Nostradamus Ate My Hamster

by Robert Rankin

  ‘Russell!’ said Mr Fudgepacker, sternly. ‘Look behind you, Russell.’

  ‘You don’t think I’m going to fall for that old trick?’ Russell took a quick peep over his shoulder, and then he said, ‘Oh dear.’

  The noise of the gunshot had rather put paid to the partying. The sound system had been switched off. Many eyes were now turned upon him. Many faces were wearing angry expressions.

  ‘I’ve got a gun.’ Russell flashed it in their direction. ‘Well, you probably guessed that, hearing it go off and everything. But I’m not afraid to use it. I just used it then, didn’t I? And I’ll use it again, I will.’

  The crowd looked rather unimpressed. Unimpressed, but surly, the way crowds can look when they’re composed of people who’ve had too much to drink and are suddenly bothered by some fool who wants to break up the party.

  ‘I’m arresting this man,’ Russell continued. ‘He’s an escaped war criminal and I’m taking him to prison.’

  The crowd replied with a sinister growl that Russell found discouraging. But he was still prepared to put a brave face on it. ‘Don’t try to stop me,’ was the phrase he chose to use.

  ‘Growl’ and now, ‘snarl,’ went the crowd.

  ‘Russell,’ said Mr Fudgepacker, ‘put that gun down at once.’

  ‘No I won’t.’ Russell took stock of the two men in the office.

  ‘And you put your hands up,’ he told Adolf Hitler. ‘I won’t tell you again.’

  The Führer’s hands shot into the air, no hero he with a gun pointing in his direction.

  ‘You’ve let me down, Russell,’ said Mr Fudgepacker.

  ‘Me let you down?’ Russell waved his gun, which had the Führer flinching. ‘You wicked old man. I respected you. I worked hard for you.’

  ‘And you will again. Now put down that gun and let’s talk about things.’

  ‘Oh no no. No more talking. This man, Hitler, him, he’s coming with me. I don’t want to shoot him, but I will if I must. I’d probably get a medal from the Queen, if I did. Or maybe a presentation clock with Westminster chimes.’

  ‘It’s too late for that,’ said Mr Fudgepacker.

  ‘Too late for what?’

  ‘Too late to start some running gag about Westminster chimes.

  ‘Yes, you’re probably right. But he’s still coming with me. This is the end, Mr Fudgepacker. It’s all over now, the movie, everything.’

  ‘You’re overwrought, Russell, sit down and have a drink.’

  ‘No. I don’t want a—’

  ‘Russell, look out!’ Julie screamed the words.

  Russell turned his head and met the eyes of Bobby Boy. The thin man leapt at him, gun in hand and then things seemed to move in slow-motion, the way they often do when some-thing really awful happens. The thin man’s gun came up to Russell’s face, but Russell swept his wrist aside and brought his own gun into violent contact with his attacker’s stomach. Still carried by the force of his own momentum, Bobby Boy plunged past Russell, into the office and struck his head on the mighty Invincible. As he fell back-wards his gun went off and the bullet ricocheted from the safe and caught him square in the left kneecap.

  Russell looked on in horror as the thin man writhed on the office floor, blood pumping from his trouser leg.

  ‘Call an ambulance,’ Russell turned back upon the crowd. ‘There’s been an accident. Call an ambulance.’

  Nobody moved.

  ‘Come on,’ shouted Russell, ‘hurry up. I’ll apply a tourniquet.’

  Nobody moved once more.

  ‘Well come on, do something.’

  The people of the crowd did something. They threw back their heads and howled. It was a horrible sound, cruel, atavistic. If fair put the wind up Russell.

  ‘Stop it!’ he shouted. ‘Stop it!’

  But they didn’t.

  ‘Russell, quickly, come.’ Julie’s hand was on his arm. She tugged at Russell’s sleeve.

  Someone hurled a glass. It shattered above the office door, showering splinters down on Russell. Then a bottle too. The crowd advanced.

  Russell fired a shot into the ceiling. The crowd held back a moment. Russell ran and so did Julie. Across the hangar floor they went and the howling crowd swept after them. Russell tore open the little hinged door in the big sliding one and pushed Julie through the opening. He followed at the hurry-up, slammed shut the door and rammed the bolt home. You couldn’t open that from the inside.

  Russell gathered wits and breath. From within the hangar came horrible howls and the sounds of fists drumming on the big sliding door.

  ‘Thank you,’ Russell gasped. ‘Thank you for warning me. We’ll have to get to a phone, call an ambulance ourselves.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘He could bleed to death.’

  ‘He won’t.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘We have to get away, Russell. They’ll kill us. Both of us.’

  ‘All right, do you have a car?’

  ‘No, do you?’

  ‘No, I don’t have one. I wouldn’t have asked you, if I had one.’

  ‘You should get one, Russell. Something fast. A bright green sports car.’

  ‘Well, I’ve always fancied a Volvo, they’re very safe. Cage of steel and everything.’

  ‘Volvos are driven by men who wear pyjamas,’ said Julie, which Russell tried to picture.

  ‘Waxed jackets surely,’ he said. ‘What’s that sound?’

  ‘What sound?’

  ‘That sound.’

  That sound was a sort of grating grinding sound. The sort of sound that a big sliding door makes as it’s being slid along.

  ‘Run,’ said Russell.

  ‘Where?’ Julie asked.

  ‘With me, I have an idea.’ Russell took her by the hand and they ran, round to the car park at the back of Hangar 18. Russell pulled the big glass valve from his poacher’s pocket. ‘We can use this,’ he said.

  Julie stopped short and gawped at it. ‘You dirty bastard,’ she said. ‘Is that all men ever think about?’

  ‘What?’ Russell stared at Julie and then at the valve. ‘Oh no, it’s not a ... You thought it was a ...’

  ‘No, it’s a ...’ Sounds of loud howling reached their ears. ‘This way, quickly.’ Russell dragged her to the Flügelrad. ‘Get inside, come on.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘There’s no time.’ Russell pushed her up the ladder. The SS chap was starting to stir, Russell kicked him in the head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, as he followed Julie into the cockpit.

  The howlers were now pouring into the car park. And yes, they did see Russell.

  Inside the Flügelrad, Russell fought the valve back into its socket and worried at the controls. ‘Now, how exactly does this thing work?’ he wondered.

  ‘Hurry, Russell, hurry.’

  A bottle shattered against the hull. Russell bashed at the control panel.

  Julie screamed.

  Russell turned. Morgan’s face leered in at the hatch, eyes round, mouth contorted. Russell leapt up and punched Morgan right in the nose. Amidst further howling from the mob, Morgan rapidly vanished from view. Fists now rained upon the Flügelrad.

  ‘One of these must close the hatch,’ Russell flicked switches, pressed buttons, pulled levers. The Flügelrad shook. But not from Russell’s handiwork.

  ‘They’ll turn it over. Out of the way, Russell. Let me do it.’ Julie pushed Russell aside, jumped into the pilot’s seat and pushed several buttons. The extendible ladder retracted and the hatch snapped shut.

  ‘Lucky guess,’ said Russell. ‘Now, let’s see if I can—’

  ‘No.’ Julie’s hands moved over the control panel, adjusting this, tweaking that, powering up the other. A vibration ran through the craft and a dull hum that grew to a high-pitched whine. Then there was a great rushing sound and after that, nothing but silence.

  And much of this silence came from Russell.

  17

  MY STEPMOTHER
IS AN ARYAN

  Julie worked at the controls, making adjustments, doing this and that. At length she sat back in the pilot’s seat and smiled up at Russell. ‘We’re on our way,’ she said.

  ‘And dare I ask, to where?’

  ‘To the future, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ Russell scratched at his chin. It needed a shave. ‘Would you care to tell me just what’s going on?’

  Julie tossed back her beautiful hair. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you everything. Some of it you already know, but not all. I wonder where I should start.’

  Russell said nothing.

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to say “at the beginning”?’

  ‘No.’ Russell shook his head. ‘Everyone always says that. You start wherever you want.’

  ‘All right. I’ll start with the Flügelrad. I’ll bet you’d like to know how I’m able to fly it.’

  ‘The thought had crossed my mind.’

  ‘Well, it’s simple. I know how to, because my father built it.’

  ‘Your father?’

  ‘My stepfather actually, I was adopted. My stepfather is Mr Fudgepacker.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Russell.

  ‘Except Ernest Fudgepacker is not his real name. His real name is Viktor Schauberger. He was an aeronautical engineer working for the Third Reich. Adolf Hitler is a friend of the family, you could say.’

  ‘They certainly seemed very chummy.’

  ‘The Flügelrads were constructed at the very end of the Second World War. Built under other-world guidance.’

  ‘Other-world? Like, from outer space?’

  ‘More like inner space, but let me explain. Two crafts were completed. One was to take Hitler forward one hundred years. The other was to take a number of military advisors back in time to re-advise the German military on where the campaigns had gone wrong before they did, so Germany would win the war.’

  ‘Which it didn’t’

  ‘Because the other Flügelrad malfunctioned. Hitler went off into the future, expecting to step out in glory into a world dominated by the Nazis, but when he got there, it wasn’t.’

  ‘But Bobby Boy said it was, or is.’

  ‘I’m coming to that. Hitler found that the future was not dominated by the Nazis, so he decided to go back in time and find out why. But he didn’t want to risk going back as far as the Second WorldWar, so he stopped off here, in the nineteen nineties. He wanted to seek out his old friend Viktor Schauberger and find out what had gone wrong. The craft landed on the allotments and that’s when Bobby Boy saw it.’

  ‘And Bobby Boy got into it and went into the future.’

  ‘And stole the Cyberstar equipment.’

  ‘But Bobby Boy said it was a Nazi future.’

  ‘And so it was when he got there.’

  ‘Now hang about,’ said Russell. ‘This is all a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? I can buy Fudgepacker being Schauberger, but Bobby Boy being the one who finds the Flügelrad, and just happens to work for Fudgepacker.’

  ‘Well he would, Russell. Bobby Boy is my stepbrother. He’s Mr Fudgepacker’s son.’

  ‘I thought he was the son of the local brewery owner.’

  ‘Mr Fudgepacker is the local brewery owner.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mr Fudgepacker owns half of Brentford. Bought with Nazi gold. Hitler knew he’d be here if he was still alive. Fudgepacker was planning to change his identity and move here after the war if the Germans lost. Hitler knew all about it. He set it up.’

  ‘This is getting wilder by the moment. So Bobby Boy knew what the Flügelrad was when he saw it.’

  ‘Exactly, and he couldn’t resist getting inside and having a go. He flew into the future and nicked the Cyberstar equipment. He didn’t half get a hiding from the old man when he got back.’

  ‘I thought he got back before he left.’

  ‘He lied about that.’

  ‘Then he probably lied about the Nazi future as well.’

  ‘No, he was telling the truth about that.’

  ‘I’m confused,’ said Russell.

  ‘I’m trying to make it as simple as I can. Hitler’s henchmen, the two SS guards, located Mr Fudgepacker. He arranged for me to hide Hitler in the shed behind The Bricklayer’s Arms. Where you saw him. Bobby Boy turned up just after you’d gone. And he told his story about being in a Nazi future. Now Mr Fudgepacker put two and two together. The future had not been Nazi when Hitler got there, but it had when Bobby Boy got there. Why was that?’

  ‘Good question,’ said Russell. ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Because Bobby Boy had stolen the Cyberstar equipment and brought it back to the nineteen nineties.’

  ‘I still don’t get it.’

  ‘Mr Fudgepacker told you about the movie. The movie to be made with the equipment. The movie that would change the world. Change the future.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Russell. ‘I see. The stolen equipment from the future would be used to change the future. But surely that can’t be done.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s plagiarism. They used the same idea in Terminator 2.’

  ‘Whatever made you say that?’

  ‘I just thought I’d get it in before anyone else did.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘So what you’re saying, is that by going into the future and stealing the equipment that would change the future, the future Bobby Boy went into what was a future that had already been changed, by him having stolen the equipment and used it in the then-past, which is our present?’

  ‘Exactly. It’s all so simple when you put it like that.’

  ‘So the movie will change the future.’

  ‘With His help, it will.’

  ‘This is the He I saw on the video, the red-faced insect thing?’

  ‘It was He who guided the construction of the Flügelrad. The rise of Nazi Germany in the twentieth century offered the first real opportunity for a single man to rule the entire world.’

  ‘Mr Hitler.’

  ‘And if he’d won, it would have happened. Hitler is just a puppet of this creature. It feeds off people, feeds off their time. It swallows up their time, takes their feelings, their emotions. It intends to put something into the movie. Something subliminal, or active in some way that will control the minds of all who watch it. And everyone will want to watch it, they’ll have never seen anything like it before.’

  ‘Good God,’ said Russell.

  ‘Bad God,’ said Julie.

  ‘But is it a god? Or is it from outer space, or inner space, or what?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly what it is. Mr Fudgepacker knows. He’s its guardian. At times it is moved to other places and others guard it. But it always returns to the Emporium. I’ve known of it since I was a child.’

  ‘So aren’t you afraid?’

  ‘Very afraid. That’s why I went along with everything. The making of the movie. Everything.’

  ‘Yes, what about the movie? The one I saw on the videos wasn’t the same one I saw the next day at the screening.’

  ‘It was. You just didn’t think it was. You saw what they wanted you to see. You were hypnotized while you slept. When they dressed your head and changed the safe.’

  ‘They’ve made a right fool out of me, haven’t they? But I’ll have the last laugh. I won’t market their evil movie. I’ll stop it ever getting shown.’

  ‘I don’t know if you can. You see, after you left the party Hitler turned up in the Flügelrad. He’d come back from the future. The Nazi future he controls. He’d come back to congratulate Mr Fudgepacker on the success of the movie. It does get shown, Russell, with, or without your help. And it does change the world.’

  ‘Then we’ve got to stop it. Somehow.’

  ‘Oh yes, we have. It’s all so evil. I couldn’t be a part of it any longer.’

  ‘So that’s why you shouted out when Bobby Boy attacked me.’

  ‘You’re the one person I knew I could trust. The
one person prepared to stand up to them. You’re the one person I really care about, Russell.’

  Julie’s mouth was there to kiss. So Russell kissed it.

  The Flügelrad flew on into the future.

  Explicit things occurred within, which had only previously occurred there on one occasion. And that was in 1955, when a certain Miss Turton of 16 Mafeking Avenue, Brentford, who got a mention at the beginning of Chapter 6, had her close encounter of the Third Reich.

  The explicit things now, however, occurred with a great deal more gusto and mutual appreciation. Russell gave of his all unstintingly and Julie, for her part, responded in a manner that only an ex-contortionist go-go dancing sex aid demonstrator truly can.

  Lucky old Russell.

  Then BANG! went the Flügelrad.

  ‘Did the earth move for you too?’ Julie asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Russell. ‘Ouch.’

  There was a curious vibration. Things seemed to go out of focus. Everything double, then merging into one again.

  ‘Is it supposed to do that?’ Russell rubbed at his eyes.

  ‘Don’t ask me, I’ve never flown the thing before.’

  ‘That’s comforting.’

  ‘But I think it means we’ve arrived at whenever we ‘ve arrived at.’

  ‘And that is as comforting too.’

  Julie began to put on her clothes. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get out.’

  ‘Aw, must we just yet?’

  ‘I think we must.’

  The ladder extended and the hatch snapped open. Russell stuck his head out and sniffed at the air. Did it smell like home? Well, it smelled of flowers. Spring flowers. Russell climbed up onto the dome and took a look around. The Flügelrad had landed in bushes, in the middle of a pleasant park. In the distance rose wondrous buildings of a futuristic nature. Closer, old housing, faintly familiar.

  ‘I think we’ve landed in exactly the same place Bobby Boy landed.’ Russell joined Julie back in the cockpit. ‘Let’s go for a walk and see what’s what.’

  ‘Do you think it will be safe?’

  ‘Not for one minute. But let’s do it anyway.’

  Russell helped her down the ladder. The Flügelrad was pretty well hidden by the bushes and there was no-one about. It couldn’t hurt to leave it there and take a quick look around. Of course it couldn’t.