I was weighing up the likelihood of my pins carrying me any further, when I spotted something beneath the shelter...
Boris bikes.
Or “rental bicycles”, for those of you living on the wrong side of the pond.
The shelter was a docking station, and from the looks of things, at least a couple of the sturdy, old two-wheelers were still roadworthy. I dug one out from beneath some rubble, and in doing so, disturbed a swarm of cockroaches the size of dessert spoon heads. Having definitely not freaked the fuck out, I climbed onto the bike’s saddle and tested the pedals. Sure enough, the back wheel span on its chain.
‘Got a goer here as well,’ said, Dizzy who’d found a working bike of his own.
And off we went.
Bicycles turned out to be the perfect dystopian transport system. Why you never see Mad Max riding one is a mystery to me. All that time spent scrounging for petrol? Just get on your bike, mate!
Dizzy and I made record time as we pedalled through the wastes of limbo London, wind whipping through our hair as we navigated the ash-covered streets. We laughed and pulled wheelies, and for a moment it was like we were two schoolboys sticking our fingers up at the Blitz, tearing through the war ravaged streets as we used the collapsed remains of our city as jump ramps.
Yes, things were going swimmingly... until they weren’t.
As I went to turn a corner, I saw a flash of movement in my periphery, then felt the front wheel of my bike lock. A fraction of a second later I found myself soaring over the handlebars and knocking Dizzy off his bike before hitting the tarmac, flat on my back.
Miraculously, the sudden stop came as such a surprise that my muscles weren’t given a chance to seize up, and I landed limp, taking only a minor blow to the back of my skull as I struck the ground. Dizzy looked similarly stunned, but intact.
‘What the—’ I started to groan, then lifted my head off the tarmac to see a group of natives gathering around, two dozen at least.
They were proper bad bastards. One of them held a pitchfork that he’d used to stick in the spokes of my bike and unsaddle me. The rest were similarly armed, carrying chains and shivs and whatever weapons they could fashion from the debris of this demolished world. Each of them was spray-painted with an SS, which, if history has taught us anything, is never good news.
‘South Souls,’ said Dizzy, as he rolled onto his knees.
So, these were the other lags that had escaped from the Castle, were they? I watched as they closed in on us like a pack of jackals, eager to chew the meat from our bones.
We thought we’d outrun our troubles after that encounter in Harrods, but we’d exited through a fire escape and right into another fire.
The South Souls were no beauty pageant, but their leader was pure neanderthal. A snowman made of meat with flat top hair, cauliflower ears, and a set of biceps so big they could flip pancakes with just a flex.
‘Looks like you came to the wrong part of town,’ he grunted.
I was about to voice my disapproval when he cut me short with a single word.
‘Fletcher?’
And suddenly I recognised the bloke.
‘Mr Langford?’ I stammered.
My old P.E. teacher from school.
He smiled and showed me the familiar gaps in his teeth. ‘I might have known you’d end up here,’ he chuckled.
Me? What the hell was he doing here? Unless... I thought back to school, back to the locker room, and remembered all those “friendly”, post-shower arse-pats he liked to dole out. Yeah, that would earn you a spot in the Castle alright.
‘What do we do?’ asked Dizzy, who’d picked up a rock to throw, but, confronted with the gang’s superior numbers, was suffering an overabundance of choice.
‘What you’re doing, soldier boy,’ said Langford, ‘is coming with us. You too, Fletcher.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, drawing my pistol, ‘but my dance card’s pretty full right now.’
The outlaws took a step backwards at the sight of the shooter. I took aim at my former teacher, wanting nothing more than to show my appreciation for five years of being forced to run around a frozen rugby pitch wearing shorts and a t-shirt.
Langford smiled again. He was a cruel man, but not a stupid one. He knew as well as I did that a bullet in his forehead would end in two dozen men ripping me and Dizzy to shreds. Maybe I could squeeze off a second round before that happened, maybe even my third and final one, but after that, we’d be as dead as it gets.
I sighed and lowered the gun.
13
The South Souls took away my magic compass and half-loaded six-shooter, then handed them to their leader, along with my return tickets to the land of the living. I tried explaining to Langford that the tickets were non-transferable, but he took them all the same. I doubted he’d have used them even if he could – he was king shit of this lawless underworld, why would he ever want to go back to the place he served as a high school P.E. teacher?
Only after the outlaws were done emptying my pockets did they tie on a blindfold and cart me and Dizzy back to their lair. The journey there didn’t take long, and would have been quicker still if Langford’s goons hadn’t insisted on kicking me in the back of the knees every couple of hundred yards. They didn’t exactly endear themselves to me the first time they did it, but by knockdown number three, my piss was well and truly boiled.
The first sign that we’d arrived at our destination was a roar of music; an abrasive, black metal dirge that made my guts jump like beans in a tin. It was the soundtrack to a brain aneurysm—my kind of jam in any other setting (Iron Maiden is basically my religion)—but a bit unsettling given the situation. The second sign that we’d joined with the rest of Langford’s outlaws was a smell of sweat so rancid that I was forced to consider the notion that Barry White himself had died and somehow ended up jammed down the back of a radiator.
I was led down a flight of steps, and when the blinkers finally came off, I found myself in what looked like the basement of an old rock club. Forced down a dark corridor between two walls of Langford’s men, I felt like the straight girl from an ‘80s movie; the bookish virgin who ought to know better than to have visited that backstreet punk club, squeezed through a crush of freaks, leered at in her preppy white outfit by leather-jacketed headbangers with incomprehensible band names on their t-shirts, and sweaty, lesbian skinheads doing microdots off of each other’s tongues.
The corridor opened out into a dance hall heaving with even more of Langford’s soldiers. The South Souls’ hideout was grungy and foreboding, full of dry ice and fierce artillery drumming. Ultraviolet lights illuminated gaudy murals of plucked eyeballs and severed heads. Here in the refuge of their den, the gang had music and they had lights. Somewhere, somehow, a generator must have been running.
It was hard to imagine thrash metal being Mr Langford’s scene, but then they do say that rock and roll is the Devil’s music. This was Hell, after all – larging it to an Ibiza club banger just wouldn't cut it. Still, something told me that Langford wasn’t in this for the tunes. He was in it for blood and guts.
I watched helplessly as Dizzy was bridled and forced into a humiliating dog collar attached to a thick chain, which Langford wrapped twice around his wrist. Meanwhile, I was thrust towards a walled off circle in the centre of the club’s huge dance floor. The wall was twenty feet high and built from speaker stacks held together by Gaffa tape and coils of razor wire. Despite my struggles, I was brought to heel at a heavy-duty iron gate that provided an entrance to the ominous structure.
‘What are we doing here then, lads?’ I asked. ‘Having ourselves a bit of a mosh?’
Langford sneered. ‘Still the class cut-up, eh? Let’s see if you’ve still got a smile on your face after you’re done in the arena.’
Great. Apparently, I was going to be made to fight for their amusement, gladiator style.
‘I'm a P.I.’ I cried. ‘Not Russell fucking Crowe.’
Langford offered a sadis
tic grin as one of his men threw the bolt on the arena and swung open the gate. Of course the ruthless bastard got off on watching folks sweat. Nothing had changed since high school.
With the application of a size-twelve boot, I was unceremoniously sent sprawling to the floor of the arena, which was then bolted shut from the other side.
I stood up and dusted down my suit as Langford and his men clambered for their seats to witness the forthcoming spectacle. Hooting and stamping their feet in excitement, they began to chant…
‘Trap Jaw, Trap Jaw, Trap Jaw, Trap Jaw…’
On and on they went, until finally, Langford brought the racket to a close with a single blow of the regulation P.E. whistle he kept about his neck.
I stood there for a moment in the deafening silence, staring intently at the gate to the far end of the arena, when suddenly it swung open to reveal my opponent.
How to describe the bloke? Put it this way, if you were to pull a Pictionary card that said “hideous”, you'd draw him.
My opponent was a large, naked man; toothless, contorted and rotting. He looked like Shane MacGowan from the Pogues, if he were to watch the tape from The Ring, then gave it a second viewing, just to see what all the fuss was about. He was punctured from the torso down by sharpened poles, which had seemingly been rammed through his body to provide him with a set of industrial-strength quills. And yet still, somehow, that was the least of his hideousness.
Having arrived in the centre of the arena, the porcupine man threw back his head and opened up a giant slash in his neck. Looking like Hell’s own Pez dispenser, he then proceeded to talk from the grisly Muppet mouth that had appeared in his throat.
‘Who dares stand before me?’ he demanded, in a voice that sounded as though it were coming from the bottom of a deep well.
A terror grew inside of me that started in the sphincter and worked its way up. I took a couple of deep breaths, rationalising the creature in an effort to bring myself under control. What exactly was I facing here? A demon, I supposed. My best guess was that it had possessed one of Langford’s men and somehow wound up trapped inside of him. That would explain how the man had managed to stay standing despite being covered in mortal wounds, and could communicate even though its vocal chords were obviously slashed. I briefly wondered what kind of demon was trapped in there—a lamia, a crossroads lurker, one of those elder demons with too many apostrophes in its name and not enough vowels—but this was no time for academics. This fucker was going to eat me alive.
Langford blew his whistle again and the demon began to twitch towards me.
‘Listen, mate,’ I said, holding out my hands defensively, ‘I’m not looking for any aggro.’
‘I'll harvest your soul!’ shrieked the demon, so loud it made my teeth hurt.
Negotiations had broken down fast. ‘Okay then,’ I sighed. ‘I guess we've got aggro.’
The outlaws watching from above hollered with blood lust and continued their chant. ‘Trap Jaw, Trap Jaw, Trap Jaw, Trap Jaw…’
And look, I get it. In a place like this, you take your fun where you can get it. I mean, it’s not like these guys had HBO or anything. Surely there were other options worth considering though? What’s wrong with a relaxing cup of tea, or a game of whist, or heading outdoors for a nice, jumpers-for-goalposts kickabout? Why go straight to the ultraviolence?
“Oh, look, Trevor, that man is about to get mutilated by a demonic hedgehog. Do pass the popcorn...”
It was just as I was busy lamenting mankind’s boundless capacity for shittiness, that Trap Jaw made his move. Faster than a speeding bastard, the demon threw out a fist that almost left me wearing my head backwards.
Wallop.
I hit the floor and slid along it on my arse like a dog with worms.
‘And stay down…’ I said, spitting blood.
What was I supposed to do against this thing? I couldn’t fight the demon and I couldn’t run away from it either. I had no way of talking my way out of this mess, or tricking it into killing itself, like I had with the janitor back in that crematorium. I was cornered, unarmed and outmatched. No doubt about it, I was in the soup again, and not a good soup either. This was a back-of-the-cupboard can of lobster bisque that had gone out of date six years ago.
Bad soup.
How do I get myself into these situations, I wondered. I'd come here to rescue a kid who sold his soul to play guitar, and ended up getting thunderdomed by my old P.E. teacher. My ship had really blown off course this time. I could only hope that the lad I was looking for was worth all this trouble. That he was a regular young feller who made a bum deal, not some pissy little Lord Faulteroy who deserved his place in Hell.
Trap Jaw opened its throat slash into a grin and came at me again. Realising that I had no choice but to defend myself, I put up my dukes and went looking for a weak spot. Seeing as the demon’s face was the only part of him not covered in lethal metal spikes, I decided to plug him one in the kisser.
Pow.
I stood up to him about as effectively as a butterfly does a chainsaw.
Trap Jaw’s head flopped back from the punch, settling for a moment on his spine like a hunchback’s hump, then springing right back up again with a twinkle in its eyes.
Jesus.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d anticipated that things might get a wee bit challenging in Hell, but this little encounter was taking me way outside of my comfort zone.
‘Give him hell, Fletcher!’ I heard.
It was Dizzy, up in the stands, jaw set defiantly despite being collared and held at Langford’s side. Christ, it pained me to see a veteran treated like some rubber-suited gimp.
Langford tugged on Dizzy’s chain, making him choke. ‘You’re up next, soldier boy,’ he growled.
Back in the pit, Trap Jaw laughed and fetched me another blow, opening a cut in my scalp that sprang a gout of cranberry.
Staggering and woozy, I looked down at the floor and saw it patterned in a Rorschach test of my own blood.
I’d say things weren’t going to plan at this point, but that would suppose I had a plan in the first place.
The demon began to circle me, and as I strayed to the left to stay out of his reach, my hand brushed up against something among the pile of junk that made up the arena’s wall.
A sunburst yellow Stratocaster.
I snatched it up by the neck and began to swing it in front of me in a bid to stave off Trap Jaw’s next attack. The demon came at me fast, but I had the reach this time, and caught him in the temple with the weighty body of the guitar.
Wham!
I’m sorry to report that, aside from producing a hell of a tune (not unlike early Sonic Youth in fact), my efforts had little effect.
Once again, Trap Jaw chinned me, filling my head with bees.
I flashed back to my youth.
To my dad.
Think like Superman.
That’s what he used to tell me whenever I got hurt.
The first time I heard him say it was at the park opposite our house. It was a summer’s day; kids playing frisbee, dogs chasing sticks, me on the swings.
Dad was pushing me high, and I was egging him to push even higher. I wanted to do a loop-the-loop... at least until I did.
Any responsible adult would have known better, but Dad had polished off a half bottle of Grouse already, and was only too happy to oblige.
I broke my radius bone in two separate places.
Think like Superman, Dad said.
So I did.
I thought like Superman.
I wiped away my tears and pushed down the pain like the last son of Krypton.
It worked.
It worked so well that as soon as the plaster cast came off, I wanted to test my superpowers again.
So I did.
I tested them by throwing myself out of my bedroom window, convinced that I could fly.
I broke the other arm that time.
Now where was I…?
Oh yes,
stuck in a pit and being savaged by a demonic porcupine. Silly me.
Trap Jaw swung at me again, but I managed to duck him this time. I wasn’t sticking around for another drubbing. Besides, I’d finally dreamed up that plan I’d been searching for.
Running to the opposite end of the arena, I took to the surrounding wall of speakers and began to scale the edifice to its razor-wired heights.
‘You cannot escape your fate, wretch!’ roared my opponent.
Don’t ask me why demons always emote like first year drama students, it’s just the way they are.
As I scrabbled for the top of the wall, I managed to dislodge a Marshall amp and send it tumbling down onto the demon. As it struck home, the creature screamed in anguish, making a sound like a mole caught in a lawnmower.
I’d only succeeded in stunning it though. Before I could climb any higher, Trap Jaw reached up an arm and grabbed me by the ankle.
‘I'm going to stir my claw in your eyeball!’ he promised, as he tugged at the hem of my suit trousers.
I pulled myself loose of his grip though, kicking his hand aside and continuing my ascent. I might be a dead man, but I fight with a mortal determination.
Almost at the top of the summit, I saw Dizzy, who looked back at me as if to say, “Where do you think you’re going?’
There was no escape after all. Even if I made it to the top of the wall without losing my footing, there was a ring of razor wire stopping me surmounting it, and a gang of Langford’s men in case I somehow managed to negotiate that.
I wasn’t climbing the wall to escape though, I was climbing it to fight back the only way I knew how.
The sneaky way.
In range of my target now, I summoned a magical flame in the palm of my hand and reached for the sky. Scrabbling up on my tiptoes to bridge the gap, I managed to bring the flame close to a ceiling sensor.
Close enough to activate the building’s fire protection system.
Immediately, alarm bells rang and a deluge of pressured water rained down from the overhead sprinklers.
Good. The system was still operational, just as the lights and sound system were. Just as I’d counted on it being.
Uncanny Kingdom: An Eleven Book Urban Fantasy Collection (Uncanny Kingdom Omnibus 1) Page 73
