Zoonami

by Adam Millard

  “Now hang on a minute,” Roger said. “I’m all for a bit of swinging, but shouldn’t there at least be one pretty girl involved? Actually, she doesn’t even have to be pretty, just post-WWII.”

  “Not that kind of swinging,” Dench said, though her expression wasn’t harsh. “There is a window on the side of that building.” A gnarled finger pointed down to the square of glass embedded in the building opposite. “And if we can get something to hook over on that side of the roof, I think we can swing down, break through that window and be on our merry way.”

  “Sounds doable to me,” the other old lady said, pumping her right fist into her left palm. Holy fucknuggets, Batman!

  “Wait just a gosh-darn minute,” Roger said. “You’re suggesting we swing down and smash through that window, all three of us?”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be fair leaving someone behind,” Dench said. “And I’m not that heavy. She weighs about as much as three bags of sugar, and you, well, you’re hardly Randy Couture.”

  Roger didn’t know whether that was a compliment or not. “And what are we going to use to get across?” he asked, holding his arms out as if waiting for someone to stop by and nail a cross to him. “I left my coil of rope at home this morning.”

  Dench, not to be defeated just yet, scoured the rooftop for something they could utilise. Roger and the old lady watched as she lithely dashed here and there, apparently not aware of her own shortcomings. Surely she was suffering. This wasn’t the movies. This was real life, yet Judi Dench was doing all this without the aid of a stunt double or prop department. It was mesmerising to watch and a little humiliating for Roger, who felt about as manly as Ru Paul out shoe shopping with those fellas from Brokeback Mountain.

  “She’s good, isn’t she?” the old lady said, smiling gummily.

  Roger nodded. “Yeah, but not in that one with Jonathan Pryce.”

  “Oooh, no, that one was terrible,” the old lady said, screwing her face up as if she’d just been force-fed a packet of fizzy cola bottles. “I knew it was gonna be shit when Sheryl Crow started singing, and…”

  “Right!” Dench said, appearing from nowhere. “There’s absolutely nothing up here for us to use, so we might as well go back, or…” She glanced down at Roger’s trousers. “We could all take off our clothes, tie them together, and get the hell off this rooftop before Vera here disappears into nothingness and you and me burn to death like a couple of KFC wings.”

  Roger didn’t know which bit of that to pick apart first, and by the time he started talking, the old lady next to him had already removed her blouse, bra, and was halfway to getting her skirt off. “Look, that has to be the worst plan ever,” he said. What if someone saw him, cavorting around on a rooftop, butt-naked with two old dears? What if Brandie saw him? It was difficult enough trying to convince her to go out with him without her thinking he was some sort of fogey-fucker. “Let’s just think about this for a min…look, love, put your bra back on. Dench doesn’t know what she’s talking ab…oh, and now the knickers, fantastic. And you haven’t shaved since the 50s, terrific.” Roger turned his head away, tried to force down the bile rising in his throat.

  Should have taken my chances with the hippos.

  “Come on, whatsyername. Get your kit off.”

  Roger turned and was about to retort when Dench’s sagging breasts cut him off. He closed his eyes, sighed, tried to remember what he’d done to deserve this, then said, “Ah, what the hell.” As he began to peel his damp clothes off, he thought of Brandie. This is all for her. This is all for Brandie, Brandie, Brandie, Brandie…

  “I think he likes one of us,” the old lady said, pointing to the bulge in Roger’s pants. “What do you say, young ’un, if we get out of this alive, you and me go for a nice mug of Horlicks somewhere?”

  Covering his obvious erection—thinking of Brandie had been something of a mistake—Roger said, “Let’s just get this over with. I need to find someone. She’s all alone out there. She’s all I’ve got left.”

  “Lucky girl,” the old lady said as she slung her breasts across her shoulder.

  The building opposite seemed to be getting further away as the minutes passed. It was as if a colony of stalwart ants had crawled amongst its foundations and, on the count of three, lifted the thing up. Roger couldn’t believe that he had even contemplated jumping across not so long ago. He would have surely perished.

  Dench had tied their clothes together, creating a trouser-blouse-shirt-tee-skirt-bra-skirt-knickers-thong-blouse rope that would probably break before they even managed to attach it to the opposite side.

  And whose was the thong?

  “Okay,” Dench said, dragging the rope across to the edge of the building. She’d wedged a large stick between the cups of the largest bra, creating a rudimentary hook. “We only need it to hold for as long as we’re swinging.”

  “Good job, really,” Roger said, examining the rope. It looked as if it could be taken apart by a decent gust of wind.

  “I’m going to throw it over, hope it catches on the edge of the rooftop,” Dench said. For some reason, there was a surety to her voice, as if she had done this a thousand times before. Perhaps she had, although her Wikipedia page said nothing about her parkour skills.

  The actress took a step toward the edge of the building, swinging the trouser-blouse-shirt-tee-skirt-bra-skirt-knickers-thong-blouse rope around her head like some cowgirl. Roger faced the other way, not wanting to watch, unable to focus on anything other than Dench’s sagging and bouncing breasts. Now he just wanted to find Brandie to prove to himself that he wasn’t, in fact, attracted to aged ladies.

  There was a whoop and a holler, and when Roger turned, the two old ladies were leaping up and down, chest-bumping one another. Dench had a hold of one end of the rope, and the other was firmly (yet to be tested) affixed to the opposite building.

  “Well done,” Roger said. “Now can we get out of here? My arse is burning, and I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but your boobs look like melted clown noses.”

  “Okay, everyone on.” Dench took up position at the very edge of the rooftop, holding the rope tightly with both hands.

  “Shouldn’t I be the one at the front holding the rope?” Roger said, more worried about where his erection was going to go than anything else.

  “What, with those gangly arms?” Dench said. “Look, just put your arms around my neck, and VERA!”

  The old lady came up behind Roger. “What?”

  “You hold on nice and tight to this young man now. We’re going to hit the window with a lot of force, which means that if you’re not holding on properly, you’ll shoot right off.”

  Vera threw her frail and rheumy arms over Roger’s shoulders, and before he had time to protest, her legs were wrapped around his groin. “I won’t let go,” she whispered into Roger’s ear. He shuddered, almost positive that a tongue had brushed his earlobe.

  After a moment in which Roger didn’t know what was happening—so surreal, and yet so real—he stepped forward and allowed his arms to fall across Dench’s shoulders. “Are you sure about this?” he said. “I mean, you’ve made some pretty bad judgements in your day.”

  “Such as?” She was clearly irritated.

  “The Chronicles of Riddick,” Roger said.

  “Yes, well. Look, can we just get this over with? The sooner I get out of your silly little flooded town, the better. I’ve got a meeting with Barbara Broccoli at seven and I—”

  “I thought they killed you off in the last one.” Vera said from the rear.

  “You can’t kill M off,” Dench said, as if it were the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard in her extensive life. “She’s like the Doctor. She’ll keep regenerating, only it’s always me when she does.”

  “I’m pretty sure you died,” Vera said. “I’ll have to watch it again when I get ’ome.”

  “Right, can we go now?” Roger asked. The heat had made something of a human centipede out of the three of the
m. He had to peel himself away from Dench just to let his skin breathe.

  “On three,” said the Dame.

  “Screw that, just go,” Roger said, pushing Dench forward, sending all three of them, now melted into one big pile of liver-spotted limbs and grey pubes, over the edge.

  Falling, falling, for what seemed like forever but was, in fact, just long enough for the old lady on Roger Whipsnade’s back to break wind. Then the rope tautened, and they were swinging across the gap. For a millisecond, Roger thought they had made some sort of momentous error, that the rope was one bra too long and they were about to meet solid brick wall with enough force to kill them all immediately. He whimpered, realised that, no, everything was fine, Dench had worked out the rope’s length perfectly. Still, he closed his eyes just before the window exploded. The last thing he wanted was an eyeball full of glass. Or worse, just one big shard to the temple.

  Dench released the rope as soon as they were clear of the shattered window, and they rolled across the room, hitting the far wall with a meaty thump.

  “Ouch!” Dench said.

  “Ouch!” Roger concurred.

  “…,” said the old lady who wasn’t there anymore.

  Clambering to his feet, Roger scoured the room for the old dear who had, up until a moment ago, been strapped to his back like a novelty rucksack. “Where’s she gone?”

  Dench was already pulling the rope apart and throwing clothes back on as if she’d just discovered a hidden camera in the ladies’ changing rooms. “Don’t look at me,” she said. “I was at the front.”

  Roger couldn’t believe this. It was a nightmare, getting worse by the minute.

  He made his way over to the window, brushing broken glass aside with his bare feet. By the time he reached the hole in the wall, his toes looked like severed worms; the balls of his feet looked like the sole survivor of some ridiculously gory horror movie. It hurt, but he didn’t have time to concern himself with it just now.

  He leaned out the window, stared down toward the water.

  “Oh no!” he said, barely more than a whisper. He didn’t want to startle the hippo with the old woman draped across its bottom jaw lest it snap down and chew her in two.

  “It’s okay!” Vera called up. “I never expected to make it to the end! Just try to save my daughter!”

  “A damn shame,” Dench said, sidling up alongside Roger, who was pinching his nose between thumb and forefinger, trying to alleviate the onset of a terrible migraine. “Well, it was lovely to meet you!” she yelled down at the soon-to-be-dead geriatric.

  “You too!” Vera said. The hippo was already swimming away, dragging the old lady with it. “At least I got to cum one last time!” And then she was gone, pulled beneath the water by two tonnes of amphibious mammal.

  Roger and Dench stared at the water in silence for a minute or two, neither wanting to speak first, neither able to. The penguins were still down there, floating around in the old woman’s blood. Bathing in it like Bathory. As funerals went, it was certainly the weirdest Roger had ever attended.

  “What did she say?”

  Dench snapped out of her reverie. “When?”

  “Just before the hippo took her. She said something. What was it?”

  “Oh, well, I think she said ʻat least I got to cum one last time.’”

  “That’s what I thought she said,” Roger grimaced. “Be a darling, would you, and make sure there’s nothing on my back.”

  17

  Dorothy One was aswarm with primates. They crawled over her roof, across her deck, clinging onto her side as if their lives depended on it. One of the non-soldiers screamed, “Primates!” and another answered with, “What, like Long John Silver?” It was a terrible joke, one that sealed both characters’ fates. A silverback gorilla landed amongst the panicking survivors, throwing out fists and feet like a street dance champion. Hudson was the unfortunate soul nearest the flailing beast and therefore the first to get pummelled to death, not before managing one final, “Game over, man! Giant monkeys everywhere!”

  “Get off my boat!” Barry Rawlins screamed, planting a foot squarely beneath the chin of a recalcitrant chimp. The chimp somersaulted backwards into the water, where it would recuperating, rethink its life, and reconsider a career in Hollywood, where Andy Serkis was getting all its parts.

  “We can’t fight them!” Bobby yelled, dodging an orangutan’s clotheslining arm. “They’re sneaky little bastards!”

  The sergeant, who had been wrestling with a capuchin at the rear of the trawler, scrambled to his feet. “What happened to the big lad?”

  “I don’t know,” Bobby said, scanning the teeming deck. “The last time I saw him, he was being pinned by two chimps and a mandrill.” Panic washed over him. Without the big guy, they were screwed. He was the hero of this piece, the giant who you could rely on to sort out the bad guys, the Schwarzenegger. You could drop this guy in a jungle with nothing more than a paperclip and a box of used matches and he’d ride out of there on a tank.

  “Wait,” Barry said. “There he is!” He pointed across to the centre of the deck. Scattered around were the bodies of the fallen, the camouflaged faux-soldiers torn apart by the silverback.

  The silverback that Thad, the big guy, now circled, growling and snarling as if he was the one in command, drooling, hoping that it made him look more dominant.

  “He’s off his tits!” Bobby said.

  “Let him have a go,” Barry said. “If he doesn’t, we’re all going to die.”

  “Well, let’s at least make it interesting,” the sergeant said, pulling a handful of soggy notes from his arse pocket. “A tenner says the silverback pulls his head off.”

  “Don’t be so absurd!” Bobby said. He reached into his pocket. “Twenty says the big guy says something about the silverback’s momma before kicking it in the bollocks and twisting its head all the way round until it’s pointing toward the clock tower.”

  “That’s a bit far-fetched, Bob,” Barry said, peeling a twenty from his wallet. “I reckon the silverback will pick the big guy up, swing him around like a cat in a pillowcase, slam him against the deck a few times until he’s unconscious, and then elbow-drop him right the way through to downstairs.”

  The sergeant sneered. “Not a chance.”

  They each handed their money to Stanley Twobrick, who would have thrown a tenner in had he not just been mugged by an angry gibbon.

  “Okay, here they go,” Bobby said, pulling up a crate to sit on.

  The silverback roared, revealing a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth, but it didn’t seem to bother Thad, who was either too stupid to realise he was about to die or smart enough to have concocted a plan.

  “Yeah, is that all you got?” Thad bellowed, circling the gorilla, dancing like Ali after three bags of sugar cubes. “Well, your momma’s so hairy, you almost died of rug-burn on the way out!”

  The silverback roared again, this time beating its chest. It wasn’t the best comeback, but the hackles on Thad’s neck tingled all the same.

  “Your momma’s so hairy, she’s got cornrows on her feet.”

  Roar, beat, roar. The gorilla was, for want of a better word, livid.

  “He’s pissing it off!” Bobby said.

  “Not clever,” Barry replied.

  “I can’t watch,” said the sergeant.

  Thad stepped right up to the silverback. It was like the weigh-in preceding a big fight. Their faces were almost touching, and they both hopped from one foot to the next, awaiting each other’s next move.

  “What’s fat and hairy?” Thad said.

  “Huh?” said the gorilla.

  “Yo momma!” And with that, he brought his knee straight up, catching the silverback right in the baby-maker. The gorilla made a noise like a broken siren as it dropped to its knees, eyes rolling up into its head, mouth contorted into an O of pure agony.

  Thad, realising that time was of the essence and that if the gorilla got back up, he would be slaughtered without
further preamble, grabbed the silverback’s head and, with a quick turn to the right, broke its fat neck.

  “Have you seen this episode before?” Barry asked Bobby. “That was insanely correct.”

  “Come on, guys. It was obvious what he was going to do.” Bobby accepted the money and a kiss on the cheek from Twobrick, and stuffed it into his pocket. He walked across to Thad, who should have been celebrating but instead wore the expression of a haunted man. “Well done, big guy. I knew you’d do it.”

  Thad shrugged. “I didn’t want to kill it,” he said. “I didn’t even know its momma.”

  “Well, look at it this way.” Bobby sounded as if he knew what was going to come out next. In fact, he hadn’t the foggiest. “You’re alive, we’re alive, the silverback’s not alive. Now, does that sound like a bad result to you?”

  The trawler’s captain was right, yet Thad felt terrible. He’d never killed anything before, apart from those little white insect-y things that hang around the toilet, waiting for you to misjudge your aim.

  “Look, Bobby!” Barry called from the side of the trawler. “They’re going away.”

  It was true. The primates were dispersing, swinging across the deck, clambering over refrigerators that no longer worked, anything to get away from Dorothy One and her clearly crazy crew.

  “Shame all these people had to die,” Bobby said, gesturing to the dead paintballers strewn across his deck.

  The sergeant stepped forward, blowing “Taps” through a horn that he’d pulled from seemingly nowhere. “They were good men,” he said, lowering the horn. “Not great men, but good. I mean, Hudson had a wife and children.” He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “Sure, he cheated on her, and he hasn’t seen the kids since they were born, but he was a good man. And Paul, well, Paul was just Paul.” A faint smile touched his lips. “I remember this one time, Paul and I were out stealing sweets from trick-or-treaters, and we got set upon by a bunch of Power Rangers.” A nod—such a fond memory. “And then there was Gerry. Who could forget Gerry?” Another tear. “The only guy I knew who was addicted, literally addicted, to prostitutes. Got to love that Gerry.”