by Guy Adams
‘And you’d let her do that?’
‘All I know is that she has power here and, most days, that power’s good. There’s places in this city where a man can die just by sticking his head out the window but here, life’s pretty good, and a lot of that’s to do with her. A few months, that’s all and we have ourselves a community, we have a home that works, where you can just chill and know you’ll probably wake up in the morning.’
‘She’s not just a mad woman, I get it. Doesn’t help me and God much.’
‘Where did you find that dude? I mean, I know the world’s hinky as hell these days but you’ve gotten yourself a real whacko there.’
‘I like him.’
‘Fair enough.’
Grace looked up to see God walking towards them, his robes ruffling in the breeze. As he walked past a small group, gathered around one of the bonfires, they gave him a whooping cheer. It was mocking, of course, but if he knew that he didn’t let it show. He stopped, raised his hands and uttered some form of benediction that was lost in the wind. Then he turned back to her and kept walking.
‘There you are,’ he said, ‘just as I thought. I think it’s time we retired for the night. Not that I need sleep of course, but you at least should be refreshed for the morning, we have a trial ahead of us.’
Grace nodded.
‘Dante’s spoken to someone at Edina’s,’ he continued, ‘apparently there’s space at a place just around the corner. Someone owed him I guess and putting us up for the night clears the debt.’
‘Let’s go then,’ she said, turning to look at Corman one last time. ‘Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Maybe you will kid,’ he said, raising his beer towards her. ‘Here’s hoping!’
Chapter Fourteen
GRACE HAD HALF-EXPECTED there would be some sort of fuss to usher them in, maybe an appearance from the Queen herself, a proclamation of their aims, a brief ceremony to get them over the threshold. In actuality there was just one of the guards, sat on the sidewalk with a clipboard. Next to him was a large, knotted sack.
‘Just to confirm your agreement,’ he said, not getting up, just handing the clipboard over. ‘You go in there, feed the babies and, should you return—which you probably won’t—the Queen of Coney Island guarantees that she will supply you with transport and authority to travel up the river as far as Rikers.’
‘Right,’ said Grace, staring at the hastily scribbled contract. ‘And I’m supposed to sign this am I?’
‘Yeah,’ said the guard, staring over the road towards a woman who was opening her tattooing parlour. Grace couldn’t swear whether it was the woman or the notion of a tattoo that had him looking dreamy but she had a fair idea.
‘You got a pen?’ she asked.
‘Nah,’ he replied.
‘Then I can’t sign it.’
‘Whatever,’ he took it back from her, continuing to watch the woman across the road as she unwound the awning above her store window. ‘Food’s in the sack.’
‘Paperwork is the creation of the devil,’ God said, ‘we’re better off without it.’
‘We’ll sign it when we get back,’ she said.
‘Absolutely,’ he agreed, hoisting the sack onto his shoulder, ‘give us half an hour and we’ll be demanding a boat. I’m God, I know this for a fact. Probably.’
The entrance to Dreamland was dominated by a towering edifice of white stone inset with hundreds of old electric bulbs. Even in the brightness of day those bulbs glowed with a liquid light that looked as if it might burn should it pour on you.
Bostock – The Animal King invited you to sample his zoological marvels. “Continuous lions, tigers, bears, panthers, wolves, elephants and hyenas” were promised according to the signs that stood either side of the ticket booth. On the wall a painting of Frank Bostock, a veritable vision of relaxed British tweed. The sort of moustache that had once conquered nations jutted either side of his lips.
For a fleeting moment, the ethereal ghost of a baby elephant pushed between them, its trunk curled skywards as it ran towards the road, then it was gone.
To the right of Bostock’s Animal Arena stood the main entrance to Dreamland. Entering, the park opened out before them. At the centre was the White Tower, rising up over a hundred metres into the sky, its Spanish-styled peak was said to offer a view of forty miles in each direction. Bristling with lights it pulsed at the heart of the midway, a beacon of ostentation writ large over the entire park. To the rear of it was the lagoon, surrounded by the tight loop of the racetrack. All around this central feature ran the rides and exhibition halls. Everything from the Canals of Venice gondola ride to the Midget City exhibition and the Fighting the Flames fire-fighting display. Spectators gathered in the giant amphitheatre to witness the blazing spectacle that employed a grand total of 2,000 performers.
At the far end of the park, where the midway met the pier and the ocean beyond, the duel chutes of the flume ride lifted into the sky. To their left was the Leap Frog railway where two trains took it in turns to travel over one another, traversing the tracks built into the roof of each carriage.
To the far right, built onto the pier was the giant ballroom, 25,000 square feet of dance floor hopping to the sound of the band.
Dreamland certainly fought hard to live up to its name.
‘It’s amazing...’ Grace sighed. ‘I’ve never seen anywhere like it.’
God shrugged. ‘Not bad I suppose. Pretty impressive, you know, for humans.’
‘It’s going to take us all day just to find the babies let alone feed them.’
God pointed to their immediate right where a sign announced Infant Incubators with Living Infants. ‘There you go.’
‘No way,’ Grace walked up to the door of the building where another sign cheerfully announced All the World Loves a Baby. ‘This is crazy,’ she said. ‘Who puts baby incubators in a theme park anyway?’
‘It’s like the Queen told us,’ said God, joining her, ‘even though the technology for baby incubators existed at the beginning of the twentieth century they weren’t adopted by hospitals. For a start, nobody could afford them. Then this guy has a bright idea of using them as exhibits. He opened “child hatcheries” all over the place. Saved lots of premature babies, made a lot of money.’
‘Guess that’s kind of cool.’
‘You bet, try the door.’
Grace opened it and they stepped inside where they were faced with an empty ticket booth and, beyond that, a long corridor alongside a glass partition. Beyond the partition was a room set up like a hospital, bright white with rows of incubators and medical cabinets.
‘Can you see any babies?’ Grace asked. ‘They look empty.’ She pressed herself up against the glass and peered through. ‘Definitely empty, in fact most of them look smashed...’ She moved to the door at the far end of the corridor, it wasn’t locked. She looked at God, who shrugged.
Grace opened the door and immediately fell backwards as it was slammed hard against her by something on the other side. Flat on the floor she looked up to see a gang of babies flooding out of the door. They moved at great speed, their chubby arms and legs slapping against the ground as they made a break for freedom.
She gave a short cry as they poured over her, moving like a wave of fat, pink beetles. In a matter of seconds they’d darted past God and on towards the still open door leading out onto the midway.
‘Shut the door!’ Grace shouted but there was no way God could keep up with the speedy infants as they crawled out to freedom.
‘Right,’ said God, ‘that’s probably not good, is it?’
Chapter Fifteen
SOME DISTANCE AWAY, beyond the air ships ride and the Fighting the Flames amphitheatre sat the Japanese Tea Rooms. It had been considerable decades since it had seen a paying customer but, since it had been dragged back into existence, there was one man who made considerable use of its facilities.
He sat at the centre table, leather gauntlets draped over the bac
k of the chair next to him. He always wore the gauntlets in public, it stopped people staring at the wooden stump that had replaced his left hand. On the table was an immaculately arranged set of crockery. A cup, a teapot, a jug of hot water and a small container of green tea. The man’s hand moved from one to the next, enjoying the ritual of preparing his drink as much—perhaps even more than—the drink itself. He added tea to the pot, poured in the water and waited, occasionally nudging the crockery tiny distances away from each other so it was even more perfectly arranged. After four minutes had elapsed, he lifted the pot and poured himself a small cup of the tea.
‘Gerry,’ said a woman’s voice, light suddenly flooding the room, ‘I think someone just released the babies.’
The cup hovered just below Colonel Gerry Ballard’s lips, a long sigh blowing tiny waves across its hot surface.
‘Gloria,’ he said, ‘what sort of idiot would do a thing like that?’
He looked up towards the flickering creature that had been the love of his life. Now neither of them was quite alive anymore but their bond remained firm. A shimmering presence of projected light and crinkling celluloid, the cinematic spectre of a movie star gone by. When she moved the air crackled, the sepia-toned beauty of her face flipping between static poses, from innocent to sultry, comedic to terrified. Old Hollywood stars never really died, they lived on in light and plastic.
‘They came from outside,’ said Gloria, adopting a pose that she felt best suited explanations, her finger on her chin, her eyes gazing upwards in thought, ‘sent by the Queen.’
‘That meddlesome tramp.’ He took a sip of his tea, damned if he was going to have the moment entirely ruined. With a careful finger, he smoothed his waxed moustache, its tips tapering to curls either side of his face. ‘Does she not realise what happens whenever she sends people here? To hell with the babies, if there are visitors we’ve worse problems to contend with. I suppose I shall have to sort it out as always.’
‘My handsome soldier,’ said Gloria, her pose turning to one of lust, big eyes and pouting lips. ‘How I long to touch you.’
He leaned close and kissed the air an inch or so away from her face, wincing slightly from the heat she gave off. ‘If I must burn, my darling,’ he said. ‘I’ll burn with you.’
Chapter Sixteen
THE NEWS HAD also spread to Midget City. The three hundred residents of the diminutive village were happily minding their own business, getting irate at the twee, patronising and frankly offensive fixtures and fittings of their little town when an announcement came over the tannoy.
‘Intruder alert,’ it announced, ‘punters on the midway. They’ve set the babies free and God knows how long we have before Dreamland wakes. Duty guards should report to the front gate with their tools. Now.’
Baron Fabrizzi, who had spent the last ten minutes contentedly trying to select a silk handkerchief for his breast pocket, plucked the scarlet with yellow polka dots from its hanger and slipped it into place. Stopping only to add an extra sheen to his patent leather shoes, he made his way to the front gate as quickly as he could be bothered.
‘What the hell kept you Fabrizzi?’ asked the duty guard leader, a bitter man by the name of Horlicks. ‘This is an emergency.’
‘All the more reason to face it with élan,’ Fabrizzi replied, winking at Lucy O’Neil, a young lady he had taken a shine to over the last couple of days (partly, but not entirely, because all the other ladies he’d taken a shine to recently were no longer talking to him). Lucy rolled her eyes but he was pretty sure he glimpsed a momentary smile on her lips. That was enough, he decided, that was something to work on.
At any given time on the roster, thirty of the residents were on duty as the guard. They were gathered now, irritated that something genuinely annoying had occurred on their watch, except for Horlicks. Horlicks loved a bit of drama.
‘We need to get out there!’ he shouted, several members of the guard taking a step back because he was so loud. ‘Deal with the punters and round the little snots up. Collect a net and stick and let’s get this done in double-quick time.’
One by one they picked up their tools, Fabrizzi doing his best to stay close to Lucy.
‘Let’s do this!’ Horlicks screamed with such enthusiasm that a number of people were heard to comment on the likelihood of his bursting something.
Chapter Seventeen
THE WORD ALSO spread to the Circus Sideshow where it was met with less enthusiasm.
‘That’s all we need,’ complained Jolly Irene as she slowly shifted her three hundred odd kilos from one chair to another. Neither chair received her without complaint. ‘Now everyone will be worked up and they’ll take it out on us.’
‘As always,’ Toney the Alligator Boy agreed, scratching at his scaled skin.
‘Of course,’ said Jean Libbera, otherwise known as the Double-Bodied Man thanks to the extra torso that dangled from his midriff, ‘if we were to send out a small party to help, we might get some of the credit. Maybe even a bit of respect for once.’ The extra torso clapped its spindly hands in appreciation of his fine idea.
‘Well,’ said Jolly Irene, ‘you can count me out. I’m pooped just thinking about it.’
‘Well,’ said Toney, ‘there’s always the kids.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Jean, ‘this is work for the young. Teach ’em a bit of responsibility. ’Bout time they pulled their weight around here.’
They turned to look towards the two small figures that, until now, had been doing their best to avoid attention.
‘Really?’ said one. ‘You’re going to make this our problem?’
‘Typical,’ said the other, ‘they pick on you and then you pick on us. One day we’ll find someone we can pick on.’
Toney clipped him around the ear with a scaled hand. ‘Stop complaining, you’ve never had it so good. Now get out there.’
Chapter Eighteen
GRACE AND GOD were standing on the midway not really knowing what to do next.
‘If we just leave...’ Grace started to say.
‘Then we won’t have fulfilled our part of the contract,’ said God, ‘and the Queen will have our heads—well, your head at least—stuck on a spike at the top of her bouncy castle.’
‘So we have to find them.’
‘Yes.’
‘Even though it could take us weeks.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m beginning to wish I’d just risked Queens. Did you manage to count them?’
‘I did!’ God was pleased to be able to offer a positive answer. ‘There were sixteen of them.’
‘Brilliant.’
They made their way along the street, heading towards the ocean. Every now and then, out of the corner of their eyes, they would catch a glimpse of something moving but, by the time they’d turned to look there was nothing there.
‘Hang on,’ said Grace, ‘what about the food? Maybe we can use that to lure them?’
‘Good plan,’ said God, dashing back to fetch the sack. While he was gone, Grace looked up at the airships ride, in reality wooden gondolas swinging at the end of steel cables. Despite the fact that nobody was on the ride, the gondolas kept spinning, whirling round and around, waiting for someone to join them.
As she watched she saw movement in one of the gondolas; one of the babies had somehow managed to climb up there and was now hopping up and down, its gurgling laughter just audible over the creak of the cables.
‘Well, how are we supposed to get it down from there?’ she wondered.
‘What?’ asked God, returning with the sack.
She pointed at the gleeful baby in the sky above them.
‘Oh,’ God adjusted his beard, ‘that’s a pain in the ass.’
‘Let’s see if we can draw its attention with some of the food,’ suggested Grace, working at the knot in the sack. ‘If it managed to get up there it must be able to get back down.’
Just as the knot came undone, the sack began writhing and, determined not to
get caught out again, Grace cinched it tight, just as a bright red object flew out.
‘The food’s trying to escape too!’ she shouted, fighting to retie the knot in the bag.
‘I told you didn’t I?’ said God, staring at the object that had escaped the sack: it was an apple, two broad leaves jutting from its stalk fluttering like the wings of a bird. ‘Never trust an apple.’
It hovered in front of them for a moment then flew up to where the baby had stopped bouncing up and down in the gondola and was watching the apple’s approach, a greedy look in its eye. As the apple passed, it leapt from the gondola, grabbing the fruit in midair. For a moment it hung there, the apple beating its makeshift wings even faster as it fought to stay airborne. Slowly, it began to sink back towards the ground, unable to keep both itself and the baby afloat.
God chased after it as it descended, hoisting his robes so that he could run along the midway, eyes to the sky as it spiralled down.
The baby landed, rather gracefully, in a seated position, just next to the entrance to the hippodrome race track. The baby smiled, then opened its mouth, its jaw distending like that of a snake, and swallowed the apple whole.
Before it had a chance to move, God had grabbed it and bundled it inside his robes. ‘I got one!’ he shouted in triumph.
‘Great,’ said Grace, ‘fifteen more to go.’
Chapter Nineteen
‘WHAT DO YOU plan to do, my love?’ asked Gloria, hanging back from the light of outside, not wanting to lose any of her brilliance.
‘The only thing I can do,’ Colonel Gerry replied, loading his rifle, and pulling a spare bandolier of cartridges over his shoulder, ‘shoot them. The babies too I think. Solve the problem once and for all. Put the damn things down. They’re a menace. Vermin. They should be treated as such.’
