
From a position of relative safety at the vestry door, I watched as Bendray, with raised hands and quavering voice, first tried to restore order to the panic-stricken assemblage. He soon abandoned the effort and, wisely fearing for his own skin, slipped out the church door, moments before the great mass of the Wetwick residents jammed the egress, tearing at one another's backs and limbs in desperate flight, the crazed energy of their numbers resulting in virtually none of them winning through to the darkness outside.
Inside the stone walls, echoing with cries of terror and grating mechanical noises, the carnage had become even more nightmarish than on that long past occasion when I had first attempted to put my father's devices into their appointed motions. With the furiously struggling Scape in tow, the choir had reached their positions, but had split into various factions, as if arguing amongst themselves on the proper course of their further ritual. One group of the mannikins seemed bent on another procession, and to that end had turned about, battering against the others as the deranged machinery drove them along the metal rails. Scape's imprecations mingled with the cacophony of hymns sung simultaneously, the artificial voices shrilling ever higher as the rosined wheels wore down to the bare metal beneath. Two of the porcelain heads butted together as though in the combat of rams, cracking and spraying throughout the church bits of the smiling cherub faces and the springs and gears beneath. The headless choristers went on battering into each other's robed chests as one of the church windows dissolved into glittering fragments from the impact of one such missile.