Nostradamus Ate My Hamster

15 More Horror From Box 23

The party moved on into evening, gathering mass and momentum. More folk that Russell didn’t know arrived together with a further delivery of champagne that Russell had to sign for. Music played and people took to dancing, drunkenness and bad behaviour, as is the accepted social norm at any decent bash.

Russell slipped outside and tried his hand at flying. Well, he’d always been able to fly in his dreams and if this was a dream …

But he couldn’t get off the ground and after a quarter of an hour of bunny-hopping foolishly around the car park, Russell slipped back inside again. It seemed as if this wasn’t a dream but he still had his doubts about the rest.

There was just too much to it. Too much detail. The Flügelrad and the Cyberstars and the horrible red-faced insect thing. He didn’t have a mind like that. He could never have dreamed such awful stuff.

Russell poured himself champagne and watched the revellers revel. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. Were they all in on it? All part of the great conspiracy? The great Satanic conspiracy? Russell downed champagne and poured some more and stood aside and wondered.

“Why so sad?” asked Julie, the barmaid-cum-movie star.

Russell turned to face the beautiful woman. “Oh,” said he. “Ah.”

“Yes?”

Russell made the face of shame. “I’m very sorry,” he said. “About, you know, what I said to you earlier.”

“I forgive you, Russell. But I’d rather you’d said it to me in private.”

“Oh,” said Russell, once again. “Oh. Really?”

Julie smiled her wonderful smile. “And after you’ve had a bath. You smell rather –”

“Yes.” Russell took a step back. “I was sick earlier in the day. I’m sorry.”

“You look a bit drunk now.”

“Yes, I’m sorry about that too. I’m really sorry.”

“You’re such a sweet man, Russell.”

“Thank you and I really am truly sorry.”

“Just forget it.”

“Yes.” Russell smiled back at the beautiful woman. Now she was a dream. A real dream. And she did seem to like him. A relationship wouldn’t be out of the question. Russell felt sure that she couldn’t be up to anything sinister. She might well have seen something though. The Cyberstar machine. She might have seen that.

“So why are you so sad?”

“I’m confused,” said Russell. “I wonder, could I ask you a question?”

“Anything you like.”

“Well, when you were making the movie, did you use any weird equipment?”

Smack! went Julie’s hand on Russell’s face.

“What did I say?” Russell watched her storm off into the crowd, “What did I say?”

“That’s a pretty crap technique you have there,” said Bobby Boy, sidling up. “Not a patch on my own. But then we actors have a certain charisma, especially with the starlets. Anyway, that’s my bit of tail, so keep your eyes off it.”

“Why you –” Russell raised a fist, but Morgan caught his wrist from behind.

“Don’t let him wind you up, Russell,” said Morgan. “Come and have a chat with us.”

Russell glared Bobby Boy eyeball to eyeball. There was much macho posture-work and you could almost taste the testosterone.

Russell let himself be led away.

“He’s not worth it,” said Morgan, as this was the done thing to say in such circumstances.

Frank stood talking with a couple of half-cut production buyers, the two young men joined them.

“All right, Russell?” asked Frank. And then, sniff sniff sniff. “It’s vomit again, isn’t it?”

Russell sighed.

“Now, let me see if I can identify it correctly. It was Garvey’s Best Bitter last time, if I recall. Hm, let’s sniff. It’s Scotch. It’s a malt. It’s a five-year-old. It’s Glen Boleskine. Am I right, or am I right?”

Russell nodded helplessly.

“Frank certainly knows his vomit,” said Morgan.

“It’s a knack,” said Frank. “You see a lot of vomit in the film game. I remember one time I was drinking with Rock Hudson in his hotel room. We’d had a few, well, I’d had more than him and I chucked on the carpet. But he was a real gent, cleaned it all up and when I passed out he tucked me up in his own bed. I woke up the next day with a right hangover and I don’t know what I must have sat on the night before, but my bum wasn’t half sore.”

Looks were exchanged all around Frank and Morgan hastily changed the subject. “That movie was a real stonker,” he said. “Er, I mean, it was really good, wasn’t it?”

“And it will stay that way too,” said Russell. “I’m not going to let Mr Fudgepacker ruin it by putting in all that gore and guts.”

“Shame,” said Morgan. “I was looking forward to seeing the bit where the psycho gets the hedge-trimmer and sticks it right up –”

“Absolutely not!” Russell waved a wobbly hand about. “But tell me this, Morgan. Did you actually watch any of the movie being shot?”

“Can’t say that I did. I was looking after the Emporium.”

“What about you, Frank?”

“Too much paperwork. Which reminds me –”

“So it was all down to Bobby Boy and Mr Fudgepacker?”

“And Julie,” said Morgan. “Is that woman a babe, or what? Why did she whack you, Russell?”

“I don’t wish to discuss it. But all those other people in the movie. Apart from the landlord of The Bricklayer’s, I don’t know any of them personally, do you?”

Frank and Morgan shook their heads. “Local colour,” said Frank. “Local characters. Fudgepacker knows how to get a performance out of people. Do you want a top-up, I reckon we’re in for an all-nighter here.”

“No thanks.” Russell put his glass aside. “I don’t want any more. I’ve had too much already. I’m going home to have a good shower and get a good night’s sleep. Things might make more sense to me in the morning. Has anybody seen my mum?”

“I think she left hours ago,” said Morgan, “with your sister.”

“Ah yes,” said Russell. “My sister.”

Russell breathed goodbyes over Mr Fudgepacker.

“You take all tomorrow off,” the old one told him. “Clear your head. You’ve done a splendid job and we’re all proud of you.”

“Thank you,” said Russell. “Thank you very much.”

“And change your clothes. I like a bad smell as much as the next man. More actually. But you have to draw the line somewhere. No offence meant.”

“None taken, I assure you.”

“Goodbye to you.”

“Goodbye.”

And Russell waved goodbyes about the place and left.

Russell bumbled along the little riverside path that led by Cider Island and the weir. It was another of those perfect Brentford nights that poets like to write about. And had there been one present, and had he brought his Biro and notebook with him, he would probably have penned something of this nature.

“Ohh! Ow! Bloody Hell!” Russell struggled to his feet and hopped about, a-sniffing. “God,” groaned Russell. “Dog shit too. Whisky and vomit and dog shit. I stink like an open sewer. It’s not fair. It’s just not fair.”

Russell rammed a hand over his mouth. He was quite sure he’d spoken those fateful words before. The previous evening. And they’d led him to all kinds of horrors. Or had they? He still didn’t know for sure.

“It’s all too much.” Russell shuffled his feet in the grass and bumbled on his way.

The stars shone down, the moonlight mooned and the Thames went quietly on its way.

After numerous abortive attempts and much in the way of beneath-the-breath swearing, Russell finally got the key into the lock and the front door open. He tip-toed into the house and closed the door as quietly as he could, the lights were all off. His mum was probably fast asleep. And what about his sister? Where was she? Not in his bed, he hoped.

Russell looked in at the front room. A bit of borrowed moonlight showed his sister snoring on the sofa[29].

Russell swayed back into the hall and stumbled upstairs. Then, recalling that he was in a bungalow, he stumbled down the stairs again (which promptly vanished). Taking a shower now was out of the question, he’d wake his mum up. Russell thought he’d best make do with a bit of in-the-dark face-splashing at the kitchen sink. This he achieved with remarkable dexterity and now wearing on his shirt front much of the floating contents of the cat’s bowl which had been soaking in the dishwater, he wiped his face on what he thought to be the tea towel, but wasn’t, and stumbled off to his bedroom.

Fully clothed and wretched he collapsed onto his bed and fell into a troubled sleep.

The moon moved on across the sky.

The Brentford night went slowly by.

In the front room the mantel clock on the feature fireplace struck three. Westminster chimes it had. You don’t hear those much any more. Except in Westminster, of course. But there was a time, not too long ago to escape fond memory, when most folk had a mantel clock with Westminster chimes. One of those 1940s jobbies, shaped like a hump-backed bridge, with two big keyholes in the face and the big key that fitted them tucked underneath, where the kids were forbidden to touch it. And it always had one corner with bits of folded-up Woodbine packet packed under it, to keep the thing level so it kept perfect time. And it was always folded-up Woodbine packet. Because in those days, before the invention of lung cancer, everybody smoked Woodbine: film stars, footballers, even the queen. Mind you, she wasn’t the queen then, she was the queen mum. Well, what I mean is, she was the queen, but she was also the queen mum. I mean, she’s the queen mum now, but she was the queen then. Yes, that’s it. But she was a mum then, of course, mum of the queen. Not that the queen was the queen then. Her mum was.

Well, one of them was anyway and whoever it was used to smoke Woodbine. Or it might have been Player’s. Or maybe she smoked a pipe.

But, be that as it may, the mantel clock with the Westminster chimes struck three and a dark van pulled up outside the bungalow of Russell and his mum. And as the chimes died away, Russell’s sister stirred from the sofa, slipped into the hall and opened the front door.

Four furtive figures climbed from the van, drew up the shutter at the back and manhandled something indistinct and bulky into the uncertain light of the street.

Struggling beneath its weight, they laboured up the garden path and through the doorway, then along the hall towards Russell’s bedroom.

Russell’s sister went before them. She quietly turned the handle on Russell’s door and pushed it open.

Russell moved in his sleep, grunted uneasily and let go what can only be described as a fart. In the darkness, Russell’s sister fanned her nose, whispered the word “typical” and took her leave.

There was sudden movement, there was sound and there was a big bright light. And Russell was cannoned into consciousness.

“What?” he went, then “mmmmph!” as a hand clamped across his face. He tried to struggle and to strike out, but other hands held down his wrists and others still, his ankles. Russell strained and twisted, but they held him fast.

Russell’s eyes went blink blink blink in the brightness. And had he been able to speak he could have named his attackers without difficulty. Bobby Boy was one, another Frank, and Morgan was another. And in the doorway, standing by a great dark shrouded something, was one more, and this was Mr Fudgepacker.

He was smiling, most unpleasantly.

“Gmmph mmph mm mmphmmph’s” went Russell, which meant “get off, you bastards”. And “grmmmph mmmph mm mmckers!” which meant something along the same lines, but with a bit more emphasis.

“Let him breathe, Bobby Boy,” said Mr Fudgepacker.

The thin man lifted his hand from Russell’s mouth. Russell tried to take a bite at it, but missed.

“Naughty,” said Bobby Boy.

“Let me go,” spat Russell.

Mr Fudgepacker waggled a frail fore-finger in Russell’s direction. It looked a bit like a Twiglet, Russell wondered just what he might have been doing with it. “Now now now,” said Mr Fudgepacker. “I want you to be very quiet, Russell. If you make a noise you might wake up your mother. And if that happens, we will have to deal with her.”

“Deal with her?” Russell whispered this.

“As in, cut her throat!” said Mr F. “I’ve got the hedge-trimmer out in the van.”

“Shall I bring in the camcorder?” asked Bobby Boy.

“No no no. Russell’s going to be very quiet. Aren’t you, Russell?”

Russell nodded.

“Shame,” said Morgan. “I do want to see the bit with the hedge-trimmer.”

“Maybe later. But we have much to do now.”

Russell struggled a bit more. “Let go of me, you bastards,” he whispered.

“That’s the spirit.” Mr Fudgepacker waggled his Twiglet again. “But they won’t let you go. They only do what I tell them to do.”

Russell twisted his neck from side to side. He stared up at Frank. At Morgan. “Morgan,” he said, “you’re my friend. Why are you doing this?”

“It’s for your own good, Russell. For the common good.”

“What?”

“You’ll thank us for it afterwards. Well, you probably won’t actually thank us. But it’s all for the best.”

“Definitely for the best,” agreed Frank.

“Get off me,” Russell whispered. “Let me go.”

Mr Fudgepacker sighed, shuffled over and sat down on the foot of Russell’s bed. “It’s a great pity you didn’t stick to your script,” he said. “None of this would have been necessary, if only you’d stuck to your script. And we did give you a second chance, today. All you had to do was believe that the rest had been a dream. We went to so much trouble, changing the safe, dressing your head wound. But you weren’t convinced, were you?”

“No,” said Russell. “But I might be prepared to give it another go.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What are you going to do?” Russell asked.

“Convert you, my boy. Convert you.”

“I don’t want to be converted. I’m happy as I am.”

“Happy?” Mr Fudgepacker wheezed a little laugh. “What is happy? No-one’s really happy. They just bumble along from one crisis to another, hoping that things will all work out next week, or next month, or next year. But they never do. And even if they did, what then?”

“What then?” Russell asked.

“Well, you die then, don’t you?”

“That’s the way it is,” Russell said.

“But not the way it has to be. You can have more, you see. More much more. More life, more time. You just have to forfeit a few bits of baggage. Emotional baggage. Then you get it all.”

“I really don’t want it, whatever it is.”

“That’s a shame. Because you’re going to get it anyway. Take his clothes off, lads.”

“What?” whispered Russell. “No.”

Mr Fudgepacker sniffed, then rooted in his nose with his Twiglet finger. Something gory came out on his nail, Mr Fudgepacker popped it into his mouth and sucked. “It’s yes, I’m afraid, Russell. And not without good cause anyway. I do declare you’ve added dog shit and cat food to your aromatic wardrobe since I saw you last.”

Russell took to further silent struggling, but it was three against one and he was just the one. It was Bobby Boy who pulled down Russell’s boxer shorts.

“Blimey, Russell,” said the thin man. “Mother Nature didn’t sell you short, did she?”

Russell was too mortified to answer.

“Errol Flynn used to have a tadger like that,” said Frank. “He showed it to me once, in the bog at Pinewood. Used to call it his Crimson Pirate.”

“That was Douglas Fairbanks,” said Mr Fudgepacker.

“Could have been, I couldn’t see properly from the angle I was at.”

“You sick bastard.” Russell spat at Frank. Real spit this time. Mr Fudgepacker brought his Twiglet once more into play. “Remember your mum,” was his advice.

“Please let me go. Please stop this. Please.”

“It won’t take very long and it’s better if you don’t struggle too much. Let’s have him up on his feet, lads.”

Russell was dragged into the vertical plane, which is to say, upright. And he was held very firmly in that position.

Mr Fudgepacker struggled to his feet and limped over to the large covered something that stood by the bedroom door. “Your new life awaits,” he declared. “We measured you up for it last night while you slept.”

“What? What?”

With a flourish Mr Fudgepacker whipped away the covering and Russell found himself staring at …

Himself.

And it was him. A tall naked him. But a better-looking him. A better-proportioned, better-formed and idealized version of him. And it stood there, as if regarding Russell through its blank eye sockets. Like a noble corpse, or a shell, or a skin.

“Get him into it,” ordered Mr Fudgepacker. “Get him into the back.”

Russell fought and kicked and jerked from side to side, but they held him fast and they dragged him around to the back of his other self. To the back with its little doors on the arms and legs and the polished bolts and catches and hinges. And the hollow inside, with the strap and the rigging, the miniature ship’s rigging, with the tiny ropes and pulleys.

“Into the back, lads. Into the back.”

Russell dug in his heels, but they pushed him and pushed him and pushed him in.

“It won’t take long, Russell.”

Russell turned frightened eyes towards the old man. He held a strange device, something Victorian, of burnished brass.

“Once your spine is out you’ll have no more fears, Russell. No more worries, no more stress.”

“No.” Russell fought like a madman, but in vain. They forced him inside, into that thing that was himself. That mockery. And his head snapped up inside its head and his hands slipped inside its hands and his feet were inside its feet. And his neck stiffened and the brass instrument pressed upon the base of his spine and penetrated into his flesh.