The Sprouts of Wrath

by Robert Rankin

  ‘But the pay is good. Come, Jim, bring the bag, we must penetrate to the heart of the stadium.’

  ‘What’s going on downstairs?’ Pooley asked, gesturing in a downwards direction. ‘I saw all these flying things and now it sounds like a terrible punch-up.’

  ‘It is only just the beginning, come on.’

  ‘Not quite so fast.’ Kaleton rose up before them. ‘Don’t take another step.’

  ‘Help is on the way, sir.’ Constable Meek crawled over to Inspectre Hovis. ‘A Commander West is coming over in person. He’s bringing a special task-force. He seemed terribly upset, sir, do you know him?’

  Hovis buried his face in the ground and thrashed about with his legs. ‘You ‘re all under arrest!’ he foamed.

  Tic-Toc-Tic-Toc-Tic-Toc went the suitcase.

  ‘And now the end is near and you must face the final curtain,’ said Kaleton. Tomorrow belongs to me, you are yesterday once more.’

  ‘I’ll name that tune,’ said Jim.

  ‘So die, puny earthlings!’ Kaleton raised his crooked arms.

  ‘Don’t do it! Stay back!’ shouted the Professor. ‘Jim, the bag.’

  Jim tossed the Gladstone to the old man. It sailed through the air and departed into the darkness. ‘Sorry,’ said Jim. ‘I suppose that means we’re in trouble.’

  Tongues of fire grew from Kaleton’s fingers, leapt into the sky, veered down towards the two men.

  The armies of Bran and Balin locked in titanic conflict the length of the Ealing Road. Big and bad was the fighting, great and terrible the hewing, the war cries, the blood and the torment. There was cleaving and cutting, hacking and stabbing.

  Old Pete turned in his sleep. ‘Get down, Chips,’ he muttered.

  ‘And so die!’ called Kaleton as he stood amidst the raining fire.

  ‘I arrest myself in the name of the law,’ said Inspectre Hovis.

  Tic-Toc and finally KaboomH! said the dangling suitcase.

  The gasometer erupted in a burst of crimson flame. The figure on the catwalk shinned up another staircase clutching his single suitcase. Torrents of debris filled the air and a cloud of golden dust.

  In the stadium Kaleton shook and shivered, the flames about him guttered and died. ‘You have done this, you have tricked me. The tower, the sanctuary!’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll ever understand that man,’ said Jim.

  ‘Run for your life, Jim,’ said the Professor.

  ‘Now that I do understand.’ Jim took to his heels.

  Kaleton staggered down the walkway towards the gaming ground. The sanctuary, the wall is breached.’

  ‘Blimey,’ said Constable Meek emerging from a pile of golden debris. ‘Look in there.’

  Hovis raised his charred head and gazed at the gasometer. A great hole yawned in its side and from within glowed . . . ‘Gold!’ cried the Inspectre. ‘It’s full of gold!’ Gold spilled from the ragged opening, but it was not just the gold from the robbery. This was a king’s ransom, a god’s ransom, the gold of centuries, the very gold of the gods, The Gryphon’s golden hoard’.

  ‘I get one per cent,’ said Hugo Rune, making an unexpected reappearance, ‘and don’t forget that.’

  ‘God for Harry.’ King Bran swung his mighty battle-axe taking several heads from as many shoulders. ‘Forward men, the battle is ours!’ The horsemen moved onward, carrying the fight to the very doorway of Ye Flying Swan Inn.

  ‘Same old sign,’ said Bran. ‘A cup of mead later, I think.’ Upstairs Neville pulled a pillow over his head. ‘Another damned party,’ he mumbled, snuggling down. ‘Now where was I? Oh yes, Alison, the appliance.’

  Kaleton bounded over the artificial turf. ‘The sanctuary, the sanctuary.’ Charles Laughton wasn’t in it.

  The figure on the high catwalk faced another stairway. Below him the battle raged, cruel and bloody. Other tiny figures danced before the torn opening, delving into the golden hoard.

  From the direction of the Brentford Half Acre came the scream of police sirens as a convoy of armoured vehicles moved into view.

  The solitary figure climbed up and up, labouring beneath the weight of his suitcase. The stairways led ever upwards, towards heaven - the gasometer was never this high - yet it was. Upwards and ever upwards.

  ‘I think I’m lost,’ said Jim Pooley, ‘in fact I know I am.’

  ‘Well done, Jim.’

  ‘Now listen.’ Pooley turned upon the Professor. ‘None of this is my doing, I don’t see why I should carry the can.’

  ‘Or the Gladstone?’

  ‘You’re the magician, wave the magic wand or something.’

  ‘Really, Jim.’

  ‘Well,’ said Pooley, all sulks. ‘I got us up here and a fine waste of time it’s been. The least you can do is get us down.’

  ‘There is a way, I think,’ said the Professor, ‘follow me.’

  ‘My God!’ said Commander West as the armoured convoy turned into the Ealing Road and slewed to a halt amidst the holocaust. ‘Heavy riot gear, CS gas, shields, batons.’

  ‘Rubber bullets,’ the driver suggested.

  ‘Rubber bullets.’

  ‘Riot shields, sir?’

  ‘I said that.’

  ‘Helmets then.’

  ‘Call for more reinforcements. Get on the blower, Briant. There’s a full-scale war going on here. Good Godfrey, that’s a head on the bonnet, isn’t it?’

  ‘Looks like a Viking head, sir.’

  ‘No, more like a Saxon.’

  ‘Or a Celt, sir.’

  ‘Dammit, Briant! I don’t give a dog’s doings about its nationality, get the horrid thing off my bonnet!’

  Constable Briant stared out through the security grille at the carnage beyond. ‘I’m a bit doubtful about going out there, sir.’

  ‘You’ll be on a charge, constable.’

  ‘Ten-four, sir.’

  ‘Down this way,’ said Professor Slocombe.

  ‘It doesn’t smell good,’ said Jim.

  ‘Just follow me.’

  ‘Arrest all this gold. Meek, I saw you filling your pockets. Rune, put that back.’

  ‘One per cent, Hovis, I’ll take it now.’

  ‘No you ruddy won’t. Meek, I’m warning you. Reekie, I don’t know where you got that wheelbarrow but…’

  The figure on the high catwalk gasped breathlessly; the stairways led up forever. But now he knew that at the top, at the top... he faced another stairway and prepared to climb. But his way was blocked.

  ‘You,’said Kaleton. ‘You did this? But you’re...’

  ‘Dead?’ said John Omally, for it was no other man. ‘I all but was. Your filthy creatures damn near had me in pieces. But I survived, I crawled away and I hid out. And I watched you and now I’m going to kill you. Where is my girlfriend, what have you done with her, you gobshite?’

  ‘You’re a hard man to kill,’ said Kaleton. ‘However.’

  Omally shifted his suitcase from hand to hand. ‘Where is Jennifer?’

  ‘She’s nice and safe, would you like to join her? Shall I call Jennifer that you might see her one more time, kiss those soft red lips? She’s so close you could reach out and touch her.’

  ‘In here?’ Omally’s free hand reached to the gasometer, but an icy blast tore it away, numb and bleeding.

  ‘No,’ said Kaleton, ‘she’s in here,’ he pointed to his mouth, ‘and now you can come inside.’

  ‘You’ve killed her, you... whatever you are.’

  ‘Whatever I am. Who do you think I am?’

  ‘You are Choronzon,’ said Professor Slocombe, ‘lord of all anarchy, destroyer. You are Choronzon.’

  Kaleton spun about. Above him on a higher catwalk stood Pooley and the Professor. Jim’s eyes bulged, filled with tears. ‘John,’he gasped, ‘John, is that you?’

  ‘Watchamate, Jim,’ said that very man.

  ‘Blessed be,’ said Jim Pooley.

  ‘I am the Soul of the World,’ cried Kaleton in many voices and many tongues, �
��I am Choronzon, I am Baal, I am Kali, I am Shiva. I am all that has gone before and all that is yet to come. Ruination lies in my hands, ruination for you and your kind. You dirt, you worms. Your time is at hand.’

  ‘Where’s my girlfriend?’

  ‘My future wife?’ asked Jim. ‘He’s got her?’

  ‘I am yesterday and tomorrow, Alpha and Omega. You are finished.’ Kaleton twisted, distorted, the hideous mouth opened wider, swelled as if to encompass everything, the borough, the earth, the universe, the whole damn lot.

  The earth trembled. The warriors beneath gazed up towards the iron tower. The riot police, prepared to batter skulls, halted in mid-swing. Rune made sacred signs. Meek continued to fill his pockets for the meek shall inherit the earth, after all. Hovis considered bee-keeping on the Sussex Downs. Behind Pooley’s left ear a particle of dirt resembled the exact shape of the lost continent of Atlantis.

  ‘I am Choronzon,’ cried the voices of Kaleton, the voices of the millions gone forward into the oblivion of yesterday. ‘We are the planet’s revenge, we will have no more of you. All die.’

  ‘But you first,’ said Omally, priming the suitcase and thrusting it into the ghastly void which spread before him, the mouth of Hell.

  The facade of human resemblance fell away from Kaleton. He was an unearthly shape, an elemental, the bogey man, the nightmare of children, the dreams of the mad, the delirium of the dying. He was all that was opposite, life in reverse. ‘You cannot stop us. You cannot reverse the process. A great shot will ring out across the universe. All will die, forever die, be gone. We are your Nemesis!’

  Pooley swung down from the catwalk, struck the swelling creature from behind and catapulted it into space.

  Kaleton flew into the air, a whirling mass of neutrinos, primal flux, ancient evil made flesh, a formless horror that was many forms, many pasts and presents. And somewhere in that hinterland of time, lost between seconds, between yesterday, today and tomorrow, Omally’s suitcase exploded. It might have been in Brentford or even anywhere in the unknown world or the partially explored cosmos. But it was within the universe that was Kaleton. Great streamers of trailing sparks spun across the sky, the gasometer rocked and shook, the stadium shuddered and trembled, the air swam with visions, dreams, memories.

  Pooley clung to the rocking staircase and saw it all. The world as it was, torn by elemental forces, a battlefield of unreason. Man’s ascent from the darkness, towards the glorious future. And he saw much more, the mistakes of generations who had lost their way. The terrible mistakes which had led to this. Pooley saw it all. All in the split second, or the lifetime or the eternity, it was all one and the same.

  The streaming motes which were Kaleton, Beelzebub, the old serpent, the Grex, rained down upon Brentford. Flowed in a pure golden shower, dissolved and were gone. The stars returned, reason returned. Truth and tomorrow returned.

  With a startled cry Jennifer Naylor returned from a deep, dark unknown place and fell into Omally’s arms. There was a bit of a hush.

  Commander West stood in the now empty Ealing Road wondering where Armageddon just went.

  ‘Shall I cancel the reinforcements?’ asked Constable Briant.

  In the tee-pee at the bottom of the garden, Paul Geronimo said, ‘It is done, the gods are happy, and now we smoke many pipes.’

  ‘And possibly get some kip,’ his brother suggested.

  Neville turned once more in his sleep. ‘Alison,’ he said, ‘you naughty girl.’

  Inspectre Hovis struggled towards the hastily commandeered ice-cream van with an arm load of gold bars.

  ‘Keep sticking them in,’ he told Hugo Rune, ‘there’s plenty of room in the back.’

  ‘Do I understand that you are taking an early retirement?’ the mystic asked as he loaded.

  Professor Slocombe turned his face towards the heavens. ‘It is done, I so believe,’ said he, ‘it is done.’

  ‘Does this mean I am a millionaire?’ asked Jim Pooley.

  44

  A beaming face beamed out across the world. This is the London Olympics.’

  In the stadium flags flew, athletes marched and the cheering of a million voices rose towards the summer sky, like a prayer of thanks.

  In the Professor’s study Jim popped the cork from a bottle of champagne.

  ‘Easy does it, Jim,’ said the old man. That’s a hundred-year-old vintage.’

  ‘Put it on the slate,’ the lad replied, distributing large libations. ‘In five minutes the games begin, in six John and I take a stroll down to Bob’s, in the company of the local constabulary. In an hour we shall be gloriously drunk.’

  ‘I will drink to that,’ said Omally. ‘A toast to the Brentford Olympics.’

  ‘To the games,’ said Jim. ‘Although not to their founder.’

  ‘Hm.’ John sipped champagne. That blaggard, what was he, Professor, was he a man or a devil or what?’

  ‘I am not certain even Kaleton knew that. He loathed mankind because he was not of man, thus he had to prove he was greater than man. His character, if indeed he possessed one in the true sense of the word, was one of constant turmoil, a torment of raw conflicts. He was ego, power, good and evil by degree. He denied all human emotion but he was subject to it nevertheless. Egoism, pride, monomania, he craved recognition for his own mad genius.’

  ‘The stadium,’ said John.

  ‘Indeed yes, the stadium was to be his apotheosis. I believe that had the stadium taken life it would have been literally unstoppable.’

  ‘Then why didn’t he set the thing off last night?’

  ‘His super-ego would not allow it. He wanted the whole world watching when he demonstrated his power. I had to count on this "human" weakness, it was all I had.’

  ‘You took a bit of a chance then,’ said Omally.

  ‘I took a good many chances - that Norman’s car would work, that you would be in the right place at the right time with your suitcases.’

  Pooley looked long and hard at the old man. There has been something of a run on happy coincidence lately,’ he observed.

  Professor Slocombe winked. ‘I don’t happen to believe in it myself. Drink up, Jim, I’ll open another bottle.’

  Pooley peered into his glass. ‘So Kaleton was not the Soul of the World then?’ he asked in a tone which almost amounted to disappointment. Omally gazed at him strangely.

  ‘No, Jim,’ said the Professor, dusting off another antique bottle, ‘I refuse to believe that. Kaleton was composed of a chaos of organisms, you saw that for yourself. For him to maintain human form, or any other form for that matter, became more and more difficult for him. He knew his time was running out. I believe that Kaleton was somehow a product of the very pollution and decay he loathed so much. The product of many centuries’ festering evil made flesh.’

  ‘I hate to say anything in his favour,’ Pooley replied, ‘but there was a lot of truth in what he said. Great wrong has been done to the planet. Entropy is the order of the day. We’ve all been part of it, but we’ve never paid attention. Now no-one will know what he said, nor, I suspect, do anything about it if they did.’

  ‘Good riddance to him,’ said Omally.

  Pooley shook his head, ‘But someone should do something, John, the world is going down the plug-hole, I realize that now. My eyes have been well and truly opened. What if Kaleton was the first of a coming race? He’s been a warning. Men must change their ways or pay a high price.’

  Professor Slocombe nodded. ‘A man of independent means might dedicate himself to such a cause,’ he suggested. ‘What do you say, Jim?’

  Pooley smiled, patted his million-pound pocket and raised his glass for a refill. ‘I say yes, Professor. I have much to be thankful for, I say yes.’

  ‘You are a good man, Jim. Perhaps the future will find you to be a great one, although.’

  ‘Although what, Professor?’

  ‘Well,’ said the old man, thoughtfully, ‘I feel that somewhere there is a loose end. That somehow
I have missed something obvious. There are still a lot of unanswered questions.’

  ‘TEMPORA PATET OCCULTA VERITAS,’said John.

  ‘Eh? Said Jim’

  ‘In time the hidden truth will out,’ said Professor Slocombe.

  ‘Perk up,’ said Omally, sticking his head out through the french windows. ‘Sounds like they’re on the starting-blocks.’

  High above Brentford the stadium was hushed, upon the rostrum the master of ceremonies raised his starting pistol to begin the first race. All over the world men drew closer to their television sets and held their breath.

  ‘They’re under starter’s orders,’ cried Jim. ‘I am rich!’

  Chapter the Last

  There’s never a policeman around when you need one. It’s a tradition, or an old charter, or something. The sign on the door of the Brentford nick read ‘GONE TO THE GAMES’. And that was that.

  ‘Typical.’ Champagne Pooley levelled his boot at the constabulary door, setting off the alarm. But nobody came. The streets were deserted. Everybody had gone the games.

  ‘Come on,’ said Omally. ‘Let’s get this done. If Bob gives you any trouble, he’ll have me to settle with.’

  ‘Well said, that man.’

  The two turned away from the abandoned police station and made off up the abandoned Albany Road. They were just passing the abandoned recreation ground when a terrible thought struck them in anything but an abandoned manner.

  ‘Could it just be possible?’ asked this thought. ‘That Bob the Bookie might choose, rather than pay Jim his winnings, to make away to distant parts, leaving naught behind him but an evil memory?’

  Pooley and Omally stopped short in mid stride. John looked at Jim and Jim looked at John.

  ‘Oh no,’ gasped Jim. ‘Say it isn’t so.’

  ‘It isn’t so.’ Omally broke into a run. Pooley was already way ahead of him.

  As they neared Bob’s shop on the corner of the Ealing Road, they saw to their shared horror that things were not as they should have been in that particular neck of the Brentford woods.