Knees Up Mother Earth

20

Kevin Hurst, the ambulance driver from Brentford Cottage Hospital, offered Neville the bitterest of glares.

“Twice in one week,” he said. “What goes on in this bar? And what is this, anyway – a Don King lookalike convention?”

A thin haze of pale blue smoke still hung in the air of the saloon bar – a saloon bar whose patrons now sat slumped in attitudes of despondency, or lay upon the floor in attitudes of unconsciousness.

Neville, who had escaped electrocution by merit of being on the other side of the bar and consequently touching no one, was hardly able to speak.

Constables Russell Meek and Arthur Mild however, who had lately arrived on the scene, had plenty to say.

“Quietly patrolling, we were,” they told Scoop Molloy, who had his pencil and notebook out, “when we observed the premises illuminate with a fearsome fulguration. Unthinking of our personal safety, we pulled many from the jaws of death. There’ll be medals in this for us, I wouldn’t wonder.”

Scoop scribbled away in his notebook. “Fearsome fulguration. Jaws of death,” said he. “I like that.”

“My mobile phone,” croaked John Omally. “He blew up my mobile phone.”

“And singed my suit,” whinged Pooley.

“It’s what you call a glitch,” Norman explained.

“And how come your hair isn’t standing up?” a lady in a charred and elevated straw hat asked Norman.

John and Jim decided to call it a night. It had been an exciting day for the both of them, and enough was definitely enough.

“I will see you on the morrow,” said John, when they reached Jim’s lodgings.

Jim patted down his hair and cracked his knuckles and licked at his charred fingers. “I thought arresting Norman was somewhat over-zealous on the part of those policemen,” he said.

“They’ll probably let him out in the morning. You have a good sleep now, Jim. I’ll meet you tomorrow lunchtime in The Swan and we’ll discuss what is next to be done with the club.”

“And you can tell me everything that really went on last night,” said Jim. “And don’t think I’ll forget to ask you about it.”

“Goodnight to you, Jim,” said John, heading off for home.

“John,” Jim called after him. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Is it further congratulations you’re looking for?” enquired John, turning back.

“No,” said Jim. “It’s him.”

“Him?” John asked.

“Him,” said Jim. “You, Mr Campbell. Goodnight to you, too. Go along with John.”

“I’m staying,” said the Campbell.

“You’re not staying with me.”

“I’ll be here, outside your door, maintaining the vigil.”

“I’d rather you just went home, thank you very much.”

The Campbell sat down upon the pavement. “Away to your bed, wee laddie,” said he. “I’ll see that no harm comes to you.”

“John,” said Jim, “I don’t like this, John.”

“Humour him,” said John. “He has your interests at heart.”

“But it’s not right. It’s indecent somehow.”

“Goodnight to you, Jim,” said John once more.

Jim Pooley shrugged. “Goodnight to you, John,” said he. “And goodnight to you, Campbell,” he said also.

The night passed without incident, and presently changed into coming day.

Lunchtime of this coming day found John and Jim and the Campbell, who had maintained his vigil outside Jim’s lodgings throughout the night, once more in the saloon bar of The Flying Swan.

Neville did not greet his now unbarred patrons with a smile and a merry quip. Neville was very down in the dumps.

“Why me?” he asked. “My only desire is to serve fine ale and maintain a happy bar. What have I done to bring all this down upon me? Have I offended the Gods in some way? Tell me, won’t somebody tell me?”

“You’ve done nothing,” said John, accepting the ale he had ordered and paying for same with the exact amount of pennies and halfpennies. “You’re a good man, Neville. I’m sure you find favour in the eyes of your Gods.”

“I’m seriously thinking about running away with the circus,” said Neville.

“Strike that thought from your mind,” said John. “You are the finest barman in Brentford – probably in the country.”

“You really think so?” Neville preened at his lapels.

“Certainly,” said John. “Do you think you could open a window? It’s still a bit whiffy in here.”

Neville sloped off to open a window.

“He sat outside my place all night long,” Jim whispered to John, turning his eyes towards the Campbell, who sat by the door polishing his claymore with his kilt. “He fair puts the wind up me, John. Couldn’t he be your minder for a while?”

“Take it like a man, Jim,” said John. “You are a man of responsibility now. And there’s a Wednesday-night game coming up. You should be applying your mind to this.”

“I don’t think I’ll survive the season, John. This is all too much for me.”

“You’ll be fine. Let’s take a seat yonder. There are matters to be discussed.”

“Such as what actually happened on Friday night.”

“Oh, that, of course, but first things first. On the strength of the team’s great victory, I think we can bring in some big outborough money. People like to associate themselves with winners. I have one or two ideas that should bring us in a good many pennies.”

“John,” said Jim, “there is something you’re not telling me, something that has to do with the real reason why that lunatic in the kilt is following me around. I demand to be told, John. You’re my bestest friend. Please don’t lie to me.”

“Jim, just concentrate on the matters at hand.”

“Tell me now, John, all of the truth – or although we have been lifelong friends, I will walk out of this pub right now and I swear that I will not see you again.”

John Omally took in breath. “Now, Jim,” he said. “Don’t be hasty, now.”

“I mean it, John.”

Omally took a large swallow of ale. “All right,” said he. “I’ll tell you. You won’t like it and you’ll be very angry and feel that you have been betrayed – that’s the way I felt. But you deserve to be told and I’ve not been happy keeping it from you. You are my bestest friend.”

“I really don’t like the sound of this.”

“Then don’t make me tell you.”

“I have to know, John, and you know that I have to know.”

“All right,” said Omally. “Let us sit over in the corner. I’ll get us in more ale.”

“At your expense? Now I really am worried.”

“Go and sit in the corner.”

Jim went and sat in the corner. John joined him in the company of further ales.

And then John told to Jim everything that the professor had told to John. And John told to Jim everything that had really happened to Jim.

And John omitted nothing.

And Jim chain-smoked cigarettes until John had eventually done with his telling.

And Jim was not a happy man.

And then John stared into the face of Jim Pooley, a face that was bereft of colour, and John said unto Jim, “Are you all right?”

And Jim could not speak for a moment. And it was a long moment. But when Jim was able to speak, he simply said, “Yes.”

“Yes?” said John. “Is that all you have to say on the matter?”

“No,” said Jim, “I have much to say. I must say thank you to the Campbell for saving my life and I will have much to say to the professor. But for all that you have said, let me ask you this: do you actually believe it?”

“I believe what I saw with my own eyes and what I experienced. I have never been so afraid in all of my life, which is one of the reasons that I didn’t want to tell you. It is all so fearsome, Jim.”

“What are we going to do, John?”

“I really wish I knew.”

“But if these dark, black things are really out to kill us—”

“I know, my friend. But the Campbell will protect you.”

“And what about you? Who’s going to protect you?”

“I trust the professor. We’ll come out of this in one piece.”

“It’s absurd,” said Jim. “It’s beyond absurd. And above that it’s unfair that we should have been dragged into this.”

“I think you’re taking it very well.”

“I don’t think it’s fully sunk in yet.”

“I think we should just get on with doing what we’re doing – stick with trying to take the club to victory and leave all the magical stuff to the professor and the Campbell.”

“You don’t think that perhaps we’d both be better off just running away?”

“To where? Brentford is our home. I don’t know about you, but I have no wish to leave it. I like it here. I love it here.”

“Yes,” said Jim, “me, too. This is all very hard to take in. Very hard. It’s not exactly your everyday problem, now is it?”

Omally shrugged and shook his head.

“And the more I think about it, the more I think that you are going about all this in the wrong way.”

“How so?” John asked.

“Because of the scale of the problem, John. This is big, really big. Brentford hadn’t even played a single FA Cup qualifying game before these monsters were dispatched to kill us. Now Brentford has won a game, and handsomely, too. So what’s next? More assaults upon us, I would guess, more attempts upon our lives.”

“That will probably be the case.”

“And this Consortium that wants to take the football ground – it is run by some satanic magician, this William Starling character?”

“He would seem to be the villain of this piece,” said John.

Jim Pooley shrugged and continued, “How much power does this character have? A lot, would be my guess, and with every success the team has, he will throw more and more monsters at us.”

“The professor will protect us.”

“And who will protect the professor?”

“Ah,” said John. “Good point.”

“They’ll beat us,” said Jim. “They’ll kill us, and the professor, too. We can’t just sit around waiting for this to happen. Well, you can, if you want, but I won’t. We’re sitting targets, John, they’ll get us sooner or later. There could be thousands of them. You hear talk about Satanists and Black Magic covens, that they’re everywhere. Anyone could be a member. I’ve seen movies like this – you don’t know who to trust.”

“Stop this now,” said John. “Let’s just do our jobs.”

“No,” said Jim. “If we do that, then we’re doomed. If we’re involved in this, and seemingly we are, then we have to do something about it in order to protect our own lives. I trust the professor, the same as you do, but he’s a frail old man, not a superhero. We’re still young men, John. We should be doing something.”

“But what?” John drained away further ale.

“Get them before they get us,” Jim Pooley suggested.

“What are you suggesting?”

“Know your enemy,” said Jim. “I read that somewhere. Let the hunted become the hunter. Things of that nature, generally.”

“There is a wisdom in your words, Jim Pooley.”

“Thank you,” said Jim, finishing his pint. “The only question is, what should we do, and to whom?”

“Surely that’s two questions.”

Jim ignored this remark. “What do you know about this Consortium, John?” he asked.

“Probably as much, or as little, as you do. It’s a big multinational affair, property development. The headquarters are in Chiswick.”

“Just down the road,” said Jim. “Which makes a lot of sense.”

“It does?”

“If the ultimate goal of the character who owns this Consortium is to release the old serpent that is imprisoned beneath Brentford’s football ground, then it’s unsurprising that the headquarters would be nearby rather than, say, in Rio de Janeiro.”

“Ah yes,” said John. “I suppose it would.”

Jim raised an eyebrow at John.

“I’m really glad I told you all about this,” said John. “We work really well as a team.”

“Hm,” went Jim. “Well, that’s where we should start – at their headquarters. And today.”

“Today?”

“It’s Sunday,” said Jim. “Offices are closed on Sunday – a good time to have a little look around, I would have thought. See what might be seen. Find out what might be found out.”

“You really are on the case, Jim.”

“I don’t want to die, John. The prospect of impending death does tend to concentrate the mind.”

“So are you suggesting that we break into the offices?”

“Would I suggest a thing like that?”

“I’m beginning to wonder whether I really know you at all,” said John.

“We could pay the offices a little visit. I feel confident that you could talk our way in.”

John Omally put his hand out for a shake.

“Let’s take a trip to Chiswick,” said John.

“Let’s lose him first,” said Jim, rolling his eyes once more towards the Campbell.

John and Jim went off to the bog and left The Swan via the window. They shinned over the rear wall and had it away on their toes.

“We’ll take the bus,” said Jim.

“We’ll take Marchant,” said John.

Marchant was still in Jim Pooley’s allotment shed where John had left him when he stored the cache of Dadarillos – a cache that Jim was digging into once again.

“We’ll never make any profit from those,” John told Jim. “You’ll soon have smoked them all.”

“I’m not too happy about travelling on that bike of yours,” said Jim, filling his pockets with packs of cigarettes. “That bike hates me.”

“The lad’s all right,” said John, stroking Marchant’s saddle. “He’ll see us all right, too, won’t you, Marchant?”

The bicycle kept its own counsel.

“Let’s get this done,” said John, leading it from Jim’s shed.

The journey to Chiswick was uneventful but for the occasional tippings of Jim from the handlebars of Marchant. At length, the offices of the Consortium rose up in the distance. When the distance became the near-at-hand, the very scale of these offices revealed itself to be …

Awesome.

“By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth,” said Jim, who favoured a Dr Strange comic. “That is a very big building.”

“And very black, too,” said John. “All black, in fact.”

“There’ll be a doorman or a security guard or something,” said Jim, as Marchant unexpectedly applied its front brake and spilled Pooley once more to the road. “You do the talking.” And Jim picked himself up from the gutter.

The architectural style of the Consortium’s offices had a certain familiarity about it. In fact, it resembled a gigantic telephone box of the Giles Gilbert Scott persuasion.

Although all in black.

A broad span of black basalt steps swept up to a grandiose entranceway. John parked Marchant and he and Jim looked up at the imposing structure.

“That’s a very imposing structure,” said John. “This organisation is worth a lot of money.”

“Let’s not be intimidated,” Jim told him. “Size isn’t everything.”

“No, but it does give one an edge.” John squared his shoulders, which didn’t need much of a squaring. “Let’s get this done,” said he.

Jim gave John a thumbs-up and the two set off up the steps.

Vast doors of polished black glass slid soundlessly to either side at their approach and the two friends entered the building. They found themselves in an entrance hall of heroic proportions, decked out in the classical style.

There were couches that spoke of the Ottoman Empire.

And mosaics that sang of the glories of Rome.

Columns that whispered of nights in Byzantium.

A sampler that said there was no place like home.

“Very swell,” John observed.

“Very cold.” Jim hugged at his arms.

“That would be the air-conditioning. I’ve been thinking of having it installed in your office.”

“Have you, now?”

“Might I be of assistance to you gentlemen?” The voice was thin and reedy and male, which came as a slight disappointment to John, who had been hoping for a female receptionist. “Over here, if you will.”

A tiny man sat behind an enormous reception desk that murmured of Mount Parnassus, clearly upon a very high chair – he was a veritable elf, all pointy chin and pointy nose and long and pointy ears.

He pointed a pointy finger at John. “What do you want here?” he asked.

“Inspectre Hovis of Scotland Yard,” said John Omally, whipping out his wallet and flashing what Pooley recognised to be John’s Roy Rogers Appreciation Society sheriffs star at the bewildered elf. “And this is my partner, Sergeant Rock.”

“He looks more like Bertie Wooster,” said the elf.

“I don’t,” said Jim. “I’m not wearing the plus-fours suit today.”

“It must be the haircut, then. What do you gentlemen want?”

Omally cleared his throat and spoke with the voice of authority. “Kindly gather all staff who are presently within the building and lead them to the car park,” he said.

“I fail to understand.” The receptionist scratched at his pointy head.

John leaned forward across the desk and whispered the word “bomb”.

“Bomb?” The receptionist’s eyes bulged from their sockets and his mouth dropped open, exposing pointy teeth.

“Alka Seltzer,” said Jim.

“Al Qaeda,” said John. “We have received a tip-off from ZZ-Nine, Above Top Secret Department. This building has been targeted. We are here to search for and disarm the bomb.”

“No, no, no.” The pointy little man shook his pointy head. “No terrorist could have infiltrated these offices. That is impossible.”

“I’d love to spend time discussing it with you,” said John, checking his wristlet watch, “but by my reckoning there is less than half an hour before …” And he mimed the explosion of a very large bomb.

“I must telephone for confirmation.” Pointy fingers reached towards a desktop phone.

“Evacuate the staff before you do,” John told him. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want their deaths on your conscience.”

“No, certainly not.” The pointy man dithered.

“Time is ticking away,” said John.

“There’s no one in the building but me. I must phone for confirmation.”

“Nobody but you?” John made the face of one appalled. “What kind of security is that for an establishment such as this?”

“There is sufficient security, I can assure you.” The pointy man’s eyes became narrow, hooded slits. “Might I see your badge of authority once more? It seemed to me to be a—”

But the pointy man said no more, because John Omally had punched him right in his pointy chin.

“Was that really necessary?” Jim climbed forward over the reception desk and viewed the unconscious figure of the tiny pointy man that now lay on the floor beyond. “You might have killed him.”

“I didn’t hit him that hard.”

“But he’s only little.”

“He’ll be fine. Come on, Jim, this was your idea, remember?”

“Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea.”

“It was a good idea. Have another fag and calm your nerves.”

“Good idea.”

Omally shinned over the reception desk and rooted about in search of keys, which he soon discovered.

“Where should we begin our search?” John asked. “Start at the top, do you think?” He flourished a key, attached to which was a black metal tag with the words “Penthouse Office” inscribed upon it.

“The only way is up,” said Jim. “Shall we take the lift?”

“I think that would be the thing to do.”

The lift was one of those glass-cylinder jobbies and it travelled upwards with a giddying swiftness.

“It does seem rather odd,” said Jim, as he clung to a handrail and tried to stop his knees from knocking together. “A Diddy Man on the desk and not an armed guard with an Alsatian to be seen.”

“Overconfidence,” said John. “These fellows think themselves untouchable.”

“Perhaps.” Jim held his nose and swallowed air. “I’m going to be sick,” he said.

“Puff upon your fag and stop complaining.”

And then the lift stopped.

Very suddenly.

“We’re trapped!” cried Jim. “We’re doomed. We’ll plummet to our deaths.”

And the lift doors opened and a mechanised voice announced, “The Penthouse Office, please mind the gap.”

“Poltroon,” said John. “Come on.”

The corridor was swank, in a jet-black marbley kind of a way that babbled of Babylon. And it was cold, too.

Jim blew onto his fingers. “I think I’ve got altitude sickness,” he said. “Do you think we need oxygen masks up here?”

“Jim,” said John, “you are priceless.”

“Thank you very much,” said Jim.

“Aha.” A door loomed before them and a big one, too. John presented the key to its lock.

“You don’t think we should knock first,” Jim asked, “in case there’s anybody home?”

“No,” said John, “I don’t.” And he turned the key and pushed open the sizeable door.

Beyond lay a terrible room.

It glowed in the light of many candles, uniformly black and arrayed in elaborate torchères fashioned in the likenesses of naked men thrown into attitudes of appalling agony. Jim caught sight of these and Jim was ready for the off.

“Steady now, Jim,” said John. “We weren’t expecting a cosy parlour.”

“What are those?” Jim asked, and he pointed.

Omally entered the terrible room and viewed what was to be seen.

“Cabinets,” said he, “glass cabinets filled with what look to be fossils. Come and have a look, Jim.”

Jim entered upon unsteady legs. “It smells bad in here,” he said. “It smells of …” he paused as terrible memories returned to him.

“It smells of the grave,” said John.

Jim peeped into a cabinet. “What are they fossils of?” he asked. “I’ve never seen anything like these before. They’re like octopuses, but with wings.”

John shrugged. He had seen something more interesting. At the centre of the terrible room stood a kind of altar, heavily carved with scenes of damnation, tormented forms twisted in anguish, demonic creatures and fallen angels of Hell. Upon this altar there rested a red velvet cushion, and upon this cushion, a thing of great beauty indeed.

It was a gemstone the size of a golf ball. It glittered and twinkled and seemed to radiate a curious light of its own. John cast a covetous eye over it.

Pooley said, “What do you think is in there?”

John turned away from the altar. “In where?” he asked.

“Behind those big doors,” said Jim, pointing to a pair of very big doors set into the furthest wall. Elaborately carved were these doors, with further scenes of Hellish horror. “Strongroom, do you think?”

John approached the doors. “No sign of a lock,” said he. “Let’s have a look.”

Pooley drew back. “I don’t think so, John,” he said. “This place reeks of evil and I have a very bad feeling that something really ghastly lurks beyond those doors.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out.” And with reckless abandon, John Omally put his weight to the great doors and eased them slowly open.

Beyond lay another room.

And John looked in.

And Jim looked in.

Then John looked at Jim.

And Jim looked at John.

And then they both turned hard upon their heels.

And ran screaming in terror for their lives.