Skippy Dies: A Novel

Night falls. In the Junior Rec Room the legendary barbarian warrior Blüdigör Äxehand, a.k.a. Victor Hero, calls a timeout from the fell Mines of Mythia, where he and the other doughty souls of Lucas Rexroth’s role-playing group seek the legendary Amulet of Onyx, to take a bathroom break. He proceeds through the door and is passing down the corridor when he is descended on by a large, Lionel-shaped mass.

‘Well, well, if it isn’t the Prince of Gays, off for his evening poncing.’

‘Get off me!’ Victor/Blüdigör shrieks, writhing uselessly under Lionel’s splayed, block-like knees.

‘Out hunting for kisses? How about a kiss from Uncle Lionel. Open wide…’ A huge gobbet of sputum unspools from Lionel’s mouth to quiver just over Victor’s lips – Victor, revulsed, increases his thrashings, which only brings the mucus-pendulum swinging closer. And then, soundlessly, the power winks out. Victor takes advantage of the darkness to scramble out from under Lionel, who, rising in pursuit, finds his slaver pasted to his chin – ‘Damn it!’

‘Damn it!’ In the basement, Ruprecht, emerging from his tinfoil radiation-blocker, shines a torch through the smoking air to peer into the crib. But there is Geoff’s shoe, exactly where he left it.

‘It didn’t work?’ Geoff, hopping over, isn’t entirely devastated to find his shoe still inhabiting this universe. He bends over to retrieve it from the pod. ‘Well, it’s not the end of the world – I know, why don’t we try…’ His eyes flick around the basement as he squeezes his shoe back on. ‘Mario, do you still have your lucky condom?’

‘Ha ha, no way are you putting that inside this foolish death-machine.’

‘But maybe its luckiness would help the experiment,’ Geoff cajoles.

‘I am not going to hand over my fail-safe secret weapon to some parallel-me in another universe,’ Mario says firmly. ‘He can get his own bitches.’

‘Okay…’ Geoff’s eye sets to roving once again. ‘How about…’

‘What’s the use,’ Ruprecht cuts across him desolately.

‘What do you mean, what’s the use?’

‘I mean, it’s not going to work. Clearly what happened with Optimus Prime was some sort of fluke. Maybe the result of an external factor we didn’t take into account, the position of the moon, the quantity of moisture in the air. It could have been anything.’

‘But that doesn’t mean you should just give up on it…’

‘Let’s just call it a day,’ Ruprecht says monotonously, prodding the charred computer keyboard with his foot. Sixteen hours of repeated disappointment have etched themselves into his face, like an acute strain of the grey necrosis of disillusion the others feel creep across them every second of every day, transforming them into adults.

‘What about the future of humanity?’ Geoff appeals; but Ruprecht has already turned his back and is shuffling geriatrically around the room, shutting down the computers one by one, when the door bursts open and Dennis and Skippy come running in.

‘Hold everything!’ Dennis exclaims.

Skippy, who’s holding some sort of a printout, says that he was searching online for material for this punishment essay Ms Ni Riain gave him, about the Gaelic origins of the name Seabrook, ‘and I found this site?’

The site is called The Druid’s Homepage, and purports to be A Resource for Bards, Shamen, Mystics of Erin, and all those Seeking the Rituals of the Old Time. ‘It’s mostly about Druids and making potions out of leaves and stuff. But then in the middle of it…’ he scans down through the page ‘… names can still give clues as to the whereabouts of these sacred sites, even in the modern – oh yeah, here it is – while Seabrook’s present Gaelic translation of “Siobruth” is a meaningless back-formation from the English, it is possible that Seabrook, now home to a church and well-known school, may have its origins in Sidhe an Broga, pronounced ‘Shee an Brugga’ and meaning ‘Fairy House’. This is the name given to the cave-like chambered cairns referred to in the Old Lore as the traditional homes of the Sidhe and the entrances to the ‘Other World’. The correct term for these mounds is tumuli; they are frequently found, like similar sites such as Stonehenge in England and the Boyne Valley in Meath, at the intersection of ley lines in order to harness the power of the grid of electromagnetic energy that covers the earth. Many experts believe that these tumuli, created to astronomical specifications so precise they are still beyond the reach of our most advanced computers today, were the work of a race of extraterrestrial beings who briefly made their home among us and used them as gateways to travel through and outside the universe…’

‘Why are you telling me all this?’ Ruprecht says.

‘Aliens, Ruprecht!’ Dennis chimes in. ‘The mounds were built by aliens! And there’s one of them somewhere in Seabrook!’

Ruprecht, wiping grease from his hands with a towel, merely grunts.

‘You think the mound has something to do with what happened to Optimus?’ asks Geoff.

‘Think about it for five seconds,’ Dennis says. ‘Remember what Ms Ni Riain told us, the old Irish legends, you know, about this race of magical beings who lived in the countryside, only most of the time they were invisible? Doesn’t that fit what you were saying, Ruprecht, about the higher dimensions, and how even though they’re right there we can’t see what’s happening in them? Don’t those old fairy-stories sound like they’re describing people, or something, who know how to move in and out of the higher dimensions? And these mounds are the gateways they built between our world and theirs, using their extraterrestrial knowledge.’

‘Poh, those stories are just stories,’ Mario says, ‘made up by drunk Irish people from days of Yore.’

‘Sure, that’s what I thought too, when I first heard them,’ Dennis says. ‘Like, why would a race of hyper-intelligent extraterrestrials want to live in Seabrook? But after what happened last night –’

Ruprecht is not even listening any more; he has turned back to his clear-up.

‘– and then I remembered what happened to Niall’s sister…’ Dennis continues.

Mario and Geoff look at each other. ‘What happened to Niall’s sister?’

‘You didn’t tell me about her,’ Skippy says.

‘I didn’t? What happened down at the gym?’ Dennis shakes his head. ‘Well, that’s the most incredible thing. Niall’s sister’s a fourth-year in St Brigid’s. She’s in the drama society, and she’s got a big part in the Christmas play this year?’

‘What play are they doing?’ Geoff asks.

‘Oliver.’

‘Oliver, in a girls’ school,’ Mario says disgustedly. ‘That makes like zero sense.’

‘Anyhow, she and this other girl have been staying behind after school to do extra rehearsals of their scenes. They use a room down by the gym. St Brigid’s is a bit like this place, with a new part and an old part. The old part doesn’t get used much any more. There’s a Latin room, and a room they use for sewing classes and stuff like that. And there’s also this other room that’s always kept locked. If you ask the nuns, they’ll say it’s just an old storeroom, and that it’s kept locked because the floor is rotten and it’s not safe to walk on. But there are all these stories about it too, like that a girl hanged herself in there, or that one time a nun was cleaning ashes out of the fireplace when she saw the Devil coming down the chimney, so they closed it off?’

The others are giving him their full attention now; even Ruprecht is dismantling machinery more quietly than he had been.

‘Okay, so one night a couple of weeks ago – it would have been about the same time as the Hop, I suppose – Niall’s sister and her friend are down in their room, rehearsing. They get quite caught up in what they’re doing and they end up staying down longer than they planned.’

‘This friend, is she hot?’ Mario puts in. ‘I have seen Niall’s sister, thanks but no thanks – however, how about the friend?’

‘I haven’t met her,’ Dennis says. ‘It doesn’t really affect the story either way.’

‘Yes, yes, carry on.’

‘Anyway, all of a sudden the two of them notice it’s got very cold. Like icy cold. So they decide to call it quits for the evening. They start walking back to the main door, when her friend grabs Niall’s sister’s arm and asks if she can hear something. They stop right there and listen as hard as they can and Niall’s sister makes out this very faint music playing. It seems to be coming from behind them. They look at each other. It’s after five and they didn’t think there was anyone else around. They retrace their steps back down the hall. The music’s still really faint, almost too quiet to hear, like it’s being played way off in the distance. But there’s no doubt where it’s coming from. The locked room.’

The silence around the listeners seems to deepen.

‘Niall’s sister tells her friend to knock on the door. The friend says Niall’s sister should do it. Niall’s sister dares her, so the friend knocks. No one answers. The music keeps playing –’

‘What sort of music?’ Geoff asks.

‘Beautiful music. Like with harps and stuff.’

‘Just like in the Irish story,’ Geoff says huskily.

‘Anyway, they knock and then they call out, “Hello, is anybody in there?” No reply. Niall’s sister reaches out and turns the handle. It’s locked, of course. But Niall’s sister’s friend has keys. The janitor gave her a set so she could lock up the spare room when they’d finished rehearsing. She doesn’t want to try them, though. She’s afraid, she wants to go and tell one of the nuns. But Niall’s sister knows there’s no way the nuns will let them hang around to see what’s inside the room. This is their one chance. So they start trying the keys in the lock. There are forty keys on the ring. Not one of them fits. They try the last one and then just stare at the door, totally flummoxed. They can still hear the lovely music, in fact it seems to have got louder. Then Niall’s sister, without knowing why, reaches out her hand and turns the handle again. And this time the door opens.’

Geoff, Mario and Skippy stare at Dennis moon-eyed, like three raccoons caught in headlights. From a distance, Ruprecht fondles his asthma inhaler impassively.

‘The friend says, “Okay, we should definitely go and get someone.” But Niall’s sister has already pushed the door open. Afterwards she said it was like the music had put her in a trance. There’s a big cre-e-e-eak. The two of them huddle together and step inside. And guess what they find there?’

‘What?’ whispers Geoff.

‘Nothing,’ Dennis says.

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing. The room is totally empty.’

‘But…’ Mario utters in a strangulated voice. ‘What about the music?’

‘They can still hear the music, clear as a bell. And there’s also a lovely smell, like a field full of flowers, though it’s almost winter, and the room has no windows and is covered in dust and cobwebs. But almost immediately the smell and the music just… fade away. And they’re standing in an empty room.’ Dennis pauses summatively, and then, ‘Ever since, Niall’s sister’s friend’s been saying that the music must have come from somewhere else. Like maybe one of the boarders was playing it in her room, and it was carried through an air vent, or down the pipes? But the boarders’ dorms are way over on the other side of the school. Niall’s sister is certain that somehow the music was coming from that room.’

‘Whoa,’ Geoff says.

‘But how is it possible?’ Mario says.

‘Well, they must have built the room on top of the ancient burial mound,’ Geoff replies. ‘It’s the only logical explanation.’

Ruprecht gets up and paces about the room, gnawing his knuckles.

‘We know that St Brigid’s was a convent before they opened it as a school.’ Dennis is all seriousness now. ‘But what was it before that? This Druid guy says in days of Yore everyone worshipped this goddess called the White Goddess, and these mounds and things belonged to her. But when the Church came and spread Christianity across the country, it took over all the magical places for itself. Changed the names, converted the old legends into stories about, you know, God and stuff. Or else covered them over completely. It makes sense. You’re a bunch of nuns or monks or whatever, you want everybody in the neighbourhood following orders and doing what you tell them. If there’s some mystical fairy fort in the neighbourhood where weird shit keeps happening, you wouldn’t want people to know about it. You’d build your convent right on top of it and lock it up so no one could get anywhere near it.’

Ruprecht halts his peregrinations and rounds rather fiercely on Dennis. ‘Well, even if it is the long-lost Seabrook fairy fort, even if Niall’s sister did hear music – so what? What does any of it have to do with my experiment?’

Geoff fields this one: ‘Gee, Ruprecht, you said there might have been some hidden factor influencing the outcome last night…’

Ruprecht opens his mouth to reply, but breaks off and turns his back on them, muttering unintelligibly and throwing his hands about like a derelict in an underpass. ‘Ley lines, fairies – that isn’t science. Who ever heard of an experiment using fairies?’

‘It does sound pretty unorthodox,’ Dennis admits. ‘But didn’t you say yourself that a scientist has to open himself up to every possibility, no matter how weird?’

‘You did say that, Ruprecht,’ Geoff confirms.

‘And didn’t you say M-theory is weirder than any other theory in the history of science?’ Dennis perseveres. ‘And hasn’t your Professor Tamashi always said that probably the only way we’ll master hyperspace in time to save Earth is if a superior civilization comes along and gives us the technology? Well, what if the technology’s already here? What if the aliens have been and gone three thousand years ago, but they’ve left their gateway behind? What if, all this time, the solution to M-theory has been literally right under your nose?’

‘Mound does begin with M,’ Mario observes thoughtfully.

‘Holy smoke, Ruprecht – so does music!’

‘All right!’ Ruprecht, as his resistance crumbles, flinches in self-disgust. ‘Say it is possible. Why would this mound – why would it suddenly stop influencing the experiment?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe…’ Dennis taps at his temple like he’s starting an old watch ‘… maybe its influence fluctuates. Maybe there was a surge at the exact moment of the first experiment, but normally it doesn’t reach any further than that little room.’

‘So if there were some way to gain access to that room…’

For the first time since Optimus Prime disappeared, the pregnant sense of last night, the nearness of something overwhelming, pervades the basement again, filling the corners and slowly building…

That’s when Skippy’s phone beeps with a new message; and each of them realizes, before he even looks at Skippy’s dumb-struck face, that he knows who it’s from.