Knees Up Mother Earth

47

Pooley looked down in icy horror at the body of his bestest friend.

“No,” cried Jim. “No.” But the bullet hole in Omally’s forehead left no room whatever for doubt.

“Murdering bastard.” Jim Pooley’s gaze rose. “You will die for this.”

Pooley took a step forward, but Starling raised his hand and Pooley could no longer move. “You are my man,” said Starling. “You were mine from the moment that you first put a Dadarillo cigarette into your mouth and sucked upon it. The darkness is inside you. You will do as I command you now.”

Pooley fought to move, but strange things seemed to be happening. He wanted to kill Starling, he wanted that more than anything else in the world, but somehow he seemed detached from himself, as if he was looking down from above.

“Kill the professor,” ordered Starling. “Kill him now!”

Jim turned upon wooden legs, arms outstretched, fingers crooked into claws.

“Jim,” cried the professor. “Jim, try to concentrate. This isn’t you.”

The whites of Jim’s eyes were black now. Jim’s hands closed about the professor’s throat.

“What now?” crowed Starling, waving his pistol. “Will you employ your magic, Professor, kill your good friend before he kills you? And back, you two!” Starling’s gun swung towards Terrence and Sponge Boy.

From somewhere above, Jim looked down upon himself, at the puppet that was himself being pulled by strings that were not of his pulling. The puppet that was draining the life from Professor Slocombe.

And a hand seemed to touch Jim Pooley and he saw a face. It was the face of a ginger-haired boy.

Jim stared into this face. “I know you,” he said.

“We met long ago,” said the ginger-haired boy. “You left your body – astral projection. We met on top of the floodlights at the football ground.”

“Yes, I remember,” said Jim. “You said you’d fly with me to Tibet. But I could never do the astral projection thing again.”

“Such a very long time ago,” said the boy. “I thought I’d never see you again. But you shouldn’t be doing that, you know – what you are doing to that old man. You’re killing him and he is your friend. It is the other one you should be killing, the one who murdered your dearest friend. Go back now, return to your body, and do what must be done.”

Professor Slocombe’s face was a deathly white. Fire roared on all sides now. Starling stood, crowing with laughter. Pooley’s eyes, glazed and black, began to focus, fading slowly to white. Pooley turned to confront William Starling.

“You two,” shouted Jim to Terrence and Sponge Boy, “help the professor. Take him outside. And also the body of John.”

“What is this?” Starling’s pistol swung towards Jim. Jim lunged forward and swept it aside. “Now you die,” said he.

And, high above, the Semtex exploded, ripping the top from the Consortium building, bursting upwards, outwards, downwards, pulverising, smashing, evaporating the Dark Lord Cthulhu, raining fire and devastation.

A ball of flame roared down the stairwell.

“Out!” Professor Slocombe coughed and gagged. “Everybody get out.”

“Not me!” Pooley was upon Starling now, the murderer of his bestest friend. As Terrence and Sponge Boy and the professor dragged John’s lifeless body from the holocaust, Jim Pooley’s fingers found the throat of William Starling.

And the darkness formed, spreading all around and about Pooley, engulfing and choking him. But driven by terrible revenge and with no care whatsoever for the loss of his own life, Jim kept his hold upon the slender throat and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed.

And fire rained down, and falling masonry and black glass. And floors subsided and collapsed and flames roared up and the Consortium building fell in upon itself and collapsed into ruination.

And Professor Slocombe and Terrence Jehovah Smithers and the Second Sponge Boy looked on.

“Positively Apocalyptic,” said Sponge Boy.

“And good God, he’s survived somehow,” said Terrence.

“Starling?” Professor Slocombe turned fearfully, prepared to hurl magic.

But from the devastation, dust and chaos, it was Jim Pooley who stepped.

Stepped and walked and staggered and fell beside the body of John.

And Jim Pooley wept bitter tears and Professor Slocombe put his ancient hand upon Jim’s shoulder.

“Why?” Jim’s tear-streaked face looked up at the ancient.

“I’m sorry, Jim,” said the professor. “He was a good man. A brave man.”

“He was my friend,” said Jim. “And now he’s dead.”

“I am so very sorry. If there was anything I could have done … could do.”

“Work your magic, Professor. Do something.”

“I cannot.”

Pooley pressed his face against John’s and wept.

“Starling is dead,” said Jim. “All this is ended. But the price has been too high, Professor.”

“I think I might be able to help you, old chap.” The rear doors of Norman’s van opened and the mysterious figure stepped into the car park.

Pooley looked up.

“Archroy,” he said.

“Archroy,” said Professor Slocombe. “For one terrible moment, I thought that you had not survived the crash.”

Pooley looked towards the professor. “What is going on?” he asked.

Archroy stepped forward, took from his carrier bag the Golden Fleece and placed it carefully across the body of John.

The Fleece glowed. Rainbow patterns ran over and about it.

Pooley looked on in awe as the bullet hole in John Omally’s forehead healed over and was gone.

And John Omally stirred.

And looked up.

“Jim,” said he. “What happened? Why are you crying? Don’t tell me the team lost.”