Clovenhoof 05 Beelzebelle

by Heide Goody

  “I doubt that’s going to happen,” said Michael.

  “The devil snares the faithless in all manner of ways.”

  Michael sighed in the manner of one who had just had quite enough. “Chip – Mr Malarkey – putting aside the facts that, one, the devil isn’t snaring anyone down there because he’s up here with us …”

  “Hello!” said Clovenhoof, and gave them a cheery thumbs-up.

  “… And, two, that your argument isn’t even the slightest bit sensible and true. Freddy’s not going to swoon from lustful thoughts about breasts. Freddy’s gay, Chip.”

  “Gay?” said Chip, his forehead wrinkling. He gave a small laugh. “No, I don’t think so. Homosexuality’s not something that you get in a group of decent people. You’re mistaken, Michael.”

  Michael was about to reply when there was movement that made them all turn their heads.

  The boom of the building site crane was swinging towards them. All heads on the roof turned to look as the huge hook on the end trailed across in its own, slightly slower arc.

  “Oh my good God,” said Michael, in quiet surprise and admiration.

  “Do you see who’s behind the controls?” Clovenhoof grinned.

  “I certainly do,” yelled Michael, delighted. He turned to Chip. “For your information, Chip, that’s my boyfriend.”

  “What?”

  “And the vicar of Saint Michael’s church. And they’ve come to rescue us.”

  In the glass control cab, Andy stuck his tongue out of the side of his mouth in concentration, and swung levers with a certain devil-may-care attitude. Squashed in behind him, Zack gripped the back of Andy’s chair and offered unheard advice (although, given that Zack’s eyes were mostly screwed shut in fear, it was debatable how useful that advice was).

  Chip shook his head. “Oh dear, Michael. I thought better of you, I really did. It sounds very much to me as if that other church is one of those trendy liberal ones that encourages all this sort of filth. It takes a bit more backbone than that to be a proper Christian.”

  “This is all very educational,” said Clovenhoof. “I always like a nice incoherent rant, Chip, and you seem to me as if you could be a major player if there was ever a TV show called Britain’s got Lots to Shout About, but I wanted to ask a question of Michael here, who likes to think he’s the sensible one.”

  “Go ahead, Jeremy,” said Michael.

  “How is your toy boy going to …”

  “Excuse me? Toy boy?”

  “Yes. How old is he?”

  “Twenty-nine.”

  “And you are …?”

  “Older than creation, but that doesn’t make him my toy boy.”

  “Makes you a pervert. Anyway, how is he going to get people down with that thing? There are dozens of us, and it’s just a hook. Sadly, everyone’s not conveniently wearing dungarees so we can hang them up by their straps.”

  Gorky screeched loudly and beat his chest, then he scampered over the handrail and disappeared from view.

  “That was strange,” said Michael.

  “Did I mention that he’s really smart?” said Clovenhoof.

  “If he’s trying to tell us that we’re all in trouble,” said Michael, “then that’s old news. Look!”

  Michael pointed at the burping, seething mess that filled the opening to the stairs they had all just climbed a few minutes ago. It bulged for a second, forming a fat shitty meniscus, and then the bulge burst and began to spread out across the roof-deck.

  A massive chorus of “Ewww!” – entirely unique in all human history – swept across the roof.

  Clovenhoof focussed on where Gorky had gone. He leaned over the rail to get a better view, jiggling Belle on his opposite hip.

  Michael was on the phone to Andy. “… Any thought to how we’re going to get everyone down, my love? Wrecking ball? No. This is solid gopher wood – treated cedar wood. You’d kill us all before you made a hole.”

  Clovenhoof watched as Gorky reached the ground, scampered over to the small parking yard, and climbed up on top of the battered remains of Chip’s stretch transit van strapped to the back of a car transporter. He capered on the roof and gave Clovenhoof vigorous arm signals.

  “What is that monkey doing on my van?” said Chip.

  “Michael! Tell Andy and Zack to see if they can get the crane to lift that,” said Clovenhoof pointing at the van. “We’d get loads of people inside.”

  “It looks somewhat damaged to me,” said Michael.

  “It’s not going to need wheels and a bumper for this job,” said Clovenhoof, “and that hole in the roof is hardly going to matter.”

  “It’s not a terrible idea. I take it the monkey thought of it, not you?” said Michael.

  “I taught him everything that he knows,” said Clovenhoof proudly, as Gorky bent over and showed them his bottom.

  Nerys watched the crane swing round and the hook descend. She was mildly jealous that she hadn’t thought of it first. She quite liked the idea of wielding power and control on such a massive scale.

  “I wonder how he knows what the controls all do?” said Ben.

  “Didn’t Andy used to work in the building trade?” she replied.

  “Yes, as a plasterer’s mate, not a bloody crane driver.”

  As if to confirm this statement, the giant hook swung over the roof of the church, stopped moving sideways, went briefly upwards, and then came crashing down into the centre of the roof, people scattering to either side. Moments later, the hook came up again and swung sideways, further round.

  “What the Hell are they doing?” said Ben.

  Nerys’s phone buzzed.

  “It’s Andy,” she said.

  In fact, it was Reverend Zack on Andy’s phone.

  “Help. Attach. Hook to van,” panted Zack. “Straps. Move the people out.”

  Nerys tugged at Ben’s sleeve, pulling him towards the car transporter and van.

  “Are you all right, Reverend?” she said.

  “Scary,” stammered Zack. “Very scary. Heights. Mmmm. Not good.”

  The exact location of the stairway was lost now, somewhere near the centre of a still-growing pool of poo. The scores of faithful (some regretting their faith at this very moment) pressed up against the railing and stood on tiptoes and tried not to breathe in the stink.

  “Hold fast!” yelled Chip. “Hold true to the Lord and he will provide salvation.”

  “I’d settle for some hand sanitiser,” said one woman, miserably.

  Down below, Ben and Nerys were busy removing the ratchet straps that held the van to the car transporter and using them to suspend the chassis from the crane’s hook. They took the straps under each end, assisted by Gorky, who scrambled underneath without difficulty. Nerys climbed awkwardly onto the top of the van to fasten the straps onto the hook.

  “What’s she doing with my van?” shouted Chip.

  Nerys turned to the cab of the crane and gave a big OK signal to Andy and Zack.

  “Is Nerys known for her abilities with knots?” Michael asked Clovenhoof.

  “Her party trick is tying a knot in a cherry stem with her tongue.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a transferable skill, Mickey-boy.”

  “Transferable to this situation?”

  “Probably not.”

  From the bowels of the building beneath them came a deep rending sound like a mighty tree falling.

  “You reckon that was something important and structural?” said Clovenhoof.

  “This was designed to be an ocean-going vessel,” said Michael confidently.

  “But not the world’s biggest septic tank.”

  Nerys clambered down, and the crane took up the slack and lifted the stretch transit up into the air.

  “That woman is a complete disgrace,” said Chip, disparagingly. “She has no shame about her breasts. No shame. And that is my van.”

  Nerys stood on the transporter back and waved directional instructions to the c
rane cab.

  “Look, there’s a man taking pictures of her, and she’s not even covering herself up!” snorted Chip.

  Michael watched the van rise, and elbowed Clovenhoof excitedly.

  “Not quite a deus ex machina, I admit.”

  “More of a transit ex machina,” said Clovenhoof. “Hardly divine intervention, is it?”

  Michael shrugged. “I don’t know. A Reverend and the sexiest little man in Boldmere. Sounds pretty divine to me.”

  The van swung towards the roof, where eager hands reached out to steady it so that people could climb aboard.

  “Don’t be fools!” yelled Chip.

  “Man with a baby coming through,” said Clovenhoof, and elbowed his way to the front of the crowd.

  “That is false hope!” cried Chip. “It’s been stolen and misused, and this foolishness is just a symptom of the sickness of this world.”

  “It’s clean,” said a woman as she scrambled inside.

  With half of the ark passengers stuffed inside and the van doors closed, Michael waved to the crane.

  Ben helped form a cordon as the van descended.

  “Is my Bea in there?” said Toyah, distraught. “Is she all right? Oh, Christ on a bike, this is doing my head in!”

  “It’ll be all right,” said Spartacus, squeezing his mum’s hand.

  “I’m sure Jeremy got her in there,” said Ben. “We just need them to get it down to the ground now.”

  “You are stunning, like Amazon women! Your naked forms add so much beauty to the drama of the moment!”

  Ben and Toyah looked at the odd little man clicking away with his camera.

  “Oi, perv, you can pack that right in!” said Toyah.

  “Oh, please, do not misunderstand,” said the man, holding up his hands. “I am the conceptual artist, Heinz Takala. I work so often with nudity, but it is rare to capture beautiful women showing their naked breasts in a life or death struggle.”

  “Have you ever captured a naked woman about to punch your lights out?” asked Toyah.

  “No,” said Heinz, lifting his camera again. “What would …?”

  Toyah blew on her bruised knuckles. “Well, now you have.”

  Ben waved frantically as the van touched down, and pulled the doors open.

  “Is she there?” demanded Toyah. “Is she there?”

  Men and women, young and old, staggered from the van. They were shaken, had unbelievably stinky feet, but were otherwise unharmed. Last of all was Clovenhoof, leaping out with a giggling girl in his arms.

  “That was fun! Again! Again!” sang Clovenhoof.

  “Not bloody likely,” said Toyah, and tearfully threw her arms around her baby and the least ideal father-figure in history.

  “Still think I’m a complete cock?” Clovenhoof said to Spartacus.

  “Course I do,” he said, but hugged Clovenhoof and his family all the same.

  Michael watched the crane hoist the transit away from the ground and begin a slow second ascent towards the roof of the flooded ark. He tried not to think about the stuff pooling about his ankles.

  “We’ll all get aboard this one, won’t we?” said the worried and very Reverend Mario Felipe Gonzalez.

  “I suppose so,” said another man. “Though my wife’s going to give me Hell when I get down there. I only wanted her to stay behind to feed the cat, and I didn’t even get to do any repopulating of the earth.”

  “No one’s leaving,” said Chip. “The cowards may flee, but the faithful must stay strong.”

  Michael was shaking his head before Chip had even finished speaking.

  “Chip, why don’t you take a deep breath and look around you? The ark thing just didn’t work out. Give it up.”

  Chip thumped the hand rail angrily. “Chip Malarkey never gives up and he never backs down! That’s the only reason I got where I am today.”

  “Where you are today isn’t looking all that great just now,” said Michael. “You’re trapped in your own ark. Everything in it has been destroyed and, even if the deluge comes, which doesn’t seem so likely since the sun’s coming out now, this thing won’t float.”

  “Have faith!” said Chip doggedly.

  The van was level with the deck. The Reverend Mario Felipe Gonzalez hauled on the bumper to bring it closer and Mrs Bloom, the thwarted procreator, and the dozen or so remaining members of the Consecr8 flock, pulled their legs out of the knee-deep mire and crawled into the van. All except Chip. He remained in position by the ark’s railing, as though glued there by something deeper and more profound than a foetid swamp of human filth.

  “We need to go, Chip,” said Michael from the doorway.

  Chip shook his head. “I will not accept any so-called rescue from these tainted sinners! I look down there and I see Sodom and Gomorrah. If I walk amongst them, then they’ve won.”

  “It’s not about winning, Chip! It’s about surviving.”

  “No, Michael. It’s about doing the right thing.”

  “Like these people, then,” he said, gesturing to the crane, the SCUM mums, and the rescue operation going on around them. “These people doing the right thing and helping each other.”

  “Sinners,” said Chip softly.

  Michael closed his eyes and shook his head at the man’s stubbornness. He shut the rear door on his fellow churchgoers, stepped back, and waved to Andy to lower it.

  “You’re not going with them?” said Chip.

  “No,” said Michael.

  Chip smiled. “You believe in the ark.”

  “I believe in giving people one last chance.”

  Ben had trouble hearing Zack over the sound of the crowds. Around him, people hugged each other in relief at their rescue. Toyah, clasping her baby daughter to her side, had climbed up the turret on the party lorry from where Spartacus and his friends were dropping milk-filled balloons on people. Clovenhoof was deep in discussion with the odd little photographer with the black eye who had regained his composure somewhat.

  “There’s someone still up there?” he said.

  “Michael. And some other guy. Two of them.”

  “Then we’ll get the van back up to them as soon as we can.”

  Clovenhoof started to adopt various heroic poses while Heinz took photos. Clovenhoof handed Heinz his phone to take a photo.

  “I want to post them as hashtag sexy devil, OK?”

  “Thank God I am a miracle worker,” said Heinz.

  From within the Consecr8 building came a whale-like moan.

  “That does not sound good,” said Nerys.

  The van touched down on the ground for a second time, and the rescued church members disembarked.

  Michael stood next to Chip and leaned on the railing.

  “Do you know why God chose to destroy the world with water?” he asked conversationally.

  “Why?” said Chip.

  “First line of the Good Book – one of the Good Books, ‘In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God hovered over the waters.’” Michael looked at Chip. “It started with water and the Almighty erased it with water. He rebooted His creation. World 2.0.”

  “He saw that he’d made a mistake,” agreed Chip.

  Michael’s mouth twisted and he shook his head. “The Almighty doesn’t make mistakes. He’s God, after all.”

  Michael scoured the crowd below and saw Clovenhoof posing for a photographer. It looked like Clovenhoof was pretending to ride an invisible horse while slapping his own backside.

  “There was one individual in Heaven who thought the Almighty had made a mistake in creating man.”

  “Lucifer. The devil.”

  “People tend to call him Jeremy these days. But the Almighty always had faith in His creation. Sometimes, I struggle to share God’s faith in humanity, but not today.”

  “But look at them!” said Chip. “Fornicators! Idolators!”

  “I kn
ow! And these aren’t the worst of them. Trust me.”

  “Surely this world needs to be cleansed, mate? You can sense it, you can almost taste it.”

  “Maybe, but the Almighty has already done that. He did it once. Aeons ago. He created the world and, as soon as humanity’s capacity for evil shone through, He pressed the reset.”

  “He showed His true power.”

  “Exactly,” said Michael. “He showed what He was capable of and then, afterwards, He made a promise to Noah that He would never do it again. Do you see?”

  The van swung precariously as it rose up the side of the ark.

  “No,” said Chip. “What?”

  “The Almighty took His ability to destroy mankind and placed it beyond His own reach. The Almighty has placed His complete trust in humanity. However stupid and shallow and selfish and cruel they might be – and they are – the Lord believes that they will live up to that trust He placed in them.”

  The van crested the edge of the deck. The flood of sewage was thigh-deep, and Michael waded with difficulty over to the van. He reached for the door.

  “Let’s just get inside and away from this horrible mess, shall we?”

  Chip looked up at the groaning straps and the battered shell of his own transit van.

  “You want to abandon this ark for that?” he scoffed. “You’re putting your faith in some wire and fabric.”

  “Right now, I’m putting my faith in the two men at the controls of the crane,” said Michael.

  He held out a hand to Chip.

  The deep and unhappy groans and creaks coming from within the Consecr8 building were a constant noise now but, when there was a sharp crack and the ‘pe-yow!’ ricochet of bolts or nails or something flying out of the wall, Ben looked round in panic.

  “Nerys!” he called. “Did you hear that?”

  “Yes,” said Nerys. “I really hope it wasn’t what I think it might have been.”

  “Which is what?” asked Ben.

  The wall of the church by the side of them suddenly groaned like a wounded animal. Something shifted, and water began to spurt from a gap that had appeared between the hardwood planking. A fine, high-pressure spray of human effluent jetted from the edges of the ground floor doorway.