“Would the wrong side of her be the underneath?” said John. I kicked him about the shins and he quickly apologised.
“Come,” I said. “Let us away to the impound. This night has gone on far too long already. I’ve got a stonking headache and—”
“What’s that noise?” said John, gripping onto my arm like a vice.
“What noise?” I said. “The only noise I heard was you asking ‘what’s that noise?’.”
“You can’t hear that?” said my best friend, and he pricked his ears and held up a finger. “Sounds like…rumbling.”
I listened, and, lo and behold, I too heard the distant rumbling. “What is that?” I said. “Is that one of our stomachs?”
“Not mine,” said Danny. “I haven’t been hungry since I saw my brothers ripped apart by dilophosaurii.”
“Understandable,” I said. “Then what the flipping hell is it? It sounds…it sounds like…” I knew exactly what it sounded like, because I, unlike my unlearned brethren, enjoyed nothing more than a relaxing night in front of the television, watching National Geographic documentaries. It was a sound I was most familiar with. That of something – several things, in fact – running at full-pelt. “Buffalo,” I said.
“Bless you,” said John.
“No, it sounds like buffalo,” I said. “Running at full-pelt.”
“Or a herd of rabid weasels?” said Danny Barry, his voice drenched in sarcasm. “What would buffalo be doing in Buckfutt?”
“The same thing as dinosaurs,” said John. “Nothing much. Just levelling the place, causing chaos, being c**ts, generally.”
The window to the bleak house flew open and, after dodging a bed-pan full of piss, we glanced up to find a woman of some proportion staring down at us with a look of utter disgust upon her countenance. “Horrible word, that is,” she said, shaking her head and clicking her tongue all at the same time. “Why are you hanging around with such foul-mouthed wankers, Daniel Barry?”
Daniel – Danny to the rest of us – shrugged his shoulders and said, “Sorry, Crystal. Won’t tell the old lady, will you? She’ll have my guts for garters.”
“Away with you,” said Crystal, who was apparently both a sister and an aunt to Danny Barry, something I would spend quite some time trying to figure out later on. “And if you could tell that herd of buffalo to calm the fuck down when you see them, that would be great.” She closed the window, drew the curtains, and no doubt headed back to bed, where some poor soul, likelier than not a relative, awaited her.
“I think I’ve got piss dripping down my neck,” said John, wiping feverishly at his collar. “Who still uses bedpans in this day and age?”
“Saves pissing in the sink,” said Danny. I was about to ask, if you were going to make it all the way to the sink, why not take a few steps to the left and go in the actual fucking toilet, when the stampeding buffalo appeared at the end of Saddam Hussein Drive, only they weren’t buffalo at all.
“Those aren’t buffalo at all,” said John. “I would go so far as to suggest that they are somewhat older and larger than buffalo.”
“And they’re coming straight for us!” cried Billy Barry, who had climbed up onto a wall as if that might somehow save him. Another bedpan of piss almost soaked the lot of us, and we turned our attention back to the window of the bleak house.
“Get off my bleeding wall!” said Crystal. “I know we’ve had relations, Billy Barry, but you’re taking the piss.”
“Almost wearing it, too,” I said, and I pulled the youngest Barry Boy down from his elevated position. “Get to the side of the road! We’ve got less chance of being squashed by this herd of…herd of…”
“Where’s Mister Sidhu when you need him?” said John.
“Fuck it!” I said. “They’re dinosaurs. Big scaly, spiny, fat dinosaurs. Every man for himself!” I rushed toward the edge of the road and placed myself, somewhat cleverly, behind a mailbox. One of those lovely red ones, it was. John had secreted himself away in a phonebox on the opposite side of the road.
“That’s a lovely red mailbox,” said Danny Barry as he lay his boot into my side, knocking me away from my position of safety and taking my place. “Every man for himself, you said,” he reminded me. “Better start running.”
I glanced along the road, saw that the stampeding dinosaurs were almost upon me, and realised I was too late. There was nowhere for me to go, and so I took up the infamous foetal position and began to squeak like a recently run-over cat.
They say that your life flashes before your eyes in the moments before death, but I can tell you right now that this is hogwash. What flashes before your eyes is a pungent smell and not much else. Perhaps things would have been very different if my eyes were open, but I didn’t want to witness the gruesome squashing of my own body.
“We’re for it now!” said a voice alongside me.
I opened one eye, even then just a little, and saw that John, my best friend in the whole wide world, had taken up position next to me. Not the infamous foetal position, as one might have come to expect, but rather a head in hands, praying to his creator, begging for some miracle position. “What the hell are you doing, John?” I said. “Weren’t you hiding in that phonebox a minute ago?” I pointed off in the general direction of the phonebox.
“Billy Barry kicked me out,” said John. “We’re going to get squashed into a human soup, aren’t we?”
“I fear so,” I said. “It’s been nice knowing you, buddy.”
“You too,” said John, and he took my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. It was all a bit melodramatic, but we were on the verge of death, and so it wasn’t at all gay.
I closed my eye once again and listened as the thumping feet of a dozen or so prehistoric beasts surged toward us. But then there was another sound, one of screeching tyres and licking flames, and I couldn’t help but take a peep. What I saw was ridiculous, almost unbelievable, but somehow it made perfect sense.
“John!” I said, patting my friend upon his bald and shiny pate. “John, look!”
“I don’t wanna!” he said. “Just let me die with dignity! With my eyes shut and warm trousers!”
I climbed to my feet and dragged John with me, for there, a few metres in front of us, sat the DeLorean, and inside of it, clearly visible, sat John and I with our thumbs up and huge grins upon our cheeky faces.
“I don’t understand,” said my John. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
“It makes perfect sense,” said I. “It’s hardly fucking Inception.”
The hulking beasts reached the DeLorean, and for a moment I thought they were going to go straight through it, killing not only us, but the future us, too. But then they swerved off to the sides, went around the time-machine, bypassing us completely.
“Have you noticed there’s just us in the car?” I said.
John nodded. “Guess we’re the only ones that make it,” he said. “Oops, and there they go.”
It turns out that phoneboxes and postboxes are not impervious to dinosaur stampedes. Both were uprooted almost immediately, along with their respective Barry Boy, and carried off amidst the charging—
“Stegosaurus!” I said.
“I beg your pardon.” John lit a cigarette.
“They were stegosauruses,” I said, and rather pleased with myself I was, too. “Ah, who needs the shopkeeper now, huh?” I bobbed out my tongue. It was all relatively childish, but we had just survived certain death.
As the stampeding herd faded into the distance – and not a moment too soon, for my headache was getting worse by the second – John and I regarded the other us-es warily. They seemed very full of themselves, so to speak. Waving, they were. “What a pair of cocky arseholes,” I said, waving at the beaming duo in the DeLorean and forcing a smile of my own. After a few seconds, other-me turned the DeLorean around and sped off into the distance, leaving two trails of fire in its wake.
“Care to explain?” said John.
“We get to the DeLorean
, pop back here and save our asses, before shooting back thirty years and preventing the grotesque fornication between The Barry Boys and the Iron Lady. I’m pretty sure it will all become apparent soon enough,” I said.
“It really is like Inception, in a way,” said John.
I slapped him gently in the face. “Come,” I said. “We’re unstoppable now.”
“How can you be so sure?” said John.
“That was us in the DeLorean,” I said. “Therefore, we definitely make it, otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to come back here and save ourselves, would we?”
John shrugged. “But why can’t we just go back to the pub now, if those other two us-es are already off to save the day?”
“John, I will pepper you with headbutts if you don’t stop talking bunkum.” I began to walk, and after a short while managed to get the hang of it once again. “The police station is just at the end of this road. We’re almost there, my friend! We’re almost there!”
32
“Are we almost at the end?” yawned the doctor. “I’ve got a wife and kids at home, and I’m pretty sure that at least one of the kids is mine.”
“We’re certainly almost at the big finale,” I said. “If it’s all too much for you to take in, you could always sleep on it. Just leave the keys on your way out.”
“Haven’t you already tried that one once?” said the doctor.
“There’s been a few chapters since then,” I said, and I flicked a handful of roasted peanuts into my mouth and began to chew. “What do you make of the story thus far?” I said. “I know it’s a little bit out there, but sometimes life is crazy.”
“Apparently so,” said the doctor. “And I should imagine your future will consist of mainly sleeping, drooling, and being beaten to within an inch of your life by the hard end of a hospital orderly’s thwacking stick. Has one ever been in solitary confinement before?”
“I once got picked last for P.E.,” I said. “Stung like a sonofabitch, that did.”
“Pray continue,” said the doctor. “And make it count. A full confession of all the murders and where you have buried the bodies will suffice.”
I almost choked on a peanut. Luckily, it came back out via my nose. “I believe, dear boy, that you have me confused with someone else. I haven’t killed anyone, and do these look like the arms of a man who digs holes?” I tensed my muscle, watched as it swung lackadaisically back and forth like a sock with a testicle in it.
“It’s been a long night,” said the doctor. “Remind me again, which one are you?”
“I’m the one you picked up outside the pub,” I said. “Without any clothes on and drenched in chocolate spread.”
“Ah, yes!” said the doctor, somewhat excitedly. “Chocolate Nakedman! How did that come about, by the way?”
“If you shut up for a second,” I said, “I’ll tell you.”
The doctor pulled an invisible zip along his sealed lips and relaxed back in his chair.
“So, John and I arrived at the station…”
33
It looked like every other police station ever built. I’m not sure whether that was the intention, or if the police were a franchise, like Subway or McDonald’s, and therefore required by the parent company (Scotland Yard, probably) to all look alike, but as we entered through the automatic double-doors at the front of the building, everything was in its proper place. There, in the corner of the room and lying across three chairs – which were bolted to the floor, of course, lest someone get a little bit testy – was a sleeping drunk. Upon closer inspection, though not too close as he was possessed of various stenches, none of them palatable, I discovered that this was no ordinary sleeping drunk. It was he of the stolen third Fox dick, Roger Plonk.
“Isn’t that—”
“Yes it is,” I said. “Hasn’t been the same since his wife left him.”
“What did he expect?” said John. “You bring home a stolen fox dick and proceed to hang it up on the living room wall, divorce often follows.”
I led my friend to the counter, past the solitary telephone booth that looked like one of those things they put on old people to perm their hair, and upon reaching the counter, I saw that there was no-one, not a sausage, sitting on the other side of it.
“Do you think they’re all dead?” said John, and it was a good question. A very good question indeed.
“That’s a good question, John,” I said, because credit where it’s due, and so on and so forth. “However, I would hasten to suggest that the policeman manning this particular desk has simply popped off for a piss and will likely be back shortly.”
John frowned and sighed and then sighed again. “And how, pray tell, has one arrived at that conclusion?”
I pointed to the piece of paper sitting atop the counter. POPPED FOR A PISS…WILL BE BACK SHORTLY said the sign.
“Oh,” said my friend. “And there I thought you were some sort of psychic genius.”
“An easy mistake to make,” said I, and I drummed my fingers along the counter in anticipation at the imminent return of a relatively empty-bladdered desk sergeant. After a minute or two, in which John and I discussed the fun that could be had in etching a rudimentary penis upon Roger Plonk’s forehead with a permanent black marker, John said:
“How long does it take to piss?”
Now, as a human male, I knew the answer to this one. “That all depends on whether our desk sergeant urinated standing up or sitting down. Standing, more often than not, one will piss and then finish. However, if our desk sergeant took a seat, there’s a good chance he realised there was far more to his trip to the toilet than first thought.”
“A number two?” said John, as shrewd as ever.
“Indeed.” I drummed my fingers once again upon the counter. “And we all know that a number two is liable to turn into a short nap, followed by dead legs of the highest order.”
“That simply won’t do,” said my friend. “Let us shout as loud as we possibly can.”
“That would be the actions of a simple creature,” I said. “But, might I remind you that there are dinosaurs knocking about the place, and shouting at the tops of our voices could be the very thing to alert them to our whereabouts.”
“That’s why you’re the smart one,” said John, smiling thinly.
“That’s why I shall be the one to get the girl, and you shall be best man at our wedding.”
“We’ll see about that,” grunted John.
The appearance of a flustered looking desk sergeant cut our bickering short. “We’re all out of beds for the night,” said he of the red face and dead legs. “Try the train station. Platform 1B comes highly recommended.”
I shook my head and placed both elbows down on the counter. “We’re not tramps,” I said. “But you already knew that, didn’t you, Desk Sergeant Hovis?”
“I did,” said Hovis as he placed his considerable bulk down into a chair three sizes too small for him. “Fun, though, wasn’t it?”
“Let’s just hope it doesn’t evolve into a running gag,” said I. “I don’t think my sides would be able to take it.”
“What can I do for you gents?” said Hovis. “We’re very busy this evening, what with all the prehistoric monsters roaming the streets and slaughtering the villagers.”
I nodded. “That’s why we’re here,” I said.
“Come to report a velociraptor molestation, have we?” said Hovis, peeling the cellophane from a rather unhealthy-looking sandwich. “Been buggered by a diplodocus? Burgled by a T-Rex? Defamed by a rabid weasel?”
“Those are all very peculiar crimes,” I said, “however, we’re here to save the day, so to speak.”
“That’s very noble of you,” said Hovis. “Now, if you could just stop wasting my time, piss off and let me do my job, that would be great.”
“We’re telling the truth,” said John. “There is a DeLorean in your impound, exactly like the one from that film with Michael J. Whatshisface and Doc Em Emmett Walsh, o
r whatever his name was.”
“Back to the—”
“Ah, ah, ah,” I said, cutting Hovis off just in time to prevent a law-suit of Jurassic proportions. “And yes, that’s precisely the one.”
“What about it?” said Hovis. “Came in earlier this evening, just before the reports of extinct beasts started to take over. Whelk and Grimes seem to think The Barry Boys had something to do with its appearance.”
“Any idea how they arrived at that conclusion?” I asked.
“The words ‘The Barry Boys Woz Ere’ were scratched onto the glove compartment,” said Hovis, rolling his eyes.
“Then I believe you have enough to lock them up and throw away the key,” I said. “However, before you do that, I would like to reiterate that John and I are here to be the heroes. John’s even wearing his vest, just like John McClane.”
John pulled his shirt down to reveal the light blue material of said vest.
“So if you could just hand over the keys to that DeLorean, we will be on our way, and none of this will have even happened.” I clapped my hands together enthusiastically. I could see that Desk Sergeant Hovis was considering slapping the cuffs on me while he had a clear chance.
“I’m hardly going to hand you and your mate the keys to that mythological vehicle on the grounds that one of you is wearing a vest,” said Hovis. “And it’s not even the right coloured vest, at that.”
“Then you leave us no choice but to clobber you about a bit, steal the keys, and take the DeLorean without your express approval.” I turned to John. “Go on, John. Clobber him.”
John looked at me, I looked at John, we both looked at Desk Sergeant Hovis, who looked at us as if we were a couple of mentals, and he had a point. “There will be no clobbering,” said Hovis. “Every corner of this room is fitted with a CCTV camera. Expensive little setup it is, too. Any administered clobberings will be admissible in court, and you pair of wallies will be going down for a very long time.”
“We are running out of time, Hovis!” I said, leaning across the counter and grabbing the desk sergeant by his lapels. “Actually, that’s not quite true,” I said, releasing the poor man and brushing down his uniform with the palm of my hand. “We have all the time in the world, so long as neither John nor I die in the process.”
Jurassic Car Park Page 11
