Jago (51 page)

Gun, he thought. Get the gun.

He stood shakily, Gary helping. Pam reached around his chest to hug, then flinched away with her whole body when she got a noseful. He stepped free of his support, and looked at the Gate House. The door was open, all the lights were blazing. His Astrud Gilberto tape was playing as loud as the system could be turned up. Bodies moved inside, clumsily crashing into things. He guessed he would be unable to have a quick shower in private and change his clothes before trying to save the world. That was a damned shame.

In his front room, there was an orgy. Sharon Coram was pressed naked between four or five other bodies, mostly male. The group’s strenuous activities had displaced all his furniture, shoving desk, chairs and sofa against the walls, knocking over television and video, and bringing down most of the pictures on the wall. There was a litter of cast-off clothes and crushed cider cartons on the floor. Astrud, backed by Stan Getz, was intolerably loud, rattling his brains with ‘One-Note Samba’. The throaty, whining gasps of the cluster-fuck resounded, along with the thumping and squelching of their bodies, like the distorted soundtrack of a blue movie.

An arm snaked around his neck and he was turned. Pam, overcoming her distaste, put her face to his. As she hugged, his pain went into overdrive. He was choking, ribs popping out of alignment. The girl’s hand slipped into his fly and groped for his penis. Pam licked his chin and playfully bit him. For an eternal second, he had the thrill of an incipient erection, and lost purpose. He wanted to join the blue movie, to lose himself in the scrambled flesh, to work his way towards a climax which would blow off the top of his head. He would join with Pam, Sharon, the others. They’d become a carnal pool, fucking for ever, squirting defiance in the dark. Perfume stung his nostrils, seeping in behind his eyes. Pam’s tongue touched his earlobe, warm and wet.

A shot of agony from his wrenched back killed arousal, and a gulp of nausea rose in his throat. Finding a pressure point—a snake trick, at last—he gripped Pam and pushed the girl away from him. She looked at him, a blossom of fear in her eyes, and stepped back. He made a fist and clipped her on the chin, to put her out of it. He knew where the knockout button was and struck perfectly. But this was not an academic exercise, and she was not dropped immediately senseless. Sergeant Parry, his instructor, would have given him a Fail. Pam’s head lifted and banged against the door jamb and, groggy, she fell out of the Gate House, a puppet with half her wires snipped. She was on her knees, shaking her head, curling into a foetal ball. He would have preferred a clean stun, but that would have to do. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

The desk was up on two legs against a wall, unlocked drawers spilled on to the floor, adding their contents—pens, pins and paperclips—to the mess. Part of the cluster began to scream in noisy orgasm. The pistol was in the one locked drawer. And the key was in the Mike Bleach teapot on the windowsill. Only the teapot, along with the potted cactus and the wind-up plastic alligator with which it had shared the sill, was broken in the ruin under the bodies. The carpet swirled like a giant water lily under the cluster, trailing bits and pieces in its folds.

Lytton tried to find even the smashed pieces of ceramic, but couldn’t. The cluster rolled over, a new team in ascendance, and, like a group of wrestling amoebae, unstuck themselves, then reformed in a new alignment, to begin the sweat-, sperm- and saliva-slick churning all over again. A black girl, abnormally long tongue attached like an umbilical sucker to the belly-button of a bald man, was on top of the cluster. Stuck to her back was the key. It was pressed between her scything shoulderblades, stuck fast by gummy fluid. The bald man was Stan Budge, die-hard enemy of the ‘hippie invasion’. Budge was being penetrated by a blue-tattooed white youth, and his red penis was shoved into one mouth or another. The arrangement was generating an odorous heat that made the small front room a greenhouse.

Lytton stepped close and leaned over. Sharon looked up at him from the bottom, teeth bared, but didn’t see anything. Her eyes were clouding over, and she was sucking in air through the ring of her mouth. Lytton plucked the key from the black girl’s back and backed away from the cluster. It rolled towards him like a juggernaut, legs kicking, arms flailing, genitalia pumping. Pulsing like a complicated organ, it tore itself apart and came together again. There was blood in with the other sticky stuff. He wondered if the cluster was literally fucking itself to death. Apart from Sharon, who was obviously the Queen of Dangerous Sex, none of the components were visibly enjoying themselves.

He shoved the key into the drawer lock, twisting it so hard it bent as it worked. As he pulled the drawer open, the Browning slid down the sloping bottom. Picking up the gun, feeling its grip in his hand, Lytton felt whole again, as if he were drawing strength from the weapon. He relished its weight for a moment, then shoved it into his deep right hip pocket. Leaving the cluster to wear itself out, he left the Gate House.

Pam, feeling her wonky chin, was sitting on the grass, skirt rode up until it was essentially a belt. She looked at him, hurt.

‘Sorry,’ he said again, and loped off towards Checkpoint Charlie. By his watch, it was just around midnight.

I
f the only thing that frightened Daddy was stupidity, the Evil Dwarf was Stupidity on two stubby legs, a bell-topped dunce’s cap on his scraggly head. Jeremy’s stitch stabbed his side like a broadsword. Without realizing, he had fallen, and could feel scratchy earth and grass under his knees. His shorts were warm and wet, bunched up and scraping between his legs. One way or another, he’d been running all day. It was well past his bedtime. Just once, he’d have been pleased to go up the stairs into his room in coal-black dark. If he hadn’t been afraid of the dark, perhaps things wouldn’t have come apart.

He’d always known there was an Evil Dwarf, but never thought beyond the mere scariness of his being an actual thing. He knew Dopey would suck out his brain, but, with the tongue-dangling dwarf getting near, he couldn’t imagine what that would mean. Mummy and Daddy had told him Dopey was just a cartoon in a film so many times he’d almost forgotten what was actual and what was not. It was possible he’d made the Evil Dwarf actual by believing in him. That was how some monsters worked. A girl at school who was excused assembly because her parents didn’t believe in Jesus said that was how God worked too.

The Evil Dwarf would play with him first. Dopey circled, dancing clumsily, cap-bell tinkling. Jeremy twisted to keep the dwarf in sight, to stop him latching on to the back of his neck, digging for his brain through his hackles. Dopey’s tongue—tipped with an orangy blob Jeremy supposed was poisonous—shot in and out like a toad’s. The dwarf wore heavy boots with curly, pointed toes. He whistled the dig-dig-dig song from
Snow White.
From his broad leather belt, he took a tiny miner’s pick, blade sharp, and licked its length with one slithery pass of his tongue. Jeremy knew Dopey would prise out his eye with the pick, and get that tongue into his skull. There was nothing more he could do. This was the moment he’d always known would come, when the Evil Dwarf got him.

‘Stupid,’ he said, meaning everything.

The Evil Dwarf was shocked. His watery eyes shook, glints of meanness in blue depths. A single tooth scraped his lower lip. He pulled in his tongue, shoving the last of it into his mouth with fingers like burned-down candles.

‘Stupid,’ Jeremy said, meaning to hurt.

The Evil Dwarf trembled with a rage he couldn’t put into words. His stupidity was like a plug in a boiling kettle, keeping steam in until it exploded. Red blotches emerged on his cheeks like splashes of paint, and his neck swelled until it was the thickness of his head.

‘Retardoid, moron, cretin, spastic,’ Jeremy said, the worst insults he could think of, the worst that had ever been used on him.

The pick struck out, and sliced whistling past Jeremy’s nose. The Evil Dwarf backhanded, and Jeremy had to duck to avoid a triangular flange which would have scraped off his face.

Dopey’s mouth worked hard as he tried to get words out.

‘…
dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig…’

With each ‘dig’, the Evil Dwarf jabbed, pickpoint dimpling Jeremy’s skin and clothes but not puncturing.

Up close, the dwarf smelled horrible. His arms and legs didn’t work well, his fingers couldn’t even hold his pick properly. One hand was a stiff knot that reminded Jeremy of his sister’s barbarian doll, who could only hold the magic sword she came with if Hannah used Sellotape. This wasn’t what he had expected. Although as mean and cruel as Jeremy had imagined Dopey was a kid monster, unable to do anything properly, with moods and tantrums, not even capable of controlling his body. He flopped around like Nigel Harris on a trampoline, barely able to keep his balance, let alone get in the air.

Boldly, Jeremy stood up to the Evil Dwarf, fisting his chest. He staggered, incensed at meeting resistance, and Jeremy jeered at him.

‘Thickie,’ he said, remembering kids at school who picked on him, but whom he left behind in class, his brain racing ahead of theirs. He was supposed to be ‘gifted’. That must give him power over this dope.

‘Dopey the dope, brains full of soap,’ he said, pleased with his rhyme. ‘Dopey the dope, dwarf without hope…’

The Evil Dwarf began to thump the ground with a gnarly fist. Dwarves were stunted, growth stalled like a broken-down car. The Evil Dwarf was stunted in more than just his body. Dopey was sulking, eyebrows jammed together in a hard ridge over mean eyes, great lumps of snot dangling from his nose. Jeremy wondered what would upset the Evil Dwarf more than being called stupid.

‘Shorty,’ he said.

The Evil Dwarf howled. Jeremy could see through Dopey now, could see the ground through his smock.

‘Knee-high to an ant’s little brother.’

Jeremy had got close, so as to dig deeper with his words. He’d forgotten the Evil Dwarf was still dangerous. The pick swung through the air, and jammed into his bare shin. Jeremy screamed, feeling the point grating bone. Instantly, the pain vanished and his entire leg was numb and tingly, as if he’d been sitting on it for a long time.

‘Stunted runt.’

Dopey’s howl turned to a whine. He tried to pull the pick out of Jeremy’s leg, but couldn’t get a proper grip.

‘Two foot two, eyes like spew…’

Jeremy kicked the dwarf, the pick coming out of Dopey’s hand as he moved his leg. The Evil Dwarf rolled into a ball like an overturned hedgehog, and Jeremy kicked him again.

A way away, down on the road, there was an explosion, as when a spaceship blew up in a James Bond film, and lots of screaming. A plume of flame shot up in the dark like a firework. Jeremy, distracted, stopped kicking for a moment, and bent to pull the pick out of his leg. It came free easily, and felt good in his hand. As soon as the point was out of him, he felt pain again, and a dribble of blood ran down to his sock.

Dopey’s hands pawed his neck, fingers not long enough to get a stranglehold. Jeremy was pulled off balance, and the two, locked together, rolled down the hill. The Evil Dwarf didn’t feel actual. His hands and knees were hard and hurting, but the rest of him wasn’t all there, as if he were a thin film over mushy stuff. Jeremy was more hurt by the stones they rolled over. When they came to a halt, back in the Pottery garden, the Evil Dwarf was on top. Jeremy still had the pick, and he stuck it deep into Dopey’s left side, jiggling the blade. There was a hiss, like a slow puncture, and Jeremy saw alarm in the dwarf’s eyes.

‘…dig dig… dig… d-d-dig dig dig… d-d-d-d-d-d-d-dig…’

‘Die, you cretin.’

The tongue poked out, orange bulb pulsing, and fell in a coil to Jeremy’s face, where it slipped on his forehead and came to rest over his left eye. He felt a mild stinging and the tongue squirmed, trying to bring its point to bear on his eyeball. He screwed his eye tightly shut, and shook his head, trying to get the tongue loose.

Drool dribbled down the fleshy rope towards Jeremy’s head. The left side of Dopey’s face was stiff and withering, substance going out of it. Jeremy stuck the pick into the Evil Dwarf’s armpit and tore upwards, ripping through flesh like unbaked dough. The pick burst out of the dwarf’s shoulder. An arm hung on threads of white gristle.

His eye was stinging badly now. Jeremy sliced with the pick, and hooked the tongue. It was whipped away, and draped across the grass.

‘…dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig…’

Jeremy stood up, the Evil Dwarf clinging to him with one hand, and shrugged Dopey off. The dwarf thumped the ground, badly out of shape. His parents had been right. The Evil Dwarf wasn’t actual. Jeremy could see through him, see the gravel of a thin garden path under Dopey. The tongue slipped back like a snake returning to a hole, but the Evil Dwarf was beaten. The only actual thing the dwarf had brought was the pick. Jeremy knelt, and sank the pick into the Evil Dwarf’s heart. It was like scything into thick mud. The pick and Jeremy’s hand sank into the dwarf, and he felt a jarring in his wrist as the point lodged in the path. There was a heavy wetness on his hand where it was buried in Dopey’s transparent body. He stirred with his fingers, and ripples ran through the whole creature.

…
dig
…
dig…

The Evil Dwarf collapsed, and was a damp outline on the ground, shimmering like a snail trail. For a second, there was a sighing scream, then just the trickling of the leftovers sinking into gravel and earth.

‘I don’t believe in you any more,’ Jeremy said. There was muck on his hand. He stood up, and gently wiped it off on his shirt. His peed-in shorts were drapes of ice, and he felt he had filth all over his body. It was very dark, but the darkness was empty. The imaginary monsters had been banished. He was stuck with the actual world and the horrors it still presented. His daddy would have been proud of him, if his daddy was still his daddy. He could see flames beyond the house, out in the road, and hear shouting. The Evil Dwarf might be defeated, but there were still monsters,
actual
monsters, prowling in Alder.