Snuff Fiction

by Robert Rankin

  Now I’m damn sure that that never happened to Arnie.

  The big lorry ploughed back into Castle Doveston, demolishing stonework and stained glass. I chose another gear. It was a good’n this time. The lorry lurched forward, bringing down further stonework and stained glass. Revealing the chaos within to the monsters without. But whatever horrors followed then, I didn’t see them.

  I just kept my foot down hard and we took off at a gallop. Now, big and mean and ugly the chimeras may have been, but they were no match for the lorry. We ripped through their ranks, mashing them under, me clinging onto the steering wheel and Norman clinging onto me.

  ‘The time,’ I shouted. ‘The time.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any time left,’ shouted Norman. But there was.

  Just a wee bit.

  Just a final ten seconds.

  Ten . . .

  I whacked us up a gear and kept the throttle down.

  Nine . . .

  Inside the great hall, chimeras wreaking bloody mayhem.

  Eight . . .

  More chimeras up ahead.

  Seven . . .

  O’Shit and O’Bastard on the minstrels’ gallery bravely letting fly with their Uzis.

  Six . . .

  Splatter and splat as the big lorry mows down further chimeras.

  Five . . .

  Castle Doveston silhouetted against the full moon.

  Four. . .

  Blood and guts and gore and ghastliness.

  Three . . .

  Big lorry, engine roaring, ploughs towards the gates.

  Two . . .

  Danbury Collins awakening to find himself inside an invisible suit of armour. ‘What’s all this noise?’ he asks.

  One . . .

  Big lorry smashes through the gates of Castle Doveston.

  Zero . . .

  A very brief moment of absolute silence.

  Again Castle Doveston standing tall and proud and unsightly against that old full moon,

  And then . . .

  BOOOOM.

  The biggest BIG AAAH-CHOO! that ever there was.

  26

  Are we dead then?

  Norman Hartnell

  I didn’t see it.

  Though I really wish I had.

  They told me that the explosion was really quite spectacular.

  Some Bramfielders conga-lining around the car park at the back of the Jolly Gardeners, singing in the New Year and the new millennium, thought at first it was a firework display that the Laird had generously laid on for them.

  The charges had been so perfectly placed, you see, and the beauty of it was, as I later came to understand, they were not triggered by any pre-set timing mechanism. The Doveston had let fate set them off.

  Allow me to explain.

  It had been his obsession that the end of civilization as we knew it would occur at the stroke of midnight on the final night of the twentieth century. He said that he knew it. Had seen it. Had felt it. Whatever. And he was so absolutely certain of this, that this is how he triggered the bomb.

  A simple cut-out switch linked to the detonator. As long as the electrical mains supply to Castle Doveston remained on, the bomb remained harmless. But should the power fail, the cut-out switch would trigger the bomb.

  And so, of course, if the Secret Government of the World had not really engineered the Millennium Bug and sabotaged all those computer systems, the power would remain on. But if they had and the National Grid failed . . .

  The Big Aaah-Choo!

  And, at the very stroke of midnight, the computer systems went down and the National Grid failed. From beyond the grave, he’d had his revenge.

  And, love him or hate him, you had to admire him. It was a masterstroke

  But I was telling you about how the charges had been so perfectly placed.

  Three separate charges there were. Cunningly angled. They totally atomized Castle Doveston. But through the nature of their positioning, they did something more. They sent three rolling fire-balls into the sky.

  Three rolling fireballs that formed for a moment the triple snake Gaia logo of the Doveston.

  Pretty damn clever, eh?

  But, as I said, I didn’t see it. The big lorry I was trying to drive smashed through the gates, hurtled along the road towards the village and then came to that rather tricky bend just before you reach the Jolly Gardeners.

  Well, it was dark, very dark now, no street lights or anything. And I hadn’t managed to figure out how to work the headlights on the big lorry and there was a lot of ice on the road and we were going very fast.

  I turned the wheel and I put my foot down hard upon the brake, but that bend was rather tricky at the very best of times.

  ‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh!’ went Norman.

  ‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh!’ I agreed.

  I do have some recollection of the big lorry’s rear end overtaking us and all these trees appearing out of nowhere and then suddenly we were rolling over and then everything went rather dark.

  We missed the Jolly Gardeners by inches, but we did hit that very picturesque-looking Tudor house opposite. The one with the carefully tended knot garden and the preservation order on it and everything. It didn’t half make a noise, I can tell you.

  I awoke to find that Norman and I were all tangled up together on the ceiling of the cab, which had now become the floor.

  ‘Are we dead then?’ Norman asked.

  ‘No,’ I told him. ‘We’re not dead. We’ve survived. We’re safe.’

  Now, I don’t know why I said that. I know I shouldn’t have. I know, as we all know, that if you say that, then you leave yourself open for something really bad to happen.

  You bring down upon yourself THE TRICK ENDING.

  Don’t ask me why this is. Perhaps it’s a tradition, or an old charter, or something. But I did say it. And once I had said it, I couldn’t very well take it back.

  ‘What’s that funny noise?’ Norman asked. ‘That funny scratching noise?’

  That funny scratching noise. Now what could that be?

  Could that perhaps be one of the chimeras that had somehow managed to get aboard the big lorry and was even now making its wicked way along inside the back, before plunging into the cab to rip us limb from limb and gulp us down?

  Well, it could have been, but it wasn’t. It was just the wind in the trees. Phew.

  ‘Tell me we’re safe,’ said Norman.

  ‘We’re safe,’ I said. ‘No, hang about. Can you smell petrol?’

  27

  The show’s not over ‘til the fat bloke snuffs.

  Winston Churchill (1874—1965)

  Of course we didn’t die.

  We weren’t blown to Hell and damnation.

  We were out of that lorry and into the Jolly Gardeners with seconds to spare before the fuel tank exploded.

  There was hardly any damage at all done to the pub. The Tudor house took most of the blast. Which was a pity, seeing as how it was so old and well kept and picturesque and everything.

  But, as I’ve told you before, I’m very much a Victorian man myself. I could never be having with Tudor architecture.

  Norman had no money on him, so I had to pay for the pints.

  Not that there were any pints on offer. Not with all the electrics off. The pumps wouldn’t work any more.

  ‘All the bloody power’s gone,’ declared the landlord. ‘It will be that centennial mouse we’ve been hearing so much about.’

  ‘Millennium Bug,’ said Norman.

  ‘Who said that?’ asked the landlord. ‘I can see sod all in this dark.’

  Actually it really wasn’t all that dark. The light from the burning Tudor house opposite offered a comfortable glow.

  ‘Just give us two doubles out of the nearest optic,’ I told the land-lord. ‘And don’t trouble yourself with the ice and a slice.’

  ‘Coming right up.’ And the landlord blundered off.

  ‘Do you know what this reminds me of?’ said some old
bloke in the corner. ‘This reminds me of the war. Why don’t we all have a sing-song, eh? Revive some of that old Blitz spirit, that made the working classes what we were and what we are today.’

  ‘And what are we?’ I asked.

  ‘Shufflers,’ said the old bloke. ‘Shufflers and proud of it.’

  Well, that was good enough for me, so I sang along with the others. These were my people. I was a part of them and they were a part of me. I was home at last amongst my own. And we sang, our voices raised. A song that we all knew and loved. A song that meant so much to us.

  It was a song of hope. An anthem. A song that said, in its way, everything there was to say about us. There were tears in my eyes as we sang it.

  ‘Here we go, here we go, here we go.

  Here we go, here we go, here we go-oh.

  Here we go, here we go, here we go.

  Here we go-oh, here we go.’

  I forget how the second verse went.

  What happened as the clocks struck twelve on that final night of the twentieth century has now passed into history. Oral history, that is. Because there is no other. Oral history, fireside tales, and no two tales the same.

  As with the assassination of JKF, everyone remembers where they were on the night the lights went out.

  Because, for most of us, they never went on again. A chain, it is said, is only as strong as its weakest link. We learn that in infants’ school. So what of technology’s chain? All those systems, linked together? All those computer networks, exchanging information, feeding off each other’s data-flows?

  Throughout 1999, the British government had worn its bravest face. At most, only one per cent of all systems will be affected, they said. A measly one per cent. Nothing much to worry about.

  So only one link in every hundred.

  But wouldn’t that mean that the chain would still snap?

  As it turned out, of course, they were way off the mark. The agents of the Secret Government had been very thorough.

  Nearly forty per cent of all vital systems failed. Everything went down.

  Everything.

  Road-traffic signal systems: Gone. Airport flight-control systems: Gone. Railway point systems: Gone. Telecommunications: Gone. Banking systems: Gone. Health-care facilities: Gone.

  And they would all stay gone. Because all power had gone. The National Grid was dead.

  And what about military hardware? What about their radar systems? And missile-tracking systems? And anti-missile-missile-launch systems? Did they fail too?

  Oh yes, they failed.

  In England everything switched itself off In Russia things were different. The Secret Government hadn’t troubled with Russia. Russia had so many clapped-out old systems that Russia would collapse without ‘help’.

  Unfortunately, and evidently unforeseen, the sudden loss of power in Russia had the same effect upon some of the Russian nuclear arsenal as it had upon the Doveston’s dynamite.

  Only five missiles went up. Which was pretty good, considering. The other 13,055 stayed on the ground. But once those five were in the air, that was it. You couldn’t bring them back. And you couldn’t telephone anyone to warn them they were on their way and say that you were very sorry and it had all been an accident and not to take it personally.

  The West could do nothing to stop them.

  And the West didn’t know they were coming, or where they were coming from.

  The West was power dead. A great slice of it was in darkness: Auld Lang Syners halted in mid-flow; people searching around for candles and wondering how badly they could behave before the power came back on; pretty much everyone drunk.

  And five nukes on the way.

  They fell somewhat haphazardly.

  The one that should have hit central London hit Penge. Which I’m told was a very nice place, although I feel disinclined to visit it nowadays.

  Another hit Dublin. Which was bloody unfair. Because, come on, who have the Irish ever attacked, apart from the English? Nobody, that’s who.

  Paris copped one. But sod Paris.

  The one that made it to America came down in the Grand Canyon. Causing no loss of life and no damage to property. Now was that fair, I ask you?

  The last one came down upon Brighton. Brighton! Why Brighton! Why not Switzerland, or Holland, or Belgium. Or Germany?

  Two on England and one of these on Brighton. That wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t. Especially as Bramfield is only ten miles north of Brighton.

  But ten miles is ten miles. And there were the South Downs in between.

  Ten miles from the blast meant only a bit of minor roasting and a few flattened buildings. Ten miles from the blast was a doddle.

  I think we were into our eighth or ninth double when the shock wave hit. I recall Norman saying, ‘What’s that funny noise?’ again. And I recall the way the south wall of the pub began to make its way towards the north wall. And I remember telling Norman that I thought we’d better run again. And I remember that Norman agreed.

  We ran and once more we survived.

  Few people knew exactly what had really happened. And few were ever likely to find out. No electricity means no TVs or radios or newspapers. It means no information.

  No electricity means no petrol either. No petrol means you stay put where you are.

  Country communities cut themselves off. There were food riots in London. Revolution is only ever three square meals away. The British government was overthrown. The People took control. But what could the People do? Could the People get the power back on? No, the People could not. How can you mend a broken system if you have no way of finding out which part of it is broken? How can you check an electrical system without electricity?

  In the country we were luckier. At least we had something to eat. We could live off the land. Like the shufflers of old had done.

  Norman and I crept back to Castle Doveston to view the ruins and see what might be salvaged. We went in the daytime and we went with caution for fear of the chimeras.

  But all the chimeras were dead.

  Those which had not been vaporized in the blast had come to grief in the security ditches I’d had dug. The ones with spikes at the bottoms. The spikes that had been given a coat of Norman’s invisible paint.

  We marvelled at the ruins. Everything had gone. From the ground up. But from the ground down, things were different. The cellars had survived intact. The trophy room was untouched and so were all the storage rooms. Norman brought his convenient keys into play and we opened them up. Food, glorious food. Enough to last us for years. Enough to last us. As long as we didn’t share it around. As long as we could hang on to it for ourselves.

  Norman opened up the Doveston’s armoury and broke out the mini-guns.

  And that’s where we holed up. For eight long dark years. From then, until now.

  Which brings me to the present and to how the writing of this book came about. The Doveston’s biography.

  I’d had no intention of ever writing it. What would have been the point now? There were no more books and no more bookshops. People didn’t read books any more. Books were for burning. Books were fuel.

  It was in the early springtime of this year, 2008, that the man came to visit us. He was alone and unarmed and we let him through our barricades.

  The man said that his name was Mr Cradbury and that he was employed by a London publishing house. Things were changing in the big metropolis, he told us. The power was back on there and nearly all the time. There was TV too, but only black and white and only showing public-service broadcasts.

  A new government had been installed after the revolution and it was slowly getting things back together. A little at a time. This new government would not be making the same mistakes that the old one had made. We would not be seeing too much in the way of technology. It had brought back conscription and many young men had now joined up with the People’s Cavalry.

  Things were changing. There was a new world order.

  Norm
an and I listened to what Mr Cradbury had to say. And then I asked Norman whether he thought that Mr Cradbury would taste better fried than boiled.

  ‘Definitely fried,’ said Norman.

  Mr Cradbury became agitated. He had travelled all the way from London to meet us, he said. He had a proposition he wished to put to me.

  ‘Where have you hidden your horse?’ Norman asked.

  Mr Cradbury wasn’t keen to tell us. He said that he had not even known whether we were alive or dead, or indeed whether, if we were alive, we’d still be living here. But he’d come, all the same, braving the robbers and brigands and highwaymen, because what he had to say to me was important and so could we please not cook him and eat him?

  ‘We can search for his horse,’ said Norman. ‘I’ll get the fire started.’

  Mr Cradbury fainted.

  Once revived, Mr Cradbury had a great deal more to say. His publishing house, he said, had been asked by the new ministry of culture to publish a book. It would be the first book to be published this century. It was to inspire the young. It was very very important and only I could write this book. Only I had all the necessary information in my head. Only I knew the whole truth. And, if I would take on this task, I would be most handsomely rewarded.

  ‘Go on then,’ I said. ‘What is this book that you want me to write?’

  ‘The biography of the Doveston,’ said Mr Cradbury.

  Mr Cradbury made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I refused this offer and he upped it a bit.

  Electrical power would be restored to the village. I would be made mayor of the village. Being mayor would entitle me to certain privileges. I would draw up a list of these. Norman and I would be supplied with food and drink and fags and pretty much anything else that our little hearts desired. And Norman would receive a box of Meccano.

  A big box.

  The biggest box.

  Mr Cradbury agreed to everything. But then I knew that he would. I knew that I could ask for pretty much anything I wanted, and I knew I’d get it too. Because I’d been expecting the arrival of Mr Cradbury, or someone just like him. I knew that it had only been a matter of time before I was called upon to write the Doveston’s biography. I’d had long enough to reason things out, to understand what had really happened, and why, and who was behind it all. So I didn’t ask any more questions. I just shook Mr Cradbury’s hand.