by Paul Magrs
‘I don’t give a monkey’s. Just get her and her gawping chum out of my fricking trailer.’ She glared at Brenda with sudden recognition. ‘I know who you are. You’re the dinner lady.’
‘Yes and no,’ said Brenda gently, with a pleasant smile. ‘Would you spare us a few moments of your precious time, Ms Sorenson? We’ve some rather important things to tell you. About the future, and so on.’
‘No. Certainly not. Get out of my sight, you old bag.’
Fox frowned. ‘They know, Karla. These two women know what fire you are playing with. The thing you confided to me only two nights ago. Your deepest, murkiest secrets. These women know all about you and . . . the Brethren.’ Karla’s eyes widened. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘We do,’ Brenda said, though she wasn’t at all entirely sure of the specifics.
‘Get out of here at once,’ Karla snapped. ‘Otherwise I’ll call security.’
‘There is no security here,’ Fox said. ‘This is the middle of nowhere.’
Effie harrumphed and said decisively, ‘We are getting nowhere with reasoned argument. We’ll just have to scrag her.’
Karla blinked. ‘What?’
Instantly, Brenda and Effie were upon her.
The two ladies had become quite used to a certain amount of hand-to-hand combat during their escapades of recent years, and were undaunted by the challenge of grabbing a woman of much younger years and securing her.
Fox stared helplessly at them, blocking the trailer door. Soon they had Karla pinned to the floor.
‘You listen to us, lady,’ Effie snapped. ‘We have every respect for your talent and your stardom and all of that. But you really have to listen to us.’
Brenda was leaning in close, ‘This film you’re making. At its climax there’s a scene where your character summons up the devil himself, isn’t there? Here in this rocky valley?’
Karla clamped her mouth shut.
‘There is,’ said Fox. ‘It’s what they’re shooting tonight. Except the devil won’t be there, of course. He’ll be played by Dan Konigsburg, who’ll shoot his lines in the studio at Pinewood. They’ll add him to the location footage using the magic of film trickery.’
‘They’re shooting it tonight?’ Brenda said. ‘Then we’re here just in time, aren’t we?’ She turned back to the mutely scathing Karla. ‘Look. The thing is, in calling up the fictional devil, you do something tonight that brings the real one running. And as a result, he gets into the film itself.’
Karla snarled contemptuously, ‘What are you talking about? How do you know about such things?’
‘Are you sure, Brenda?’ Fox said worriedly. ‘It seems so unlikely.’
‘It’s true,’ said Brenda grimly. ‘We come from the future, where for some reason others are trying to recreate the phenomenon. What you succeed in doing is unleashing unholy chaos and terror. But it can be stopped. Right here, today. Tonight. By you, Karla, deciding to change history. By refusing to shoot tonight’s scenes.’
They all stared down at Karla.
‘I’m under contract. I’m a professional. And I don’t believe a word you’re saying.’
‘But we’re from the future,’ Effie said. ‘We’ve seen the film you’re shooting here. We know the deaths it has caused. Just the mere fact of watching it has sent Brenda and my future selves into a trance, and propelled us back here, through time . . .’
‘Fox,’ sighed Karla. ‘Where did you pick these two up? They’re clearly crackers.’
Brenda was gabbling away to herself. ‘I think the film itself has brought us here. That’s what it was doing, sending us into a trance. It wanted us to come here, to do what we’re doing now. It was trying to prevent its own completion . . .’
Fox stared at her. ‘Are you saying that the film itself doesn’t want to be made? I can’t believe that!’
‘Just get out!’ Karla bellowed, twisting and wriggling in her makeshift bonds.
‘You must listen to us,’ Brenda said. ‘If the devil imprints himself on this film, then he’s preserved on celluloid, in the world at large, for ever. There’ll be no getting rid of him.’
‘There never is,’ Karla spat. ‘He’s always here. He’s here right now, listening to you all rambling on. He’s looking at you right now!’
Effie put in, ‘The thing is, Karla, you should consider what we’re telling you at a purely selfish, professional level, too. As an actress. After you star in Get Thee Inside Me, Satan, all the good parts dry up for you. You will be doomed to play the same satanic vampire ladies for the rest of your natural life. In our future you are seventy-odd, and you’re still reprising the same tawdry role. You become a self-parody. Is that what you want?’
Karla looked uncomfortable at this. Then she said, ‘What are you talking about? I’m already beyond self-parody. How many times do you think I’ve already gone through this same horror-flick shtick? I’ve been doing it fifteen years or more already.’
‘It’s true,’ Fox said. ‘She’s well known for it.’
‘Karla, we’re begging you,’ Brenda said. ‘Don’t shoot those scenes tonight. Change history. Don’t let the devil come through . . .’
‘I must admit, I wasn’t relishing the idea of doing all those nude scenes tonight.’ Karla frowned. ‘I’ve got to lie on an altar in the middle of the valley, quite starkers, while all the satanists go dancing round, calling up the devil. Fireworks and all sorts going off all around me. It’s not something I was mad keen on doing.’
She looked stricken then.
‘But what will the Brethren say?’ she asked them. ‘I have to do their bidding. I have to. I must!’ She turned her blazing eyes on Fox. ‘If you love me, you must help me. You want this film to be made, just as much as I do! Untie me, Fox!’
Fox dithered. ‘I-I . . .’
Brenda and Effie were glaring at him too.
‘If you help her, we’ll give you such a scragging,’ warned Effie. She was rolling up her sleeves.
‘I boxed in the navy,’ said Fox. ‘I’m pretty handy in a fight.’
‘Help me, Fox!’ Karla cried. ‘Get me out of here!’
‘Look,’ said Brenda. ‘Do we really have to have a fight about this?’
After the Punch-Up
‘That went well,’ said Brenda.
Next to her, Effie’s face was empurpled with fury.
They were locked in Karla’s trailer.
‘How could we have let them overpower us?’ Effie growled.
What Effie really meant was, how could Brenda have let them be overpowered? Brenda was extremely strong, as Effie knew. Surely strong enough to put up a decent fight against Karla and Fox.
‘They’re obsessed,’ Brenda said. ‘They are possessed by the strength of their convictions. We never stood a chance. They were like demons! Karla doesn’t understand what’s at stake. And Fox just wants to get his rotten movie made.’
Brenda examined her face for cuts and bruises. On the dressing table she discovered a sheaf of curling papers. Contracts, scribbled notes, letters in a distinctive gothic hand. ‘Oh dear, Effie. Look at these. Letters to Karla.’
Effie was kicking at the caravan door. ‘What time is it now? What time do they start shooting?’
‘I don’t know,’ Brenda said distractedly. ‘But look. These are from some kind of organisation. The Brethren, just like Fox said. Telling Karla that she’s doing a good job. Addressing her as “daughter”. Telling her that she’ll live for ever as a legend and an icon and—’
‘Pah, fan letters,’ Effie sniffed. ‘Something else puffing up her deranged ego. Can’t you find something useful? Like a jemmy or a crowbar or something?’
‘No, listen, lovey. This is important. From the looks of these curious missives, it seems that these Brethren people are some kind of satanic cult. Real devil-worshippers. And Karla is all caught up with them, for real.’ Brenda looked solemn. ‘These people have manoeuvred her into this role. Into being here, making this film. They want h
er to be shooting these scenes tonight. This is the crucial moment!’
‘Can we stop it? You said that back here in the past, all hell broke loose. That you only just managed to escape alive, taking the Soames child with you. What makes you think we can do anything about it now?’
‘We’ve got to try, Effie. We’ve come back here for a reason. Something has brought us back. There must be something we can do.’
Effie shook her head. She didn’t have Brenda’s faith in the benign organisational skills of fate or the universe. She believed that things were much more random than that. To her, they had come back in time simply in order to suffer, and to see disaster at close hand. There wasn’t anything they could really do to make it better.
But now Brenda was looking resolute. ‘Stand back, Effie.’ She rolled her sleeves up. ‘I’m going to break down the door.’
She managed – after flinging herself bodily at the reinforced steel door several times. It flew open and they held back from shrieking in triumph: they didn’t want anyone knowing they had escaped from their makeshift cell. The two of them clambered down the high steps of the trailer, trying to be as quiet as possible.
They needn’t have bothered.
On the film set in the valley’s cleft, all attention was firmly fixed on the job in hand. The sun was setting, casting a brassy glow on the proceedings, as arc lamps were lit and generators throbbed, and the members of the crew busily set about their jobs.
Brenda and Effie paused in the shadows of the trailers for a hurried consultation.
‘By the looks of things, we don’t have long,’ Brenda said. ‘They shoot Karla’s climactic scene at dusk, before the dark really takes hold.’
Effie pursed her lips. ‘That’s pretty soon, then,’ she said, peering up at the azure sky, the stars just popping into view, one at a time, it seemed.
‘I’ll tackle Karla,’ Brenda said determinedly. Effie had seen that look in her eyes before. It was when she knew there was a real struggle coming up. ‘And you must return to the Soameses’ caravan. Fox won’t be there. He’ll be at the set. They all will, for Karla’s nudie scene. But Magda will be in the caravan, along with little Alex.’
Effie gasped. ‘Isn’t it tonight that Magda . . . ?’
Brenda nodded. ‘That’s how things went first time around. But we’re going to change things. We’re going to change how history happens.’
‘Are you sure about this, Brenda?’
‘Grab them both. Convince them that they have to get out of the valley immediately. Take them to me. To the other Brenda in the dinner van. She’ll listen to you. I hope. Make her take them away early, before everything kicks off.’
‘What if she won’t listen?’
Brenda frowned. ‘I should listen. I hope I will. If I look doubtful, give her – me – these . . .’ She passed Effie the rolled-up letters that Karla had been sent by the Brethren. ‘They might help convince her that something bad is about to happen. They’ll prove to her that this valley on this night is a very bad place to be.’
‘All right.’ Effie nodded quickly, stowing the papers away in her bag.
‘Let’s do it, let’s split up. Good luck, Effie.’
They looked at each other. Suddenly it seemed to Effie that they might be saying goodbye for ever. They were facing one of their most dangerous challenges, it seemed to her. Here they were – back in the past, somehow – with no idea how they would ever get home again. They were stuck in Wales, of all places. And they strongly suspected that a nude Karla Sorenson was about to film a scene in which the devil literally came to pay her a visit.
She clasped Brenda’s hand, squeezed it hard, and turned to hurry away.
T’Other Brenda
Brenda was between shifts when there came all this knocking at her trailer door.
Soon they’d be shooting again and she’d have to be ready. Ready to be mobbed by the hungry crew. Somehow they were always hungrier during a night shoot.
She usually enjoyed these affairs: the easy camaraderie and the hard work. But there was something about this location that she didn’t like at all.
BANG BANG BANG.
‘All right!’ she called. ‘I’m not ready yet . . .’
There was an old woman’s voice on the other side of the door. ‘We don’t want feeding! Quickly! Open up!’
Brenda was up to her eyes in clarts, peeling potatoes and doing what felt like a hundred things at once. She wiped her hands quickly and flung open the van door. ‘What is it?’
There, framed in the darkness, was the old woman she had met earlier, and she had a kid with her. The Soameses’ kid, looking bleary and half awake.
‘I’ve brought the child. Alex – look. Here’s your Auntie Brenda. Quick. Get inside, before anyone sees.’
Brenda’s eyes widened. ‘What’s going on? That’s the Soameses’ child! What are you doing?’
‘Listen, Brenda,’ said Effie, all businesslike. ‘I haven’t got time to go into it all.’ She was out of breath and, Brenda suddenly noticed, she was shaking. Something had rattled the old woman badly. No wonder! Breaking into other people’s mobile homes and stealing their children!
‘I think a few explanations are in order . . . erm . . .’
‘Effie. My name is Effie. But you don’t know me yet. You won’t know me till about 2006.’
‘Ooh, my goodness! The future! It’s true, then?’ Brenda ushered Effie and the child indoors and wedged the door closed.
‘Indeed. Me and your future counterpart Brenda have come back to deal with a certain situation here. To stop something from happening.’
Brenda nodded and toyed with her potato peeler thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I guessed there was a situation. I’m here undercover as well, you know. It’s thought that there’s, you know, black magic and things going on here.’
Effie frowned. ‘Who sent you?’
‘Oh,’ said Brenda, a tad evasively. ‘Just some people I work for these days.’
Effie waved these considerations aside. She would have to quiz her own Brenda about this later. That was if her Brenda could even properly remember the sixties. She said, ‘There isn’t time for that now. I’ve come here to pass the child into your care and to tell you to get yourselves away from this valley as quickly as possible.’
Brenda wasn’t keen on being told what to do. Especially by some elderly and mysterious time-travelling operative from the twenty-first century. ‘Hang on a moment.’
Now the child had picked up on the agitation and the tension passing back and forth between the squabbling women. He burst into jagged sobs. ‘I want to go back! What am I doing here?’
‘Sssh, child.’ Effie rolled her eyes. So far it had been too simple. Breaking into the Soameses’ mobile home had been a doddle. The child had been easy to find and to wake. He hadn’t even asked who she was, as she led him away, into the night. He must be so used to having a succession of nannies and nurses looking after him. In a way Effie’s heart went out to the child, with those terrible, preoccupied parents of his. Plonking him in this weird world of sorcery and devilment. She told herself he was best off out of it, and in the care of this younger – if more argumentative – version of Brenda. ‘Don’t make a fuss, Alex.’
‘Where’s my mum?’ he sobbed.
‘Alex, lovey. Look, I’m your Auntie Brenda. You know me. I give you chips, don’t I?’
The child’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘I know who you are. But who’s she?’ He jabbed a finger at Effie. ‘Where’s she taking me?’
Effie sighed. ‘I’ve never been any good with children. Explain to him, will you, ducky?’
Brenda hugged the kid to her and stared at Effie. ‘How did you get him away from them? And why? Why are you and the future me kidnapping children, Elsie?’
‘It’s Effie, not Elsie. And it’s essential: that’s why we’re resorting to desperate measures like this. Tonight’s the night Satan gets unleashed on this film set. Seriously. We know these things. You h
ave to get the child away safely, Brenda. You have to do it now.’ Effie’s voice had gone very low and commanding.
‘I see,’ said Brenda, looking hopelessly at her half-prepared chips.
Alex started up again: ‘What’s she talking about? Where’s my mum?’
Effie said, ‘They left him alone in that luxurious caravan, poor mite. His mum and dad. Sneaking out. Well, we know where he was going . . .’
‘To be with Karla?’
‘In her meditation trailer. That’s what she calls it, apparently. I can’t imagine that much meditation goes on there. So you know, then, that they’re carrying on an illicit affair?’
‘Of course. The whole crew knows. Karla’s famous for this kind of thing.’
Effie remembered something and started feeling around in her handbag. She produced a bundle of papers, which she thrust at Brenda. The Brethren letters. ‘T’other Brenda wanted you to have these. Look after them. They’re important. Evidence, they are.’ She watched Brenda take the papers and stash them away safely in a drawer and nodded with satisfaction. ‘Right. I must go. I’ve got to help your future self try to dissuade them, while there’s still time. And you, Brenda, you must get ready to get your chip van out of here, taking this little one with you.’
Brenda put on her most determined expression. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing more productive I can do?’
‘That will be helpful enough, ducky. Getting Alex away. You be good, young man. And when you grow up, don’t even think about becoming a film director and doing a remake of this ghastly film.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Alex.
‘That doesn’t matter.’ Effie smiled grimly. ‘I’m going. Take care of him, Brenda. And . . . look after yourself. I’ll see you in about thirty-eight years, dear.’
Brenda nodded. To Effie, she really did look like the Brenda she knew. But how strange, not to be recognised by her. To have none of the history nor understanding between them that she was so used to, and relied upon, especially in adventures like this.
You’re on your own now, Effie, she told herself. Be brave.
