The Creeps: A Samuel Johnson Tale

XXXII

In Which We Learn That If One Can’t Go Through Something, and One Can’t Go over It, or Around It, Then There’s Only One Way Left to Go

MARIA WAS FINDING IT difficult to keep the minds of the scientists on the problem in hand. As if suddenly finding themselves in the company of two demons from another realm—the scientists seemed reluctant to call it “Hell,” preferring instead to use the term climatically challenged dimension—wasn’t enough, they now had the bonus of Crudford, who was a gelatinous demon from the same place with a great fondness for hats. But the answers that Crudford was giving to their questions seemed to be causing them even more problems than the ones they had been receiving from Nurd and Wormwood.

“So,” said Professor Stefan, “have you always been a gelatinous mass?”

“Indeed I have,” said Crudford proudly. “I’ve been a billion years before the ooze. It trails behind me, you see.”

“Yes, I do see,” said Professor Stefan, who had slipped in some of Crudford’s ooze and almost landed on his head as a consequence. “And you say you work for a being called the ‘Great Malevolence’?”

“That’s right,” said Crudford, “the most evil being that the Multiverse has ever known. It is the source of all badness, the well from which the darkest thoughts and deeds spring. No single entity has ever contained so much sheer nastiness as the Great Malevolence. On the other hand, I work regular hours, get weekends off, and the cafeteria’s not bad.”

“And what does this Great Malevolence want?” said Professor Hilbert.

“Well, it would really like to see the Earth reduced to a burning plain, with all life on it either wiped out or left screaming in agony. That aside, it would probably settle for Samuel Johnson’s head on a plate.”

“Is that what you want?” asked Maria, who was quite shocked to hear Crudford speak of her friend in that way. Once you got over the fact that he was largely transparent, and clearly demonic,⁵⁵ Crudford appeared very good-natured.

“I don’t know Samuel Johnson personally,” said Crudford, “and he’s never done anything to hurt me. I wouldn’t like it if my head was lopped off, although I’m pretty sure that it would grow back again. But life is a lot easier when the Great Malevolence is happy, which isn’t very often. If you’re worried about me trying to cut Samuel Johnson’s head off, though, then don’t be. I’m not the head-cutting kind. Also, I’m here to help, because right now you have bigger problems than the Great Malevolence. In case you haven’t noticed, your town has been dimensionally shifted. It’s now stuck in the space between dimensions, and that’s somewhere you don’t want to be.

“In a way, it’s a bit like the Multiverse’s equivalent of the back of the sofa: all sorts of stuff gets lost down there, some of it sticky and unpleasant. But it’s also a place where things hide, things that aren’t supposed to be hanging around between dimensions but should be locked up nice and safe in dimensions of their own. The problem is that there are weak points in the Multiverse, and your experiments with Colliders and dark matter and dark energy have turned those weaknesses into actual holes. That was how the Great Malevolence nearly got through the first time, and it’s how the Shadows are trying to get in this time.”

“Shadows?” said Professor Hilbert.

Crudford pointed a stubby finger at the sky.

They looked up. More and more stars were vanishing, and darkness swirled in their place. To Maria, it felt like they were trapped inside one of those glass domes that are usually filled with water and imitation snow and a village scene, and beyond the glass the world was filled with smoke. As they watched, the darkness assumed a face. It was a face unlike any that they could have imagined, a face constructed by a presence that had only heard stories of faces, but never actually seen one. The mouth was askew, and the chin too long, and one pointed ear set lower than the other. Only the eyes were missing.

“The Shadows,” said Crudford. “A little of their essence has already managed to get through, otherwise none of this would be happening, but it’s the difference between smelling the monster’s breath and feeling its teeth ripping into your flesh. They won’t be kept out for long, and once they get in here the whole Multiverse will be at risk. Biddlecombe has been turned into a gateway, a bridge between the Kingdom of Shadows and your universe. But all universes are connected, if only by threads, and once the Shadows infect one universe then the Multiverse is doomed. They’ll turn it black, and everything in it will suffocate and die, or be turned to Shadow.”

“And the Great Malevolence doesn’t want this to happen,” said Maria, “because it doesn’t want the Shadows to have the Earth, or the Multiverse. If anyone is going to destroy all life, it’s going to be your master, right?”

“Absolutely,” said Crudford. “It’s the whole point of its existence. Without it, it’d just be bored.”

“But why is this happening now?” said Maria.

“Someone built the engine that allowed Biddlecombe to be shifted,” said Crudford. “But it had to be powered up, and that power came from elsewhere, from outside. It came from Hell and, if I’m not mistaken, it took the form of a beating heart. Furthermore, the Shadows are blind. They had to be led to Biddlecombe, and the only way that could happen was with sound. They followed the heartbeats. Can’t you hear them? The heart is close, very close.”

But try as they might, they could hear nothing.

“That shop is the core of the engine,” said Crudford. “We have to get in there and switch it off before it’s too late, and move that beating heart out of this universe.”

“But whose heart is it?” asked Maria. “Whose heart could be capable of powering an occult engine, and leading a legion of Shadows to Biddlecombe?”

“Mrs. Abernathy’s,” said Crudford, and he sounded almost apologetic. “The heart of Ba’al.”

• • •

In the Mountain of Despair, the Great Malevolence brooded.

Before he had traveled to Biddlecombe, Crudford had popped back to Hell for long enough to let his master know what appeared to be happening on Earth. The Great Malevolence had not been happy to hear about it. In its anger it threw a couple of demons at walls, and tossed a passing imp on the fire. The imp didn’t mind too much about the flames as it had fireproof skin, but it had been on its way to do something very important and had now completely forgotten what the important thing was.⁵⁶ With nothing else to do, it found a nice patch of hot ash and settled down for a nap.

“She has betrayed us,” said the Great Malevolence to the Watcher. “She has betrayed me.”

The Watcher, as was its way, said nothing, but there was something like sorrow in its eight black eyes. It had once served Mrs. Abernathy, and had even admired her, but its loyalty ultimately lay with the Great Malevolence. Being loyal to the Great Malevolence was better for your health, and ensured that all of your limbs remained attached to your body.

The Great Malevolence felt powerless to act. Had there been a way, it might have sent an army of demons to fight the Shadows, but what good would that have done? They might as well have hacked at smoke with their swords, or tried to run mist through with spears. In the end, the Shadows would simply have swallowed the Great Malevolence’s forces, and those whom the Shadows did not destroy would be condemned to an eternity of utter blackness. But the option of battle was not even available to the Great Malevolence: there was no way to move its troops from Hell to Earth, not since the first portal had been closed by the boy named Samuel Johnson and his friends. Only the little demon named Crudford was able to move from realm to realm without difficulty, and now the future of the Multiverse lay in his small, slimy hands.

How strange, thought the Great Malevolence, that so much power should reside in such an unthreatening, and curiously contented, little body. Had Crudford been larger, or more vicious, or more cunning, he might even have been a threat to the Great Malevolence itself. Instead, Crudford just seemed happy to help. The Great Malevolence was baffled. It couldn’t figure out what Crudford was doing in Hell to begin with. All things considered, he really didn’t belong there.

“Go,” said the Great Malevolence to the Watcher. “Fly to the very edge of our kingdom. Wait there, and when Crudford returns with the heart, bring them both to me.”

The Great Malevolence realized what it had said: When Crudford returns with the heart.

“When,” not “if.”

This is very bad, thought the Great Malevolence. I am becoming an optimist. There could only be one reason for it: Crudford, Esq. In some dreadful way, the demon’s good nature was starting to infect Hell itself. The Great Malevolence could not allow this situation to continue. It decided that, once the heart had been returned to Hell, Crudford would have to be dealt with. When Mrs. Abernathy’s heart was cast into the icy Lake of Cocytus, there to remain frozen forever, it would have some company in its misery

Crudford would be freezing right alongside it.

• • •

Back in Biddlecombe, there was silence for a time.

“Who?” said Professor Stefan at last.

“Mrs. Abernathy,” said Maria, and set about explaining as best she could. Professor Stefan and Professor Hilbert looked as if they didn’t care to believe her, but it was hard to doubt Maria when everything she told them was being backed up by two demons dressed as elves and a third who was polishing his hat.

“She wants revenge,” said Crudford, when Maria had finished speaking. “She’s gone mad. She was always a bit mad, but when she traveled to Earth and the Ba’al bits got mixed up with the Abernathy bits, she went completely bonkers. If she’s made a deal with the Shadows, then she doesn’t care about the Great Malevolence or anything else: all she wants is a last chance to punish Samuel Johnson and everyone who stood alongside him. She will have her vengeance—at any cost.”

“And her heart is somewhere in there?” said Professor Stefan, indicating Wreckit & Sons.

“I think so,” said Crudford. “I can hear it beating, but it’s so loud that I’m not sure where exactly it’s coming from anymore. All I know is that the heart is close, and the toy shop is the center of power for all that’s happening here, so my guess is that it’s in there somewhere.”

“But how do we get in?” said Professor Stefan. “I mean, there’s an immense occult force field protecting the store. We can’t go messing about with it. Somebody might get hurt. I might get hurt.”

Crudford removed his hat and took out his trusty notebook and pencil. He scribbled away frantically for a few minutes. Finally he shouted “Eureka!” ⁵⁷ and showed the results of his efforts to all.

The Great Malevolence would have been familiar with the looks of bafflement that met Crudford’s display of his work, for it consisted only of this:

“It’s an arrow,” said Brian. “What are we going to do, attack the shop with Indians?”

Crudford raised his eyes to the darkening skies in frustration.

“No,” he said. “We’re just going to do this.”

He squelched over to the occult barrier, reached down, and lifted up the bottom the way one might raise a curtain on a stage to peek at what lies behind.

“Simple,” said Crudford. “I’d try not to touch the edge of the barrier as you crawl under. It’ll hurt—if you live long enough to feel it.”

55. A small joke playing on the words transparent and clear, which mean the same thing, pretty much. It troubles me that I have to explain some of these jokes—not to you, obviously: I know that you’re hugely intelligent, and you got that joke straight off, but not everyone is as bright as you. Maybe there should be a test before we allow people to read this book. We could pay people to wait in bookstores and libraries, and when someone picks the book up with the intention of reading it, the tester could then step in with a list of simple questions. You know:

1. If you see a door marked PUSH, should you (a) Pull; (b) Push?

2. If you see a sign on the street that reads CAUTION: DO NOT CROSS HERE, do you (a) Cross; (b) Look for somewhere else to cross.

3. If you are at the zoo, and see a notice on the lions’ cage that says DANGEROUS ANIMALS: DO NOT PUT HAND THROUGH BARS, do you (a) Put your hand through the bars, and waggle your fingers invitingly; (b) Keep a safe distance and, therefore, keep your hand, too.

If you have answered (a) to any of these questions, then you are not bright enough to read this book, and we also have another question for you: namely, how come you’re still alive?

56. You will know that you are getting old when you go upstairs to do something and, by the time you get there, you’ve forgotten what it is that you went upstairs to do. You will know that you are very old when you get upstairs and can’t remember where you are. And you will know that you are very, very old when you get upstairs and can’t get downstairs again. You may laugh now, but the old-age bus has a seat for everyone.

57. Eureka, which comes from ancient Greek, means “I have found it,” and is reputed to be what the Greek scholar Archimedes (287–212 B.C.) shouted after he stuck a foot in his bath and noticed that the water level rose. This was because he had realized that the volume of water displaced by his foot was equal to the volume of the foot itself. This meant that, by submerging them in water, the volume of irregularly shaped objects could now be measured, which had been impossible—or very, very difficult—before.

It also enabled Archimedes to solve a problem set for him by King Hiero II, who wanted to know if a gold crown that had been made for him was pure or had been polluted with silver so that the goldsmith could cheat him. Archimedes knew that he could now weigh the crown against a piece of gold of similar weight, and then submerge both in water. If they were of the same density, then they would displace the same amount of water, but if the gold of the crown had been mixed with silver, then it would be less dense and would displace less water, and so the king would know that he had been cheated.

Archimedes was supposed to have been so excited by his discovery that he ran naked through the streets of Athens. You can only get away with this sort of thing if you’re a genius. If you’re not, they’ll lock you up or, at the very least, give you a very stern talking-to. You may also catch cold, or injure yourself on a gate.