Dave Trellis and the Allotments of Doom (17 page)

‘Aye, and she’s
one of ‘em.’

‘No, really
Dave, I think we should look for her or call the Police. We should
do something.’

‘Oh give over,
your self-interest is showing. If you’re looking for sympathy you
got the wrong house.’

‘I don’t want
sympathy; I just want to make sure she’s all right.’

‘If you don’t
want sympathy, why are you whining on about it? Just get up and do
what’s right. Truth is, your feelings are hurt as your present
lust, up and left without a long, meaningful goodbye. In summary,
she’s a warrior and you aren’t honest with yourself.’

Fergus glared
at Dave, who ignored him and reached for the teapot.

‘There are
three faces of truth,’ said Dave ‘The first face is for other
people and always lies. The second face is for family and lovers,
and mostly lies. The third face is for you and should always tell
the truth.’

‘The Buddha of
Yorkshire speaks and the lowly acolyte listens.’ Fergus bowed his
head, ‘Shouldn’t you be sat on a mountain somewhere?’

Dave
grinned.

‘I am sat on a
mountain. A bloody enormous artificial mountain buried beneath us.
So finish your breakfast, we have a long downhill struggle ahead of
us.

They stood in
the courtyard, in front of the entrance to the catacombs. Fergus
wore a lightweight fleece, mountaineering trousers, and high-tech
hiking boots.

Dave on the
other hand was kitted out in breeches and gaiters with sensible
brogues, Harris Tweed jacket and flat cap. A canvas rucksack
completed the picture of an Edwardian gentleman hiker. He even had
a length of rope wound round his waist.

‘What have you
got in there lad?’ said Dave pointing to the huge frame rucksack
next to Fergus.

‘Sleeping bag,
tent, camping stove, pans, freeze dried food –’

‘Hang on. Did
you read the book?’

‘Most of it,’
said Fergus.

‘Remember the
bit about being warm or the bit about camp fires and living off the
land?’

‘Err… no.’

‘You won’t be
needing any of that lot. Did you bring tea and sugar?’

‘No.’

‘How do you
expect to have a cuppa?’

‘It wasn’t top
of my agenda to be honest.’

Dave stared at
Fergus.

‘We are on a
vital mission to save the allotments. We are going into unknown
danger and hostile environments and you neglect to bring the
fixings for a brew. You are British, aren’t you?’

‘Tea is hardly
an essential item.’

‘Bloody well is
on this expedition. It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you
play the game.’

‘Stuff the
playing fields of Eton, Dave. Let’s get going.’

‘Seriously lad,
you won’t last ten minutes under that load. Let’s limit ourselves
to essentials, which include a kettle, mugs, tea, and sugar by the
way.’

Fergus sighed
and opened his backpack.

Fergus
shouldered the half-empty rucksack. Next to the pile of discarded
camping equipment were two skateboards leant against the wall. Dave
picked them up and passed one to Fergus.

‘Here you go
lad, can’t stand them myself, but they’re great for
descending.’

Fergus examined
the skateboard then span the wheels.

‘Good
board.’

‘Well off you
go then,’ said Dave.

‘After you Dr
Livingstone, I insist.’

Dave raised his
eyebrows, squared his shoulders, and pushed off. With a wobble he
trundled towards the entrance. Dave yelled as he accelerated down
the steep slope and disappeared into the darkness. There was a
muted thump.

‘Bugger,’ said
Dave from the darkness.

‘Here, let me
give you a few pointers,’ said Fergus and swooped into the dark.
There was a muted thump.

‘You could have
stood to one side,’ said Fergus.

Half an hour
later, Dave and Fergus rushed, side by side, down the corridors of
the catacombs. The skateboard wheels whirred and Dave hung on to
Fergus for balance. A few roof spiders clung to Dave’s flat cap,
enjoying the ride.

‘Go right here’
shouted Dave. ‘No, the other right you clod… Bugger.’

Dave sailed
down the left corridor, Fergus the right. There was a muted
thump.

‘Well, at least
that got rid of the last roof spiders,’ said Dave, as he stomped
back to Fergus with skateboard under arm. ‘Anyways, not far now, we
can walk the rest.’

The corridor
opened into a dark cavern. It was hard to tell how big, as only a
single light shone, making a bright circle on the cavern floor.
Sitting in the middle was a scruffy old tent with clothesline,
plastic table and camping stove. Sitting in front, hunched up, was
a duffle coat eating crisps.

‘Morning,’ said
Dave.

The duffle coat
jumped. Out of the hood emerged a pale, unshaven face.

‘Ah David, so
glad you’re here, just about to start this morning’s programme. You
got my emails of course, so you know we’re on the verge of
isolating the 7th medial relationship with the phase of the moon.
The colour co-ordination will come later, but I really do think we
have the 7th cracked at long last.’

‘Ah, yes very
good,’ said Dave, ‘this is Fergus. Fergus I would like you to meet
Simon, our resident door expert.’

‘Call me Si. So
you’re here to see my experiments?’

‘Actually,
we’re on a mission to save the planet and in a bit of hurry to be
honest,’ said Fergus.

‘Really,
really. Well we have made great progress; we can calculate all the
6th and most of the 7th key variation. It’s all very exciting,’
said Simon.

‘Any chance you
can open the door today?’ asked Dave.

‘I have a full
schedule of conformational progressions planned and we’re not
really ready for a full scale unlock scenario just yet.’

‘Simon, I want
you to open the door. I want you to do it now. You can carry on
with your experiments later.’

‘But David that
would mean re-starting the sequence.’

‘Now Simon, if
you please. Or shall I just have a go myself?’

‘Oh alright,
let me get my notebooks and laptop.’ Simon disappeared into the
tent.

‘So where is
this Impossible Door anyway.’ asked Fergus.

Dave smiled and
walked past the tent into the gloom.

‘Let there be
light,’ shouted Dave and suddenly there was. A bank of floodlights
lit up the back wall of the cavern. There stood an immense double
door.

Its metallic,
grey-green surface gleamed and inset in two long, thin triangular
swaths, one on each door, were brightly coloured balls. They looked
like huge marbles stuck in clay by a child or possibly an Arts
student. Each swathe had forty or fifty balls that started big at
bottom and diminished in size all the way up. There was nothing
else on the doors, no handles, wheels, or key holes.

‘Wow, that’s
one heck of a door,’ said Fergus.

‘Yes, indeed,’
said Simon as he scurried over to Dave and Fergus, with an armful
of notebooks. ‘And if you’d just stand away and not touch anything
while I get set up.’

‘You know Dave,
the pattern looks rather familiar,’ said Fergus.

‘Ever seen a
tentacle?’

Fergus raised
his eyebrows. ‘That would be one huge Octopus.’

‘Or squid,’
said Simon, ‘or any one of the Cephalopods really. Though I think
the characteristic sucker pattern is closer to the squid. Realising
it was operated by tentacle gave us our fundamental break through.
Up till then we had pressed single keys in sequence. Once we
realised that the whole pad was in contact simultaneously, we
started pressing groups of keys in sequence and that’s when we
really started to move forward. We got the 1st and 2nd tip
relationships in weeks, of course it took a while to get some the
medial groupings –’

‘Simon,’ said
Dave, ‘Get on with it there’s a good chap.’

‘Oh, right, of
course. You’re saving the planet. How silly of me. It’s not like
I’ve spent years on this or anything.’

After
consulting books and spreadsheets, Simon positioned a make-shift
scaffold of broom handles and bamboo canes over both swathes of
coloured balls.

‘Now David, if
you would take the left hand side. Just push forward on this
broomstick when I give the word. Ready now? One, two, three, four,
five and push.’

The brightly
coloured balls glowed in sequences up and down the triangular
swathes and a loud scale of notes rang out. There was not a chord
amongst them.

‘Um, no. That’s
not right. Let me try again. This time we’ll push together. Ready,
steady and push.’

The result was
different, a different sequence of lights and notes, but the
disharmony stayed.

‘We’ll that’s a
good start. We should have it no time,’ said Simon.

Fergus was fed
up. Two hours of listening to complex, arcane theories and even
more arcane and complex excuses was enough. During all this time he
had noted only one definite fact about the door.

‘Simon, if you
don’t mind me asking, what’s this one down here, it never lights up
with the others?’

‘Oh that’s just
the access hatch,’ said Simon.

‘The what?’
asked Dave.

‘The… Um…
Access hatch.’

‘You mean
there’s a way in, without actually opening the door?’

‘Well, yes, but
it doesn’t solve the problem of opening the door does it?’

‘No, of course
not, but it solves my bloody problem of getting into the rest of
the catacombs,’ said Dave.

‘Yes, you could
say that was true, but there still remains the fundamental problem
of creating the correct cascading sequence – ‘

‘Thank you
Simon,’ said Fergus, ‘I think we can take it from here.’

Fergus pressed
the ball, it glowed green, and there was a hiss of escaping air. A
small section of the door swung open.

‘Did you know
about this all along Simon?’ asked Dave.

‘Err, yes, we
use it all the time to examine the rear of the door.’

‘Thank you very
much. Do you know what I had to go through to get past this door
last I came down here? I’ll tell you… No I won’t. You’ll have to
guess, but it was a bloody nightmare.’

Dave crawled
through the access hatch on his hands and knees. Fergus gave Simon
a little wave and followed.

The access door
shut behind them.

‘So how did you
get past the door last time?’ asked Fergus.

‘Through a
Whale Mole.’

‘Pardon?’

‘It’s a hundred
foot long furry slug that eats mould off the walls of the larger
tunnels. The outer tunnels are full of them and they move very
slowly. You can’t get past them; you have to go through them.’

‘So how – ‘

‘Wetsuit,
Aqualung and very good nose plugs.’

Fergus and Dave
walked through the huge corridor on the other side of the
Impossible Door. The previous tunnels appeared natural, with some
alterations, such as lighting and a level floor. These corridors
were constructed. The floor had the same tortoise shell cobbles
Fergus saw on the M7 and lights built into the curved ceiling sixty
feet above. A warm breeze blew in their faces, bringing hints of
earthy aroma.

Eventually they
reached a junction. The corridor branched to the right. It had a
bright cavern with greenery at the end. They walked a short way
down the joining corridor, far enough to see trees and a small
lake.

‘This here is
the first cavern. According to Coleridge’s note, under no
circumstances enter the first cavern…’ Dave’s voice dropped to a
whisper, ‘Just stand by me lad, and ease back against the wall. Say
nowt.’

‘What?’

Dave put his
hand over Fergus’s mouth and nodded with his head.

On the opposite
side of the corridor was a black shape.

It looked like
a large rabbit in a skin-tight leather suit. Its head was bullet
shaped and feature-less except for a very wide grin and tiny
nostrils. The creature swung it head from side to side and hopped
towards Dave and Fergus. It sniffed the air and hopped forward
again.

It stopped and
crouched back on its haunches and wriggled as if trying to push
itself into the ground backwards. Its mouth opened wider and wider,
until it seemed like the top of its head would fall off. It made an
unpleasant mewling sound.

‘As I was
saying, do not make a sound,’ said Dave in a loud voice, ‘And do
not move. It’s heard us and it’s not going to go away. In fact any
moment now it’s going –’

There was a
snap, the creature shot forward so fast it blurred. It leapt
straight at Dave’s head. He pushed Fergus away and dived sideways.
Rows and rows of sharp, backward pointing teeth filled the
creature’s huge mouth. It snapped shut with the sound of two hands
clapping, just where Dave had stood and spanked into the wall with
a sharp thud. It fell to the ground in a shiny leather heap.

Dave prodded it
with his foot.

‘What the hell
is that?’ asked Fergus.

‘Snapjack,’
said Dave, ‘Fortunately they are blind with bugger all sense of
smell and poor hearing. They are also thick as two short planks,
but they can bite your arm clean off. So beware. If we hit a pack
of them, run. They don’t hop so fast neither.’

‘How can it
move so quickly? I’ve never seen anything leap that fast.’

‘They’ve got
springs in their legs and jaws. That’s what it was doing when it
crouched; tensing the spring. They make a moaning sound when they
tense their jaws. I suppose it must hurt.

‘Let’s get
going before it wakes up.’

‘You mean it’s
not dead? It hit the wall like a sledgehammer.’

‘Oh no, just
stunned. I suppose if you’re going fire yourself into solid
objects, evolution provides a thick – oh bugger.’