The Portable Door (1987) (21 page)

Paul was still recovering from the shock, they pounced forward, swift as spiders but still extremely wary, like two small bouncers tackling one enormous drunk. The one with the spear scuttled straight at him, while the other one dived to the right, to take him in his flank. Paul jumped back, trod on the leg of the overturned chair and lashed out frantically with both arms to try and regain his balance. This had the effect of freezing both goblins in their tracks; in fact, it reminded Paul of one time he’d been on a country walk and found himself in a field full of young bullocks. It was the same disconcerting half-heartedness, the same blend of aggression and obvious terror, though what they had to be scared about, Paul wasn’t quite sure. True, the taller of the pair, the one with the axe, was maybe four foot nine and distinctly weedy under its bristles. On the other hand, there were two of them, and the point of the shorter one’s spear was only about six inches from Paul’s navel.

Out of a clear blue sky, it occurred to Paul that he might try shouting at them. Maybe it was because that was what had worked with the herd of bullocks, or maybe it was just long-buried instinct. Anyhow, he tried it, whereupon both goblins did a standing jump four feet backwards, recovered, took a step forward and froze again. They stared. He stared back. Another stalemate.

(Yes, he thought, but now they were well clear of the door, which meant that if Sophie still had her wits about her she could sneak out without being seen, and—And what? Go for help? She couldn’t get out of the building. Besides, he mused, remembering the crash and the screams, it was more than likely that the two goblins weren’t the only examples of their kind on the premises.)

He drew in a deep breath, for shouting purposes, but found that he couldn’t bring himself to make any noise whatever. Either the terror was slowly paralysing him, or subconsciously he was thinking about other goblins in the building, who might come running if they heard him yelling. He let the breath out slowly, and concentrated on keeping still.

Talk about your moments; this was a moment all right, and it seemed to go on for ever. Things weren’t getting any better as time passed. For one thing, Paul realised to his profound dismay and disgust that his left leg, which had been supporting most of his weight since he recovered after falling over the chair leg, had just gone to sleep; so that if he did get the chance to run, he’d have a numb foot to contend with, or pins and bloody needles at the very least. He toyed, very briefly, with the idea of making a grab for the short goblin’s spear, but his imagination was too vivid for that. He could almost see the blood and feel the pain as his hands missed the shaft and grabbed the extremely sharp-looking blade instead. He ordered that particular plan of action to fuck off and die; even thinking about it was much, much too dangerous, as far as he was concerned.

At any rate, he thought, it didn’t look like Sophie was going to be able to keep her date with the anarchosocialist potter. Count blessings; gratitude for small mercies. If he was going to be ruthlessly honest with himself, it didn’t really help.

It was the third goblin that buggered everything up. Looking back, Paul reckoned it must’ve come bouncing into the room without realising something was up. It was about the same size as the spear-carrier, weasel-featured and armed with a broad, curved sword; it bustled in, saw Paul, came to a sudden halt and screamed.

Immediately, Paul heard himself shout back; bizarrely, what he was shouting was, “Please go away,” but it was obviously the way he said it, not the actual content, that did the trick. All three goblins shrank away from him as if he was the one with all the weapons, and this remarkable show of cowardice set his instincts in motion again. He took a long stride forward, stamped his left foot down hard and shouted: “Boo!” at the top of his voice.

To a certain extent, it worked like a charm. All three goblins turned and fled, the spear-fancier dropping his spear in the process. This should have been a good thing, but it wasn’t. By now, the other two goblins had reached the doorway; and the spear-fancier, finding itself unarmed and exposed, shrieked in panic and shrank backwards, towards the corner of the room, away from the door.
Bugger
, Paul thought, and he took another step forward, raising his arms and flapping them in the air, trying to shoo the goblin like a farmer herding sheep.

He’d overdone it. The goblin screamed horribly, scuttled back and bumped into Sophie, who was just getting up off the floor. The goblin spun round, saw its chance and grabbed her by the hair, hauling her across its body while its other hand produced a knife and held it under her chin.

In the last split second, Paul managed to stop himself from shouting; just as well, because he was absolutely certain (don’t ask him why) that a shout at that precise moment would have scared the goblin into frantic, violent panic, and Sophie would have been killed then and there. Instead, Paul held absolutely still, his weight on his numb back foot, a breath half-taken in his throat, and let the goblin back away through the door, dragging Sophie with him. It was yet another moment; in this instance, the worst such of Paul’s life.

Just to make sure, he stayed put and counted to five, as the sound of the goblin’s awkward footsteps died away beyond the doorway. Only then did he dare take the risk of coming back to life.

Shit?
he yelled. Then he lunged forward and grabbed the spear off the floor, where the goblin had dropped it. At this point, his numb foot made its presence felt; he wobbled, nearly stuck himself with the spear under his left armpit, slammed the butt onto the ground and put his weight on it.

This wouldn’t do at all; so, using the spear as a crutch, he swung towards the door and hobbled out into the corridor. No sign, in either direction; nothing to give him a clue which way they’d gone.

Paul hesitated. The clever thing to do, he knew, would be to go back into Tanner’s office, throw a chair through the window, and scream for help. But he didn’t. He wasn’t sure why, he just knew that going back would be going in the wrong direction, leaving Sophie when he should be following. “Shit and fuck,” he muttered balefully, and looked down the corridor, then up. Which way? No idea; and eeny-meeny-miny-moeing at this juncture simply wasn’t going to cut it, he had to make a
decision
. “Bugger,” he explained to himself, and turned right.

Right, of course, meant down the corridor into the computer bay, through the fire doors and down the stairs; at the foot of which he stopped and listened. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear bumps and crashes, like noisy children shifting furniture. Presumably goblins; and he was perfectly well aware of the fact that he was a coward, completely out of his depth, in a locked building containing an unknown but probably substantial number of utterly terrifying and apparently-until-proven-otherwise hostile creatures. But that was about as relevant to the decision-making process as the price of cocoa butter on the New York commodities exchange. The only question was, were those goblins the right goblins, or not?

No way of knowing. All Paul could think of was getting hold of one of them and hitting it until it made the other one, the one who’d got Sophie, give her back. It was a spectacularly stupid plan, and he knew it, but it was all he could think of. Hating his left foot for having pins and needles in it, he hoppitied down the passageway like Long John Silver running for a bus, and shoved through the fire door into reception.

He was looking for goblins; he’d found them. He didn’t bother with a meticulous headcount, but there were at least twenty of them, apparently playing some form of rugby football with the large metal waste-paper basket that usually lived under the receptionist’s desk. As soon as Paul barged in, they stopped whatever it was they’d been doing, and froze. They were staring at him, as if—well, as if they were junior clerks in a City of London office, and he was a goblin.

Oh for God’s sake, not all that again
, Paul said to himself; and instead of staring back, he yelled, “Bastards!” at the top of his voice and brandished the spear in as melodramatic a fashion as he could manage with a duff foot and a soaking-wet trouser leg.

The goblins fled. All, that was, except one.

One, however, was enough. It was bigger than the others he’d seen—rat-faced, broad across the shoulders and armed with a long, thin knife and a chunky-looking iron club with spikes sticking out of it. For a split second it turned to follow the others; then it screamed horribly, jumped onto the front desk and threw the club at Paul’s head. Paul dropped the spear and ducked as the club sailed past his head, missing it by the width of a cigarette paper. The goblin jumped down, reaching for him with its clawed hand; Paul backed away on his heels like a Cossack dancer, flailing with his arms for balance, and as he retreated down the line of the front desk, his fingers closed on something cold and smooth. Whatever its proper function was, this object had suddenly been upgraded to weapons status; Paul grabbed it and lashed out at the goblin’s claw, rapping it hard across the knuckles. It was at this point that he discovered what the mystery object was. It was the long stapler.

A table lamp would have suited him better; likewise a length of steel pipe, or an Uzi. But what he’d got was a stapler, and it was better than nothing. The goblin paused for a moment, weighing up the merits of various tactical initiatives, and suddenly hopped forward, swiping at Paul’s face with its claws. Without really knowing what he was doing, Paul intercepted the goblin’s swing with his own left hand, grabbing its arm just above the wrist. Then, hefting the stapler in his right hand, he closed its jaws onto the goblin’s soft, leathery palm and squeezed hard. The stapler went
click;
the goblin shrieked, dropped its knife and tried to pull away. It succeeded, but not before Paul had stapled it again. Now that, he couldn’t help thinking, was a good moment.

After that, things started to look up—thanks mostly to

the goblin, who made the mistake of backing into the bookshelf on the far wall of the little bay where callers waited for their appointments. This shelf supported the considerable weight of one hundred and three bound volumes of the
Journal of Meteorological Studies
, June 1949 to December 1957 inclusive. In turn, the shelf was secured to the wall by two stout wooden brackets; but not stout enough, it turned out, to survive a direct hit from the spike on the top of a goblin helmet. To be precise, the spike took out the bracket at the end of the shelf nearest to Paul and the front desk. Immediately the shelf dropped forward, and the bound volumes slid off it one by one. June 1949 to September 1951 between them knocked off the goblin’s tin hat; the rest of the collection drummed off its hairy skull like raindrops, until a glancing blow from February 1956 finished it off and dropped it to the ground like the proverbial felled ox. It was an awesome, really quite inspiring sight, and while it was going on, all Paul could do was stand and stare in fascinated admiration. Once the last volume had done its stuff, however, he snapped back into life, pounced on the stricken goblin and grabbed it by one long, furry ear.

“Bastard,” he yelled. The goblin stared at him and whimpered, its little red eyes wide with horror. At any other time, Paul would have had to let it go, and probably find it an old blanket and a saucer of bread and milk. Just then, however, he wasn’t in the mood. He hardened his heart, clenched his left fist, and swung it back for a good, hard swing—“What the bloody hell,” said a voice behind him, “do you think you’re playing at?”

He let go of the goblin’s ear and whirled round so fast he hurt something in his neck. Mr Tanner was standing in the doorway.

Paul tried to find some words, but only one of them came to hand. “Goblin,” he said. “
Goblin
.”

Mr Tanner gave him a look you could have skated on.

“Actually,” he said, “that’s my mother.”

I
t was one of those moments when the moral high ground opens and swallows you up. Paul looked down at the cowering goblin, buried up to the neck in the
Journal of Meteorological Studies
, and back at Mr Tanner, and for a short time he forgot all about Sophie and the weirdness and the fact that he’d just fought a giant orc (as he was already thinking of the goblin) to a standstill, armed with nothing but a stapler. He felt like he was ten years old and he’d just been caught trying to hide the shards of the priceless Ming vase he’d used to smash the drawing-room window.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Mr Tanner said.

“It’s nearly six o’clock—you shouldn’t even be in the building.”

“Sorry,” Paul said automatically; and then it occurred to him that somewhere about the premises, a horrible hairy creature with a face like a weasel was holding a knife to Sophie’s throat. Somehow, the risk of getting fired didn’t seem quite so important. “Sophie,” he said, “they’ve got her. One of the—” He hesitated. If this one was Mr Tanner’s mother, the knife-wielder might be his cousin, or his aunt. “Grabbed her,” he said, “stuck a knife under her chin. You’ve got to do something.”

Mr Tanner sighed, as if he’d just been called out of an important meeting to sign a stationery requisition. “I see,” he said. “All right, stay there. And try not to cause any more trouble.”

He went back through the fire door. Paul noticed that he was still holding the stapler. He put it carefully down on the front desk, then looked round. The goblin—Mr Tanner’s old mum—was still crouching on the floor, watching him with baleful, terrified eyes. “Um, sorry,” he said, and held out a hand to help it up, but it made a tiny, brittle screaming noise, like worn-down brake shoes, and shrank away.

About a minute later, Mr Tanner came back. Sophie was behind him, with a dazed expression on her face but no blood or anything. Paul wanted to rush over and fold her in his arms, but he had enough sense left to realise that this wouldn’t be a good idea. “Sit down,” Mr Tanner barked at her, and she dropped obediently into the receptionist’s chair. “And you,” he added to Paul. Then he knelt down beside the book-entombed goblin, gently held out his hand and screamed at it, like a monkey in a zoo, or a mynah bird. The goblin screamed back, grabbed his wrist and hauled itself up, taking great and ostentatious care to keep Mr Tanner between itself and Paul. Slowly, tenderly, Mr Tanner walked it across reception, holding it gently by the arm, then opened the door for it. The goblin paused in the doorway, pointed at Paul with a long, wickedly curved claw, and shrieked.