The Brentford Chainstore Massacre

by Robert Rankin

  Jim stared into his second double vodka. He was trembling from head to toe. Unshaven, pale of face, bruised and bloody about the nose regions, Jim looked the very picture of despair, which indeed he was. After giving Jim a warning kick or two in the ribs, Derek had driven the limousine back to Penge, supposedly to collect Suzy, who would be delivered safely to Jim as soon as he had delivered the unsafe contents of the nasty little bag to Professor Slocombe.

  But what was Jim to do?

  Could he really bring himself to destroy the Professor’s ceremony and probably even the Professor himself, knowing as he did, or at least felt reasonably certain he did, that the ceremony, once successfully performed, would elevate mankind to some almost god-like state?

  If it worked.

  But then what if it wasn’t going to work anyway? Then it really wouldn’t matter if he destroyed it.

  And ultimately what did matter, other than Suzy? Not much, in Jim’s opinion. Not anything at all, in fact. When you love somebody as much as Jim loved Suzy, the rest of the world can go to hell.

  Jim downed his second double. His fingers strayed to the little lump on his right temple. Fred’s blokes knew exactly where he was at any given moment; he couldn’t trick them. He could dump the horrible wriggling bag into the canal, but perhaps that had a transmitter stuck inside it too. He was in really big trouble here, and he was all on his own this time. Jim looked down at his wrist, to the place where, had he worn a wristwatch, he would have worn it. The one he wasn’t wearing now had belonged to John Omally. John had given it to Jim as a present.

  ‘Nine o’clock,’ said Jim. What am I going to do?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,’ said Derek.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ asked Clive.

  Clive was driving, Derek was in the back. Fred was in the back too, and Suzy was sitting between Derek and Fred. They were out of Penge now and heading for Brentford.

  ‘We’re going to party big time,’ said Derek. ‘Roll into Brentford, spill some blood and party big time.’

  ‘Shut your mouth,’ said Fred.

  ‘Aw, come on, Fred.’ Derek waved his Uzi in the air. ‘We’re mean sons of bitches, ain’t we? We’re the God-damn horsemen of the Apocalypse.’

  Fred made low growling sounds. ‘You can spill as much blood as you like, once that Pooley has put paid to the Professor.’

  Derek cocked his weapon in the manner that sometimes got a cheap laugh. ‘I don’t know why you’ve bothered with all this subtle stuff. You should have arranged a nuclear accident, flattened the whole frigging borough.’

  ‘Dear oh dear.’ Fred rolled his eyes. ‘You really don’t get it, do you? When Pooley introduces our little bagged-up friend into the Professor’s magic circle, the entire ceremony will be reversed. Goodness won’t come flooding into the world. Its opposite number will. Mr Pooley will turn this entire planet into a seething cesspit of evil. Which is just the way my master wants it to be.’

  ‘You’re one bad mother,’ said Derek.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Fred. ‘Ain’t I though.’

  There really didn’t seem any way that Fred’s car would actually be able to drive into Brentford. All the roads in were now blocked by other cars, engines off, doors locked, their owners and passengers gone to join the party. And it really was growing into some party. A PARTY! in fact. Folk from all around were descending on the borough, eager to engage in the free festivities. The novelty of this little west London town genuinely celebrating the millennium two years before the rest of the world had a certain pulling power.

  Fred’s limo ground to a halt.

  ‘Get a move on,’ said Fred.

  ‘I can’t,’ said Clive. ‘The traffic’s all snarled up.’

  ‘Then put the car into overdrive.’

  ‘Overdrive? What good’s that if I can’t move?’

  ‘Didn’t you ever see that film The Car?’

  ‘I did,’ said Derek. ‘Absolute corker. This big evil black car comes out of the desert and wipes out all these people in a little mid-west American town. And The Car is really the Devil.’

  ‘Wasn’t Bradford Dillman in that?’ asked Clive.

  ‘Nah, Bradford Dillman was in Bug.’

  ‘Now that was a good movie.’

  ‘The Swarm was better.’

  ‘The Swarm was pants.’

  ‘Shut it!’ shouted Fred. ‘What I am trying to say to you, Clive, you little twat, is that you’re driving The Car. Stick it into overdrive.’

  ‘Overdrive,’ said Clive, finding the switch. ‘Overdrive, right.’

  Clive flipped the switch and The Car rose up and crunched over the roofs and bonnets of the un-parked cars.

  ‘Nice,’ said Fred.

  ‘Rock’n’roll,’ said Derek.

  ‘Let’s all Rock’n’roll,’ cried the lead singer of the Lost T-Shirts of Atlantis. ‘This one’s called “Happy in the World”.’

  The crowd roared approval and the Lost T-shirts launched into a classic.

  ‘Now that one’s in C,’ said the lady in the straw hat.

  ‘I agree,’ said Paul. ‘Fancy a bunk-up?’

  ‘Stand up,’ said Dr Steven Malone. ‘It is time for us to go.’

  ‘Father,’ said Cain. ‘Are you absolutely certain of what you are doing?’

  ‘Never more so,’ said the mad doctor. ‘Very soon I will know all there is to know.’

  ‘Abel says that we should kill you, father,’ said Cain. ‘What is your opinion of this?’

  ‘Now in your opinion,’ asked Norman, who was setting up a formidable array of fireworks to the rear of the rock concert stage, ‘should I start with the thunder flashes or the really big rockets?’

  ‘Don’t ask me now,’ said the lady in the straw hat. ‘Can’t you see I’m being taken roughly from behind by this medical student?’

  As all students of the occult will know, concentration is everything. Unwavering concentration. The mind must be cleared of all extraneous thought. The pathway opens. The magician focuses totally upon the operation in progress. Numerous mental exercises have been formulated to perfect the technique. One is a visualization exercise. Close your eyes and picture an egg with a crown above it. You’ll get it for a moment, but then your mind will wander. Try again and again and slowly, slowly you will be able to hold it for two seconds, three, four, five. When you can hold it for five seconds, lie in bed next to your sleeping partner and do it. Your sleeping partner will jerk awake crying something about an egg. Try it, it works.

  The Professor could hold the image of an egg with a crown above it for as long as he wished. He was an Ipsissimus, a master of the temple. A magus. He was totally focused.

  Within his study the astral light glowed bright. Within the sacred circle the ancient stood reciting the first words of the ceremony.

  ‘Ten o’clock,’ said Jim, finishing his sixth double vodka.

  ‘And it’s closing time,’ said Sandy. ‘I’m off to join the PARTY!’

  ‘We are the Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of Death,’ howled the lead singer with all the considerable attributes through the microphone on stage. ‘And we have come for your daughters. Those we can’t screw, we eat.’

  ‘It’s a great line that,’ said the groundsman, backstage, to Norman. ‘But I suspect probably the only one he’s got.’

  ‘This first number’s called “I Love You So F*cking Much I Could Eat Your Sh*t”.’

  ‘Or perhaps not,’ said the groundsman. ‘What exactly are you doing there, Norman?’

  ‘Well,’ said the scientific shopkeeper, ‘we want to go into the millennium with a big bang, don’t we? So I’ve cranked up the de-entropizer here, to double the strength of whatever it de-entropizes. So once I’ve set off a firework, you stick the burnt out remains into the de-entropizer and it will produce a brand new one twice as powerful for the next setting-off.’

  ‘No problems,’ said the groundsman. ‘But just one question.’

  ‘What’s that
?’

  ‘Would it be all right with you if I stuck my willy in your machine?’

  Time moved forwards, as time generally does, and the countdown to the New Millennium became minutes rather than hours.

  31

  ‘No, Cain, no.’ Dr Steven Malone stood in his basement laboratory at Kether House. All its horrors had been removed by the police months before, but new horrors now replaced them. ‘We have been arguing over this for hours. I should not be the one to die. I cannot be the one to die. For what I shall learn will affect all mankind.’

  ‘What will you learn, father?’ asked Cain.

  ‘All, Cain, all.’

  ‘No, father, that is the answer you have given before. No man can know all. All can never be known. Only God knows all.’

  ‘I will know more than God,’ said Dr Steven Malone. ‘For I will learn what makes God God. Of what God is composed.’

  ‘And how could you possibly learn this?’

  ‘From the DNA of God. The DNA which is the BIG IDEA. The first thought. I will possess this and from it I will clone myself.’

  ‘That’s a crock of shit,’ said Abel.

  ‘Hold your tongue, boy.’

  ‘Boy? I am now the same age as you.’

  ‘But you can grow no older.’

  ‘This I know. But I do not know how I know this.’

  ‘Because you do not know who you are.’

  ‘Then tell us, father,’ said Cain. ‘Tell us who we are.’

  ‘You are the clones of Jesus Christ.’

  ‘No.’ Cain shook his golden head. ‘This cannot be. This is madness.’

  ‘We should put the bastard out of his misery,’ said Abel. ‘He’s clearly a stone bonker.’

  ‘I am telling you the truth.’ Dr Malone thrust his pale white hands into the pockets of his grey tweed trousers. ‘Cloned from blood taken from the Turin Shroud. I have puzzled long regarding your differences. But then I checked my case notes. You, Abel, the blood from which you were cloned came from scourge marks. While yours, Cain, came from the rib where the spear of Longinus the Centurion pierced you. The Agony of Life and the Ecstasy of Death. But I must take my samples at the next stage. The moment of resurrection.’

  Cain stared into the eyes of Dr Steven Malone. ‘And you do not think that God will strike you dead for this? For surely you seek to commit the ultimate blasphemy.’

  ‘No, Cain, I do not. For God does know all and God exists outside time. God knew, before the dawn of creation, that his son would die upon the cross. So he also knew of the Turin Shroud and of the blood and of twentieth-century science. All this is for a purpose. Ultimately God’s purpose. The difference between myself and others who believe in God, is that I deny God’s divinity. I do not believe that God is to be worshipped, I believe that God is THE BIG IDEA. What will come when I clone God is of God’s purpose. I am following his passive will.’

  ‘The man’s a frigging space cadet,’ said Abel.

  ‘No,’ said Cain, ‘I don’t think he is.’

  Howl, shriek and scream.

  Having three lead guitarists who played three different lead guitar solos simultaneously gave the Hollow Chocolate Bunnies a certain edge.

  Norman had his earplugs in, so he wasn’t too bothered about edges. He was focused on his rather splendid switchboard. This was covered, as switchboards so often are, with switches. Each of these had a little label above it. On one the words Big Rockets were pencilled, on another Catherine Wheels, on yet another Starfires, and on yet another still, Golden Showers.

  Cables led from the switchboard up the scaffolding at the rear of the stage to a gloriously ramshackle framework to which were attached hundreds of Roman candles arranged to spell out WELCOME TO THE YEAR 2000. All at the flick of a switch, of course. Norman did further screwdriver twiddlings, then looked upon all that he had made and found it good. He turned to the groundsman and grinned. ‘We’re rocking and rolling here,’ he said. ‘Now please take your willy out of my machine.’

  ‘A bull’s heart?’ said Clive. ‘He stuck his willy in a bull’s heart?’

  Derek grinned. ‘That’s what it said in this article I read. He’d wired the heart up to make it beat. But he’d wired it up to the mains and he was electrocuted to death. When they found him he was fried. Looked like a doner kebab.’

  ‘Or a beefburger,’ said Clive. ‘But I still don’t believe it.’

  ‘It’s true. I read it in Fortean Times’

  ‘Then it must be true. So where is Mr Pooley?’

  ‘Here it comes,’ said Fred.

  And here Jim came.

  Jim had his head down, a flat cap like Fred’s pulled low over his face. He walked in a curious manner as of one tiptoeing along. As of one who is very drunk, doing his best to pretend that he’s sober, perhaps? The Car was parked across the street from Professor Slocombe’s house. Pooley tiptoed up against it and knelt down. The electrically operated window on Fred’s side swished down into the door.

  ‘You’d best get a move on,’ said Fred.

  Pooley leaned into The Car. ‘Are you all right, Suzy?’ he asked. ‘Have they done anything to you?’

  ‘I’m fine, Jim. Just get me out of here, please.’

  ‘I love you, Suzy.’

  ‘I love you, Jim.’

  Fred pressed the button and the window rose.

  ‘Just do what I told you,’ said Fred. ‘Take the bag into the Professor’s circle. I’ll know if you don’t.’

  Professor Slocombe stood within the sacred circle, performing the Ritual of the Star Sapphire.

  Bowing to the East, he said, ‘Pater et Mater unus dues Ararita.’

  To the South, ‘Mater et Filius unus dues Ararita.’

  To the West, ‘Filius et Filia unus dues Ararita .’

  To the North, ‘Filia et Pater unus dues Ararita .’

  Jim Pooley stumbled across the street towards the Professor’s garden door.

  ‘He’s going for it,’ said Derek.

  Fred pulled up the aerial on the little black box device and watched the little red blip that was Pooley move across the screen. ‘He’d better,’ said Fred. ‘Or I’ll blow his sodding hat off.’

  ‘This is going to blow their socks off.’ Norman flicked the switch labelled Big Rockets and the first of the big rockets shot into the sky. Starbursts and great chrysanthemum flares crackled over Brentford.

  ‘Oooooooooo,’ went the stadium crowd. Even above the roar of the Hollow Chocolate Bunnies.

  ‘Oooooooooo,’ went Clive, peering out through the tinted windscreen. ‘Fireworks.’

  ‘There very soon will be,’ said Fred.

  And not fifty yards away in the basement of Kether House, Dr Steven stood in profile, pointing. ‘Go into the chamber, Cain,’ he said.

  Cain glanced at the chamber. It had the look of a large glass shower cubicle. There were two chairs in it. These were bolted to the floor. On one wall of the cubicle was a canister with a tiny stopcock. The canister was marked POISON.

  ‘Death chamber,’ said Cain. ‘You would really kill us, father?’

  ‘I must do what has to be done.’

  ‘I understand. I myself did what had to be done.’

  ‘You? What did you do?’

  ‘I helped a man called Pooley. A man who is in love. I helped him so that something wonderful could happen. Something I could feel in the air.’

  ‘Enough of this nonsense, Cain. Get into the chamber. I order you to do it. Obey my command.’

  ‘You really think we’re going in there?’ sneered Abel. ‘Get real, you twat.’

  ‘You are powerless to resist. I have programmed your minds. Put you into deep trance again and again. I now command you to enter the chamber.’

  Cain walked slowly across the basement floor and entered the chamber. Abel twitched and shook, but he too, with faltering steps, followed Cain.

  With faltering steps Jim Pooley approached the Professor’s French windows. From within came the sound of t
he magician’s voice rising higher, calling out the Latin phrases that would herald the new dawn. Bringing the ceremony to its climax. For the most part, though, these were drowned by the screams and whistles and bangs of Norman’s firework display.

  Jim reached into his pocket and pulled out the wriggling bag and then he pressed his fingers to the blackly daubed French windows.

  ‘No, Jim.’ A hand grasped his wrist. Jim turned. ‘John?’

  ‘Don’t do it, Jim. Whatever it is, don’t do it.’

  ‘I have to, John. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I heard about you being thrown from the limo. Suzy’s gone missing. I put two and two together. They’ve got her, haven’t they? They’re blackmailing you to destroy the ceremony.’

  ‘Let me do it my way, John. I have it under control.’

  ‘Oh no you don’t, Jim. A man in love is never in control.’

  ‘I know what I’m doing. Leave it, John.’

  ‘No, Jim. I won’t let you.’

  Jim swung round and hit John in the face with something hard. Omally went down and Jim pushed open the French windows.

  ‘He’s going inside,’ said Fred, watching Jim’s little blip. ‘He’s going to do it.’

  ‘And now you are inside,’ said Dr Steven Malone. ‘And now I must do what must be done.’

  ‘Don’t do it, father, please.’

  ‘Have no fear, Cain. You return to God. You become God once more.’

  ‘I have no fear for myself, father, or for Abel. My fear is for you.’

  ‘Waste not your fear then. Because I have none at all.’ Dr Steven Malone bolted the chamber door and turned the stopcock on the canister of poison gas.

  ‘Yes!’ cried Fred. ‘He’s entering the circle. He’s entering the circle.’