This Other Eden (50 page)

‘Of
course I’m alive, you fool,’ Rosalie replied. ‘Why wouldn’t I be? More to the
point, what are you doing here?’

‘That
bastard there is Plastic Tolstoy’s partner!’

Rosalie
looked at Jurgen. His face showed it all. Judy was right. Then she saw his hand
move. A warning bell rang inside her. Somehow with that hand Jurgen Thor was
attacking her, she knew it. Her whole body knew it. Every muscle suddenly
tensed as she instinctively readied herself for the attack which she knew was
coming. The attack, whatever it might be, that Jurgen’s hand was somehow
initiating.

That
moment of knowledge saved her. When the attack came, the tension in her body
gave her the power with which to reach for safety. As the floor dropped away
beneath her feet, Rosalie’s arms shot out like bolts from a sprung lock.
Indeed, her whole body seemed to twist in mid-air as she lunged for the edge of
the bottomless tomb that Jurgen Thor had attempted to consign her to. The
Ansafone, of course, leapt from her grasp and fell away into the darkness, but
Rosalie found a grip and hung on, her fingertips all that remained visible from
inside the room.

During
her Mother Earth training days, Rosalie had been taught to rock climb, a sport
in which the last joints on the fingers are the most crucial part of the body.
The climber is instructed to exercise these joints constantly, and the
preferred method for doing this is to perform chin-ups, whilst suspending
oneself from the tops of door-frames. Rosalie had never lost the habit and
seldom went through a door at home without pulling a couple of fingertip
chin-ups on the frame. Her granny had often lamented the damage done to her
door surrounds as they slowly cracked and pulled away from the wall, not having
been built to withstand the hanging weight of an adult person, even a small one
like Rosalie. Had Ruth been able to see her granddaughter now she would have
counted those door-frames cheap and a million more like them. For Rosalie was
hanging on, quite literally by her fingertips, whilst hundreds of feet below
her, inside the terrible granite jaws of the chasm, poor Scout’s rotting corpse
lay awaiting company.

All
this had, of course, happened in one stunning moment. Nearly as stunning for
Judy and Saunders as it had been for Rosalie, since they had not expected to
see their comrade suddenly drop through the floor. Jurgen Thor was able to
capitalise upon this second or two of shock to produce a gun from his desk, fit
a silencer to its muzzle, out of deference to his guests upstairs, and level it
at the two men.

Keeping
the gun trained firmly upon Judy and Saunders, Jurgen walked around his desk
and towards the hole in the floor where the eight white points of Rosalie’s
fingertips were flattened on the edge. It was clear what his intention was. He
was going to stamp on Rosalie’s fingers.

‘Please
remain exactly where you are, OK, guys, yes?’ Jurgen said. ‘Once I have said
farewell to Rosalie, I should like to know how you came upon the wild idea that
I hang out with Plastic Tolstoy, OK?’

It was
Saunders who acted. He had a plan, not a very good one as it turned out, at
least not for him, but it saved Rosalie’s life anyway. Also it meant that
Saunders got to die the way he had always wanted, in the defence of the planet,
so perhaps it wasn’t such a bad plan.

Saunders’s
plan was to remove his bag. The idea being that the shock effect of his
gruesome visage upon Jurgen Thor would be enough to make Jurgen throw up his
arms in horror, thus giving Saunders the crucial split second in which to rush
him and, if possible, hurl him down into the chasm.

‘Aaargh!’
shouted Saunders and tore off his bag, revealing, as he had done so many times
at parties, his absence of face. Sadly for Saunders, Jurgen was a big boy and
had seen many horrid sights in his time. He remained unmoved and, as Saunders
leapt towards him, Jurgen fired, killing poor Saunders with a single shot to
the head, or what there was of the head anyway. Saunders hit the ground with a
thud.

Judy
now had to face Jurgen Thor alone, but not for long. Hanging in mid-air as she
was, Rosalie heard the commotion of Saunders’s lunge and subsequent death. She
did not know what these noises signified but since her strength was already
ebbing, she judged it a good time to attempt a chin-up and try to scramble to
safety. She hauled her head above the edge and managed to slide one elbow over
on to the floor before the sound of her movements made Jurgen turn. Seeing
Rosalie clawing her way back into the land of the living, he launched a huge
kick at her, catching her full in the face. Had he been wearing shoes, that
would have been the end of the matter, but Jurgen was of course barefoot, and
despite the pain, Rosalie was able not only to hang on, but also to grab hold
of his foot.

In
order to avoid being toppled forward into the trap, Jurgen was forced to throw
himself backwards to the floor, dropping the gun as he did so. He was about to
try and kick Rosalie away with his free leg, when Judy made a lunge for the
gun. Reaching backwards, Jurgen was able to grab Judy by the trousers and,
despite being flat on his back with a desperate woman using one of his legs as
a climbing rope, he easily pulled Judy over. The little agent crashed down on
top of Jurgen and bravely started trying to bang Jurgen’s head on the floor. It
was a futile gesture, considering Jurgen’s physical superiority, but Judy did
at least distract the prostrate giant for a moment while Rosalie, still pulling
on Jurgen’s leg, was able to drag her chest up over the edge of the precipice.
That was all the breathing space she had, for Jurgen, quickly tiring of having
Judy on top of him, hurled a mighty hammer-like fist at the side of Judy’s chest,
thus punching him away and also breaking most of his ribs and knocking all the
wind out of his small body.

As Judy
lay in agony, retching beside him, Jurgen turned his attention back to Rosalie,
raising his free leg in order to kick her back down into the chasm once and for
all. But the respite caused by Judy’s tiny attack had been enough. Rosalie had
her other elbow up over the edge, thus momentarily freeing the arm with which
she had been hanging on to Jurgen’s leg. As Jurgen raised his other leg to kick
her down, Rosalie’s opportunity lay stretched out before her. Jurgen was, of
course, wearing only a gown, and by raising one leg to kick Rosalie, he
revealed his meat and two veg to her in all their glory. Rosalie threw her free
arm forward and grabbed Jurgen’s mighty dick.

‘Don’t
kick me off, Jurgen!’ she shouted. ‘I swear I’ll never let go of it, no matter
how hard you kick. If I go, it goes.’

Jurgen
looked down at Rosalie in amazement. This was not a development that he had
expected. In fact, he was at a loss to work out how in such a short space of
time he had managed to move from being in complete control, to lying on the
edge of the precipice from which his enemy was climbing, using his prick as a
rope.

At that
moment, the door of the study opened and one of Jurgen’s guests poked their
head in.

‘There’s
been a monsoon warning, Jurgen. People are thinking about heading off before
—‘ The visitor stopped mid-sentence and took in the scene: Judy retching,
Jurgen prostrate on his back, his gown thrown open whilst a girl hung on to his
dick halfway out through the floor. ‘Well, excuse
me,’
she said. ‘Wow,
you people are
wild!
Ciao, Jurgen baby, thanks for a great party.’

The
woman left, shutting the door behind her. Rosalie got a leg up over the edge and,
leaving hold of Jurgen’s penis, lunged up and over him, trying to make it to
the gun. Jurgen was too quick for her, though, and grabbing Rosalie in his
mighty arms he rolled over on top of her, his hands upon her throat.

‘Now I
will finish the job,’ he shouted. ‘It seems that I must kill you before I throw
you into the precipice, depriving you of the final exhilaration of terminal
free-fall. So be it, Rosalie. Bye bye, baby, bye bye!’

He
began to throttle her with his huge hands. So big indeed were they, and so
small was Rosalie’s neck, that Jurgen could probably have choked her with only
one of them. Within seconds Rosalie began to lose the plot, his grip was
crushing the life out of her before she even had a chance to suffocate. Her
legs flailed about, her arms flailed about, she was helpless. Judy, who could
see what was happening, tried to come to her aid but he could move only very
slowly in case his broken ribs punctured his lungs. He was helpless, knowing
that Rosalie would be dead long before he reached the gun.

Her
face was turning blue, her limbs were now twitching more than flailing. She was
definitely dying. One of her hands fell upon the pocket of Jurgen’s gown. She
could feel herself gripping something, the only item in the pocket. She recognised
it, something stirred the memory in her fast-darkening brain … That was it!
She knew what she was holding. What else would she find in the pocket of a
dressing-gown at an orgy but a condom spray?

At this
point, Rosalie probably only had one voluntary act left in her, but it was a
beauty. With one movement she swung her arm upwards, the spray in her hand, and
let Jurgen have it full in the face. Within seconds his head was completely
laminated. Now it was Jurgen Thor who was suffocating. His grip relaxed almost
instantly as he realised the danger he was in. There was no solvent in the
pockets of the gown, he had to get to the bathroom. He staggered to his feet,
leaving Rosalie on the floor gasping life back into her desperate body.
Blinded, for he had on reflex shut his eyes as the liquid rubber hit him,
Jurgen bumbled his way across the room and felt his way to the study door,
bursting through it as Rosalie was beginning to drag herself to her feet behind
him.

Staggering
up the stairs, naked but for the open gown, Jurgen presented a shocking sight
to those guests who had not yet ascended to the heli-pad, his head encased in
rubber, the black hole of his mouth tugging at the merciless laminate stretched
across it. A great heaving and wheezing was emanating from his mighty chest.
Behind him came a girl, a wild, dangerous-looking girl. She too was staggering,
her chest was also heaving with the pain of breathing. She was still blue in
the face, and the livid marks of strangulation were yet bright red upon her
neck. In her hand was a gun. The remaining guests mumbled their apologies and
retreated upwards. This was rough stuff indeed. Much too rough for them. What
they liked was to take designer drugs and make love to people who were as
beautiful as they were. Indeed, the simple fact of being beautiful was the
biggest buzz, and this was not beautiful, this was positively horrid. Pain,
strangulation, guns and rubber were things that they wanted no part of. If
Jurgen was pushing the party that way, then they were definitely leaving.

Jurgen
kicked open the bathroom door as the last of his guests jumped out of the spa
bath and slipped past him. He crashed up against a basin and, hurling open the
cupboard above it, groped blindly amongst various creams and lotions, spraying
his face with various scents and aftershaves before, finally, he found what he
was looking for: . . the solvent. Turning it on himself he sprayed and sprayed,
gasping and retching with relief as the tight-as-a-drum skin that had enveloped
his mouth dissolved and he was at last able to suck in great gusts of air.
Collapsing to his knees, he coughed and burped as little bits of melting rubber
found their way into his lungs. He scarcely noticed, though, for he was
breathing again… that was all that mattered. It did not even matter very
much that Rosalie was standing at the bathroom door, leaning against the wall
and pointing the gun at him. For the moment, Jurgen was simply happy to be
alive.

Rosalie
stared at him for a long time. That once mighty man, a man who had been an
inspiration to a generation, and was now revealed for what he really was and
had been all along, a contemptible, double-crossing wretch. Rosalie stared and
stared, trying to recognise in this low figure the hero of old, but she could
not. Instead she asked a question, a single word, in fact.

‘Why?’

Death
of a salesman.

‘Why?’ Jurgen spoke not to
Rosalie, but to the basin which he still held on to for support. ‘Because I may
be many things, Rosalie, you dig? But I am not a wally, OK? The world is dying
and nobody can stop it.’

‘That’s
not true,’ said Rosalie.

‘It is
bloody true!’ Jurgen replied hoarsely. ‘It’s always been dying, ever since man
began to take from it more than he needed.
This planet is a finite quantity,
logic dictates that it cannot be consumed indefinitely.
I tell you,
Rosalie, Earth as we know it is finished, because man rules it and man is
incapable of acting responsibly! Of thinking in anything other than the
short-term.’

‘That’s
just a pathetic generalisation to justify your —‘Is it, Rosalie? Is it? Let me
ask you this. What politician, facing an election next year, would be prepared
to make laws, the benefit of which would not be felt until the following year!
I will tell you. None. There is no
profit
to be had today in protecting
tomorrow.’

Jurgen
Thor had said his piece. He sat down on the floor, brushing aside the various
toiletries that had fallen from the bathroom cabinet. He took another great
breath and leant back against the plinth of the marble washbasin. He was still
coughing from the rubber in his throat, and there were great strands of
semi-dissolved latex hanging from his eyelashes, hair and nose. He looked like
one of the living dead… which in many ways was what he was.