Restoration (45 page)

  "Find a penny, pick it up," said Ryan with a grin, "and all the day you'll have good luck."

  "I find that hard to believe in this place," said Penelope.

  Madame Arcana, the fire having sunk its teeth into her limbs with a preternatural speed, gave an almighty crack as she distorted with the heat. The bracket that held her in place snapped and she fell forward, tumbling from the case and slowly contorting on the floor as she continued to blacken. The back of her case was open, a door that led through to another room.

  "Well now," said Barnabas, stepping forward, "what's through here?"

  "Careful," said Penelope.

  Barnabas smiled, only too happy to look the brave sailor in front of Penelope. "You don't put something like that," he pointed at Madame Arcana "in front of something dangerous, you put it in front of something you want to keep hidden."

  He stepped into the vacated cabinet and through the exposed door.

  Jonah stepped forward, "I think I liked him better when he was a grumpy coward," he said. "Anything killed him yet?"

  "No it hasn't," said Barnabas, poking his head back through, "but you might want to follow me through."

  One by one they filed through the small doorway, stepping out onto a wooden, plateau.

  "Look over the edge," said Barnabas. Alan walked over to where the plateau dropped off and, as he got closer, he realised where they were. Facing them was the top of the opposite bookcase, its upper rows coming into view as he got closer to the edge of the case they were stood on.

  "We made it!" said Barnabas grabbing Penelope in a sly hug while he felt he had the excuse.

  There was a cracking noise from above them and they all huddled together, immediately on the defensive. The cream paintwork of the ceiling split neatly as many large screens descended throughout the impossibly large room. The screens flickered with static for a few seconds and then an angry squeal of feedback echoed along the bookcases.

  "What the hell was that?" Hawkins roared.

  "You tell me," Jonah said, holding his head in his hands, "it nearly split me from ear to ear."

  The screens flickered and popped then the face of the Grumpy Controller appeared, many times over, all across the length and breadth of the room.

  "Finally made it then?" he said, the voice echoing from a crowd of identical controllers. "About time too, there happens to be a reality in need of saving."

  "What are we supposed to do?" Alan asked, looking at Sophie.

  "Get her to the centre," the voice replied, "she'll manage the rest herself."

  "And the centre is?" Penelope held her arms out trying to get across the size of the room.

  "About half an hour's fast walk towards 'G'," it replied, "and for all our sakes get on with it, we'll only have one crack at this and if you bugger it up we're all doomed."

 

 

Ashe pulled himself onto his final train. Nearly done, he thought as he dropped his old bones into one of the seats. He pulled his revolver out of his coat pocket and checked it was fully loaded before staring impatiently out of the window. What were they waiting for? Usually the minute he had stepped onboard the trains shot off to their destination. He got up and moved to the door, meaning to stick his head out and check the platform. With a hiss the door slammed shut the minute he drew close.

  "Well come on then!" he shouted. "Let's get on with this!"

  The intercom crackled and the voice of the Grumpy Controller came from the speakers.

  "This is a service alteration due to an emergency in the time stream," it said. "This service will now be stopping at March 23rd 1976 rather than the previously scheduled August 16th 1977."

  Ashe rolled his eyes and smacked the wall of the carriage beneath the speaker. "What are you doing?" he shoute. "Why the change?"

  "Don't shout at me sir," the tannoy said, "this rail service does not tolerate violence towards its staff."

  "This rail service can kiss my ass! What's going on?"

  "Your… colleague, the drunk, is trying to disrupt the timeline."

  "Tom…" Ashe sighed, this he hadn't allowed for.

  With a jolt the train pulled out of the station.

 

 

Hughie was coasting. Everything was starting to feel detached and light, as if he was slowly falling out of his own life. As he drove he kept seeing flashes of the bodies in the diner. Split and blossoming like flowers of meat.

  "Keep your eye on the road, Hughie," the stranger said, as Hughie veered between lanes, "and your mind on the job."

  "What job is that?" Hughie asked.

  "Driver and pet monkey," the stranger replied, smiling dreamily. "I'm going home."

  "Yeah." Layer on top of layer, Hughie thought, thinking back to their conversation in the diner and the ramifications it might hold. Thinking about what was to happen to his little layer of reality if the stranger punched his way through all those other layers to get home. "It would tear the metaphorical guts right out of it," the stranger had said. Hughie didn't doubt it. The stranger just loved tearing the guts out of things.

  That made him think of the diner again, of him begging as the stranger leaped on the cop with his steak knife.

  "You're veering again, Hughie," the stranger said, "you want us to crash before we even get there?"

  Hughie tightened his grip on the steering wheel and brought the car back under control.

  As the cop had screamed so the rest of the diners had joined him. Once what they were seeing sunk in, some had made for the doors – which had slammed shut and would not open until it was far too late – a few others had made for their table. They meant to help of course, to pull that pudgy freak off the cop before the damage was too great. They weren't alone, Hughie had got there first, dropping on to the stranger's back and yanking at his arms. He didn't care if the stranger turned on him, better that than watch another man die.

  The stranger had just smiled and shrugged his shoulders, sending Hughie flying into one of the far tables.

  "You don't get to die," the stranger had said, "you get to watch."

  And Hughie had, his entire body as stiff and unresponsive as that night when he had lain amongst the snakes on the dirt road beyond his house. He lay on his side amongst the toppled chairs and tables, eyes unblinking as the stranger laughed and cut. He watched as, one by one, they fell. A burly guy, one of the first in line to come to the cop's aid, dropped to the floor as the stranger sliced out with his knife. His hands went to his belly, fighting to keep everything inside as the stranger turned to his next victim. The steak knife broke quickly, but this – he's not a man, Hughie remembered – this "thing" had no need of it. He used whatever he could lay his hands on, other cutlery, the beer bottles, hands and teeth. It was almost impossible to watch him move, he did it so quickly. His arms and legs moved independent of one another, each swinging through the air to achieve maximum damage. It made him look utterly inhuman, like when you see a monkey in the zoo pick up something with its foot. The other diners, thirteen or fourteen of them, began banging at the windows. One woman, jiggling in the most unflattering pantsuit Hughie had ever seen – the beige nylon cutting into her ass like string around a pot roast – picked up a chair and threw it against the window. It bounced back, knocking out a few of the woman's teeth and sending her sprawling.

  Hughie wished he could close his eyes. If he couldn't stop the stranger then, for sure, that would be the next best thing. They were as fixed as the eyes of the girl only a few feet away, the one with a fork in the side of her head. He had no idea if his looked as startled as hers.

  "Are you feeling alright, Hughie?" the stranger asked. "You seem distracted."

  "Yesterday I watched you slaughter a bunch of people. Today you're going to tear the guts out of my world," he replied. "Of course I'm fucking distracted."

  "Tried to stop me in the restaurant, didn't you?"

  "Yeah, and I'd do it again."

  The stranger nodded. "I know Hughie, perversely it's one of the reasons I like you."

  "I knew you liked me," Hughie replied, "you always treat me with such kindness."

  The stranger laughed. "A sense of humour too, who wouldn't want you around, eh Hughie? …Hughie!"

  Hughie had already seen it. Didn't believe it, but saw it right enough. Right ahead of them a door had appeared in the middle of the road and a woman had come running out of it. She cut straight across the highway, her momentum taking her out of harm's way just as Hughie had prepared to swerve. "That was…" Then a man appeared out of the door, and Hughie hit him straight on. "Fuck!" Hughie put one arm in front of his face as the windshield cracked and the man rolled over their roof, tumbling to the asphalt behind them. The car spun as he involuntarily hit the brakes.

  "Hughie!" the stranger roared, as he was thrown forward in his seat.

  Hughie took his foot off the brake and fought to get the car back under control.

  Behind them, poor Leo breathed a last wet breath into the stained grit beneath him. Hughie strained to see through the windscreen and began to pull over.

  "What are you doing Hughie?" the stranger growled, turning to look at him through his smashed face. His two front teeth had chipped on the dashboard, Hughie noticed. He could see the tear in the plastic where they had hit.

  That hurt him. He thought. That actually
hurt
him.

  "We should check…"

  "I think we can safely say he's dead, Hughie," the stranger replied, spitting a mouthful of blood at the windshield before leaning forward and punching the whole thing out of its frame with an animal roar. "So let's get on with it! I want to go home!"

  Hughie put his foot on the gas and the car pulled forward again.

  That
hurt
him.

  "You're becoming more human," he had said to the stranger before their meal in the steakhouse. He had meant the stranger's appetites and speech, but perhaps it was more than that. Perhaps this thing, in its lust for the earthly, for the pleasure of meat, had actually begun to transform? If so then Hughie had some hope left. It was a thought he pushed from his head as soon as he had it, determined not to share.

  That hurt him, he thought again, satisfied that the stranger could tell nothing from such a thought. He repeated it over and over again in his head. That hurt him, that hurt him, that hurt him…

  Hughie could see the news vans and police cars up ahead.
That hurt him
. They were nearly there..

  "Don't speed up, Hughie," the stranger said, "you'll miss the…" he turned to look at him. "What are you doing now?"

  Hughie pressed the pedal right to the floor, moving into the outside lane and heading straight past the construction site.

  "That hurt you," he said.

  "What?"

  "Back there…" Hughie didn't want to discuss that, nor was there time. "When we hit that poor bastard. You hurt yourself."

  The stranger looked down at his hands, still red and sticky. What was the little ant talking about?

  "I said you were becoming more human," Hughie continued, the wind blasting through the open windshield meaning he had to shout, "in the diner, I told you that. Then, today, you got hurt."

  Ahead, the I-4 overpass loomed. The Oldsmobile now hitting 100… 110… other cars were pulling out of the way, banging their horns at the mad fool with the speed problem.

  "Your point, Hughie?"

  Hughie smiled and it was the first time he could remember doing that for a long, long time. Before the stranger had arrived for sure, but even then he hadn't had much to crack his face over had he? But right now, he was genuinely happy. Almost joyful in fact.

  "My point? You may not be quite as indestructible as you seem to think,
that's
my point." He looked at the stranger and had the singular pleasure of glimpsing a look of fear on the man's face. He leaned back and nudged the wheel toward the thick concrete feet of the overpass. "I hope it hurts, you godawful
motherfucker
."

  The car hit the bridge pillar at a solid 120 miles per hour. Hughie, who had had the foresight to punch the button of his seatbelt just before the impact, hit the concrete a fraction of a second later. Blessed oblivion, how Hughie Bones had earned it.

 

 

With a sigh, Hawkins dropped his bag on the floor. "I don't know about the rest of you but I've had as many orders from this place as I'm happy to take."

  "Get over yourself," the Controller replied, his face vanishing to be replaced by an old black and white movie of someone making a clay pot, the word "Interlude" emblazoned across it.

  Alan just shook his head, shuffled Sophie on his back, and set to walking. "One last push," he said, over his shoulder, "this place wants to survive as much as we do. It may not like dealing with us and we certainly don't like dealing with it. But we're all in the same boat so I can't see we have much choice."

  Penelope walked alongside him. "Aren't you worried what's going to happen to Sophie?" she asked. He glanced at her but didn't reply. Behind them she could hear the
Intrepid
crew following on. "You know, don't you?" she asked. "You know exactly what's going to happen."

  He nodded. "Ashe told me. This is the future he was trying to avoid."

  "And you're walking right into it?"

  "There's no choice, it's this or the end of all of us." He shuffled Sophie in his arms, she still whispering "build not break, build not break," over and over again. "And I don't just mean us," he continued gesturing back with his head to include the crew behind them, "I mean everything, every single person in every single book on every single shelf… our whole species, our whole existence. He'll destroy all of it."