Apocalypso (9 page)

But oh
yes it could. It would all make sense that way. All of it. Someone living here
and carrying on their own business. It was probably those swine from The Flying
Pig next door, using the place as an annexe.

Porrig
sought a knife to end it all. Enough was enough. He had suffered much more than
any man should suffer. It was time to take the gentleman’s way out.

As no
knife was forthcoming Porrig solemnly took up the pink plastic brush and began to
rake at his wrist.

And
then he heard the footsteps on the stairs.

And the
whistling grew louder.

And—

‘Hello
there,’ said a voice.

Porrig
abandoned his suicide attempt. He looked up and he stared.

In the
doorway stood the pimpled youth from the station. He was holding Porrig’s
suitcase.

‘Aaaaaaaaaagh!’
Porrig leaped for the throat. ‘You thieving bastard. You’re gonna die.’

He
caught the youth off balance and the two tumbled out of the kitchenette and
onto the landing. Porrig was no fighter, but his mind was now so scrambled up
that he fought like the madman he was. The youth, however, was not without some
martial skills; he parried Porrig’s every blow and countered with no small
number of his own.

In
fact, to use the parlance of the fighting fraternity, he kicked the shit out of
Porrig.

‘No
more.’ Porrig curled up in a ball on the landing floor. ‘I give up. Let me
crawl away to die.’

The
youth, who’d been putting in the boot, straightened up. ‘Are you absolutely
sure you’ve had enough?’ he asked.

‘I am,’
whimpered Porrig.

‘Only I
really do enjoy a bit of violence. It’s in my nature, you see. I come from a
broken home.’

‘I’m
sorry about that,’ moaned Porrig. ‘I really am.’

‘Oh,
don’t be. It was me who broke it.’ The youth made unpleasant sniggering sounds.
‘Come on, take another pop at me. You never know, you might strike lucky.’

‘Lucky?’
Porrig gave a sickly laugh. ‘Me, lucky? I don’t think so.’

‘Oh
well, as you please. Do you want a cup of tea then?’

‘A cup
of tea?’ Porrig uncurled a little and peeped up at his tormentor. ‘You’re
offering me a cup of tea?’

‘Or
coffee, whichever you prefer. It’s decaff, of course. Gotta look after your
health.’

‘My
health?’ Porrig clutched at his ribs. They were broken, he was sure.

‘I
stick to a wholefood diet,’ said the youth proudly. ‘Strictly vegetarian and
macrobiotic.’

‘That’s
probably why you have such a spotty face,’ observed Porrig and the boot went in
again.

‘Oh, I’m
so sorry,’ said the youth in a genuine tone. ‘You’ve got a lairy mouth and I’ve
got a short temper. Not a very good combination, is it?’

‘No,’
Porrig groaned.

‘So we’ll
both have to try a little harder. Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘Yes
please,’ said Porrig, through gritted teeth. The youth helped Porrig up, led
him into the kitchenette and set him down on the chair. ‘I’ll put on the
kettle,’ he said.

Porrig
sat and hugged at his ribs. The youth filled up the kettle. ‘My name’s Wok Boy,’
he said. ‘Though I won’t tell you why. And yours is Porrig, of course.’

‘You
what?’

‘I’m
sorry I had to nut you at the station. We got off to a bit of a wonky start,
didn’t we?’

‘How do
you know my name?’

‘Well,
I was supposed to meet you and extend you a warm welcome.’

‘You
what?’ said Porrig once again.

‘Meet
you and bring you here. But I didn’t know it was actually you until I had a
look in your suitcase. But then when I went back to the station, you’d gone. I
figured you’d show up here eventually, so I just dossed about for a bit. I
didn’t want to be here in case that slag Phart-Ebum came inside. He didn’t, did
he?’

‘No he
didn’t. Look, what’s going on?’

‘I
really am sorry I had to nut you at the station, but you did ask for it, didn’t
you?’

What is
going on?’ Porrig asked once again. What are you doing here? Why were you
supposed to meet me? How do you know about Phart-Ebum? Why—’

‘One
thing at a time. What sort of tea do you like? Orange Sunset or Peach Truffle?’

‘Peach
Truffle?’

‘Oh
good, that’s my favourite too.’

‘Stop
fucking me about,’ said Porrig.

‘Easy,
pal,’ said Wok Boy, displaying a well-made fist.

‘All
right,’ said Porrig. ‘Just one question. The stuff downstairs. Who does it
belong to?’

‘You,
of course.’

‘It’s
really mine?’

‘It’s
really yours.’

‘I don’t
get this.’

‘It’s
really simple,’ said Wok Boy. ‘There’s no great mystery.’ He lit the stove and
put the kettle on to boil. ‘This old bloke employed me to clean up the shop.
Clear out all the old crap that was in it. Give the place a lick of paint.
Bring down all these cartons of comic books he had stored in London. Restore
the printing press. I’ve been working here for months getting everything
prepared for you.

‘For
me?’

‘He
wanted everything to be exactly as you’d have wanted it to be. It’s all yours,
all of it. All he wants you to do for him is draw him a comic.

What
comic?’

‘I don’t
know
what
comic. He didn’t tell me everything. But it’s something very
special. He’s got a real bee in his old bonnet about it. You are an artist,
aren’t you? You can draw?’

‘Of
course I can draw. Didn’t you see my stuff when you nosed through my suitcase?’

‘Oh
yeah. Gyp the Crip, wasn’t it?’

‘Jazz
the Spaz.’

‘You
wanker,’ said Wok Boy.

‘How
dare you!’

Well,
get a grip. Jazz the Spaz? Whatever goes on in your head?’

‘Look,
forget about my head., It’s confused enough as it is. This old bloke who’s done
all this for me. Who is he? What’s his name?’

‘He
never told me his name. The people round here all call him the wizard. But he
doesn’t look much like a wizard to me. Actually he looks more like a dog. He’s
got these two white tufts of hair that stick up like big ears and—’

Porrig’s
eyes grew wide. ‘Two white tufts of hair,’ he said slowly.

‘And he’s
well hard,’ said Wok Boy, popping two pink teabags into cups. ‘I wouldn’t want to
piss around with him, even though he’s old and frail-looking. He says he knows—’

‘Dimac,’
whispered Porrig.

‘Yeah,
that’s it. Oh yeah, and he said I was to give you this.’ Wok Boy dug into the
pocket of his greasy jeans and brought out a crumpled envelope.

Porrig
took it and tore it open.

‘What’s
in there?’ Wok Boy asked.

‘A
business card,’ said Porrig. He took it out and stared at it.

On the
card was printed a seven-pointed star.

A
seven-pointed star and a name.

Porrig
read the name aloud.

The
name was
Apocalypso The Miraculous.

7

‘Nuke it,’ said Danbury.

‘Pardon?’
said Sir John.

‘Nuke
it and I’m not kidding.’

Sir
John Rimmer diddled with his twiddly-diddly beard. What exactly are you trying
to say?’

‘I’m
trying to say nuke it.’ Danbury threw up his wandering hands. ‘I have been on
edge ever since I stepped down from the plane.’

‘And
fell in the water,’ said the doctor.

‘All
right, yes. But I knew that there was something very wrong here. And it’s not
just the blokes with the knives and forks. Clear the island. Call up the MoS.
Get them to nuke the alien.’

‘Nuking
is not an option,’ said Sir John.

Danbury
threw down his wandering hands. ‘Look,’ said he. ‘Don’t you ever go to the
movies? This is standard sci-fi fare. Spaceship is brought up from the depths,
mad alien thaws out, hell and horror all around, thousands flee in terror and a
bloody big explosion at the end. Why not cut around all the bad stuff while we
have the chance? Nuke the bastard now.’

Dr
Harney shrugged. ‘The pud-puller does have a point, you know. If the alien were
to thaw out, there’s no telling what might happen.’

Sir
John ceased to diddle with his twiddly bits. ‘There will be no nuking and that
is that,’ he said in a very firm tone.

Danbury’s
hands returned to his trouser pockets. ‘Then leave it,’ he said. ‘Just leave it
where it is. Call up the MoS. Tell them we have checked it out and it’s not a
spaceship at all, it’s a big starfish, or a rock formation or something.’

‘Or
something?’

‘Or
anything. Bluff it. Just do it.’

Sir
John Rimmer shook his hirsute head. ‘No,’ he said and, ‘no no no. It just
wouldn’t wash. For all we know the Americans are already on their way.’

‘Stuff
the bloody Americans. In fact, let the bloody Americans have it. They were so
gung-ho in
Independence Day,
let’s see how smart they are when they come
up against the real thing.’

Sir
John gazed out at the ocean blue.

Dr
Haney scuffed sand with his sandally shoe.

Danbury
played with his old plonkeroo.

And a
crab scuttled sideways, well what a to-do.

Sir
John turned sharply to avoid things slipping off on some poetic tangent.
Shaking his noble head, he paced back and forwards, making ‘quack quack’ noises
and doing a passable impression of Max Wall. At length he performed a cartwheel
and a double back somersault and came to rest in the splits position. ‘What if
we were to retrieve the spacecraft and then carefully dispose of its occupant?’
he asked. ‘Remove him from the craft. still in cold storage and—’

‘Nuke
him,’ said Danbury. ‘It’s the only way to be sure.’

‘I have
told you, nuking is
not
an option. But we might take the alien in its
cryogenic unit, weight it down with stones and drop it into deep water.’

‘I want
to go home,’ said Danbury. ‘What time does the next plane leave?’

‘You
are not going home.’

‘I have
a suggestion,’ said Dr Harney. ‘How would it be if we retrieved the spacecraft,
removed the alien still in its cryogenic unit and let Danbury here put a bullet
through its head with his daddy’s gun?’

‘What?’
Danbury’s hands flew out of his trousers and waved
all about in the air. ‘Are you seriously suggesting that we raise this
spacecraft, root out this mad alien and then I,
I
end up with the sole
responsibility for killing it? That the entire burden of sparing the human race
from this thing rests upon my shoulders? That
I
take my father’s gun and
shoot it? Blast an alien from another world out of existence?
Me?
That
is what you’re suggesting?’

‘Do you
have a problem with that?’

Danbury
pulled out the pistol and grinned at it. ‘Fucking hey!’ he said. ‘Let’s haul
the bastard up.’

‘Then
we are agreed?’

‘Big-fala,
him blong Godlady picker-pick?’

The
three men turned to confront a smiling native.

The
smiling native caught sight of Danbury’s gun and took a dive for cover.

‘Put
that away,’ Sir John ordered, stooping from on high to pacify the native.

Danbury
twirled the pistol on his finger and blew across the barrel. ‘Your move, creep,’
he said as he tucked it into his red cagoule.

‘No
shoot’m,’ begged the native from the foetal position.

‘No
shoot’m,’ said Sir John, helping him up.

The
native dusted sand from his T-shirt. It was a nice new T-shirt. It had the
words
‘Virgin
coming soon to this island’ printed on the front.

‘Bugga-dat,’
said the native. ‘Godlady picker-pick. Her blong you, blong me, pronto-Tonto.’

‘Dr
Harney,’ said Sir John. ‘I think he wants the photograph.’

‘Of
course.’ Dr Harney dug into his case and brought out the picture of the lovely
one. He passed this with due reverence to Sir John, who handed on the sacred
item to the native. ‘Oh Carol,’ said Sir John.

The
native smiled at the ten by eight glossy and then smiled at Sir John.

What
very pointy teeth he has,’ said Danbury.

The
native’s smile froze. ‘One hundred dollar-pounds,’ he said.

What?’
asked Sir John.

‘One
hundred dollar-pounds, yes-siree, by Jingo.’