by Adam Millard
A lot of things could have happened while they’d been trapped inside the hotel, aimlessly walking the corridors like alcoholics in a maize-maze. It wouldn’t surprise Roger to discover, upon their rescue, that three popes had come and gone, David Beckham’s youngest son was now playing for England, and Justin Bieber had already served twenty years of a life sentence.
“Well, are you coming or not?” Dench said, already half-hanging from the open window. “It’s only a little drop, and there are no critters waiting below.” And then she was gone, the word “Geronimooooooooo!” lingering for a while.
Roger rushed to the window, saw Dench floating around happily down there, waving up at him as if they were a couple on holiday and he was the one holding the disposable camera. Whoohooo, make sure you get my good side.
Brandie was still alive out there. He could sense her, smell her, even hear her. It was as if they were somehow preternaturally linked, like two Furbies separated for just a moment. As he climbed up onto the window-ledge, stared out across the flooded town toward the cathedral’s spire, he knew that everything would be okay.
And then he was falling. Falling for the water. Falling for the ocean beneath him and the woman of his dreams.
Landing on Judi Dench’s head had never been his intention, but shit—as the town of Cromer was very aware—happens.
*
“Listen!” Bobby said, pointing at nowhere in particular. Everyone on board Dorothy One turned their heads in the direction of the captain’s finger. “Do you hear that?”
Thad helped Brandie to her feet. She’d only been out for a few minutes, but to her, it felt like she was waking up from a cryogenically frozen sleep. Any minute now, someone would tell her she’d been out for fifty years and that aliens had since populated the earth, killed all the cats, and put Prince in charge.
Off in the distance, animals roared, tropical birds squawked, pigs snorted, and wombats chittered. And Brandie, who had been contemplating life in a world with purple rain, suddenly realised that things were so much worse than that.
Just then, Barry heard it too: the unmistakeable sound of swarming helicopters. His confusion-warped face stretched into a smile. “They’re coming!” he said. “We’re saved!”
Everyone on board began jumping for joy, which was probably not a good idea after what Dorothy One had endured. But people were just so damn happy to have lived through it, this terrible catastrophe which had threatened to wipe out the entire town yet had only succeeded in killing 79 percent of it. Statistically, it was still a terrible tragedy, but try telling that to the leaping, shouting, smiling, singing, dancing survivors on board the gayest boat in history.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” Thad told Brandie, who was pressed against the side of the trawler, trying to make some sense of the day’s events. She knew it wasn’t, not until Roger was found, not until she knew he was alright.
“HELP!”
“Did somebody say something?” Bobby said, turning to the survivors. Heads shook. Nope, not us, we’re too busy being happy and singing football songs at the tops of our voices.
“HELP! DOWN HERE!”
Brandie rushed to the opposite side of the trawler, heart racing, head still pounding, knickers still chafing. She knew that voice; she’d heard that panicked “Help!” a thousand times before, when he was cleaning out a creature he wasn’t quite familiar with. And when she saw him, frantically waving at the boat, her heart ceased beating. Not for too long, as that would mean she’d died, but long enough for her to notice.
“Roger!” she screamed. “Oh! Roger, you’re alive! And you appear to be dragging Judi Dench through the water!”
“I landed on her head!” Roger called up. “I think she’ll be okay, but she might never get to play M again.”
“M died in the last one,” the sergeant said. “I believe this vessel is now obsolete.”
“Still, it would be nice if one of you could grab a hold of her,” Roger said. “She’s saved my life so many times today, I’m starting to think she’s actually had some MI6 training.”
Bobby and Barry lowered the ladder into the water. The steady chuck-a-chuck-a of approaching helicopters was music to Roger’s ears. He swam up to the trawler, manoeuvred the Dame toward the ladder. Hands came down and grabbed her, and when Roger looked up, he smiled. “Cheers, Thad. Good to see you made it.”
“You too, Rog. Can I call you Rog?”
“No.”
“Okay.” And with that, Dench was carried up to relative safety, and Roger began to climb up the…
He had one foot on the ladder when something latched onto his ankle, sank its teeth in. A scream from above, Brandie’s scream, told him that it wasn’t a friendly creature hanging off his leg, a beast that didn’t know its own strength and was merely looking for a cuddle.
“Gator!” the sergeant bellowed down. “And it’s got the new guy!”
Roger was cruelly disconnected from the ladder—so near and yet so fucking far—and pulled down into the water, where everything was crepuscular and merciless. The alligator still had him by the ankle, dragging him deeper and deeper. Roger hadn’t realised just how deep the water was, but by now his ears had popped and he was scouring the vicinity for Doug McClure.
There was a special technique for battling alligators and crocs, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember it. A punch on the nose was meant to work on sharks, and a finger up the arsehole was apparently the best way to shake off a Doberman. There must be a way, he thought, swallowing large mouthfuls of seawater. Those handbags don’t make themselves.
Even though he was seemingly miles beneath the surface, he could hear Brandie screaming at the top of her lungs, pleading with the alligator to bring him back, cursing God for allowing this to happen. It sounded—well, it sounded as if she liked him. Why else was she crying so uncontrollably? Yes, that was it. She had fallen in love with him, and it had taken this whole nightmare for her realise it.
And now I’m going to die, Roger thought. Never a break for the little guy. She’ll probably shack up with Thad, fuck him six ways from Sunday, and only visit my grave every other month when the guilt returns.
Hitting the bottom of the sea, which was, in fact, Derry Street according to the blurry road sign just beyond Roger’s reach, he lashed out, trying to knock the alligator off. But while it was attached to his ankle, it wasn’t biting his head off, and in a few more seconds, Roger would be unconscious, drowning, and the gator could do what the hell it wanted with him. He wouldn’t feel a thing.
Well, world, I’d like to say it’s been nice knowing you, but…
Suddenly, something whipped past Roger’s head, and then again, and again; mere blurs of black and white, moving so quickly that it was possible they weren’t there at all. The water frothed and bubbled all around, and Roger could no longer discern what was happening.
Something was happening, though. Something miraculous.
The pressure was removed from Roger’s ankle as the gator, either through force or sheer confusion, released his leg. Something large and grey whooshed through the water to Roger’s right, and for a split second, he thought he understood, thought he saw a beak and a body of feathers which he could only describe as familiar. Though his eyes were stinging, he strained to see into the distance, beyond the rising bubbles, past the indiscernible blur of black, white and grey, and that was where the miracle was happening.
The alligator was fleeing, swimming as fast as it could in the opposite direction, chased by that large blurry ball of feathers and beaks and courage.
Penguins, Roger thought as he pushed off the street and surged toward the glimmering surface. I thought they hated me, wanted to sodomise me. Shows you should never judge a book by its cover or, in this case, a penguin by its proclivity to sneer at you when your back’s turned.
“Oh, Roger!” Brandie squealed as he broke the surface, gasping for air. Then to someone else: “Get him out of there, now!”
; Hands pulled at him, dragged him this way and that, and then he was free of the water, falling in and out of consciousness as he was carried up the ladder. Clonk, clonk, clonk, clonk…
He dreamt of penguins, beautiful, wonderful penguins. Swimming all around him, wading up to him and patting him on the back as if he had been pitted against them all in a friendly game of penguin-tag. You’re it, human!
“Roger?”
Roger chased the penguins, grabbed one by its flipper and rolled it over, kissing it on the belly.
“Roger?”
The penguin clapped its flippers together, smiled, gave Roger a head start. The other penguins gathered round, clapping along, so happy, so right.
“Roger, wake the fuck up!”
Something slapped him hard across the face, and it wasn’t one of his penguin friends’ flippers. “Whu-what?” He lurched forward, spat out murky water. A Cromer crab fell from his forehead and landed on his chest.
Then he was enveloped by beautiful, slender arms, being rocked back and forth like a child recently woken by a nightmare. “Oh, I’m so happy,” Brandie said. “Oh, Roger, You’re okay! I thought I’d lost you. Don’t ever do that again! I love you!”
From beneath Brandie’s pert breasts, Roger made a sound that suggested the feeling was mutual. He couldn’t believe how well this had all turned out. Not even the fiercest of beasts could keep them apart, and that day, plenty had tried.
“Look!” Bobby Dern said, holding a hand across his brow to shield his eyes from the unforgiving sun. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”
Barry moved next to his lover, laced his fingers through Bobby’s. Together they watched as the jet-black dots in the sky grew bigger and bigger and the chuck-a-chuck-a got so loud, Judi Dench had to turn off her hearing-aid.
20
Three Months Later (After all the funerals)
God she’s beautiful! Roger thought, staring into Brandie’s eyes. Perfect, really.
God, he’s one hot fisherman, Bobby thought, staring into Barry’s eyes. Perfect, really, except for his flatulence and that odd noise he makes when he cums.
The double wedding had been the talk of the town for weeks and not just because it was the first gay marriage Cromer had ever seen. People were just happy to be alive, alive and together, a community unbreakable. Not even a tsunami could finish the Cromerites off. Not even an escaped zoo could destroy their spirit. Life was full of twists and turns, and the people of Cromer had learned the hard way that it wasn’t how you coped exclusively that mattered. Only town-spirit had allowed the 21 percent to survive, and even those who had perished were considered heroes, each and every one.
“Is this going to take long?” Judi Dench asked from the back of the church. “Filming starts today on the next Bond, and Craig gets ever so funny if I’m late.”
Everyone laughed, for Dench had lost most of her marbles after the tsunami and hadn’t left Cromer since. Thankfully, Thad had taken quite a shine to her and was now her live-in lover. Most of the town thought they made a wonderful couple, apart from one or two who believed she wasn’t as crazy as she made out. “Sucking the cream off the top of the coffee” one woman had called it.
“Do you,” the priest said, “Roger Whipsnade, take Brandie Stroman to be your lawful wedded wife?”
Roger smiled. “I do.”
“And do you, Brandie Stroman, take Roger Whipsnade, to be your lawful wedded husband?”
Brandie snorted, excitedly. “I do.”
“And do you, Bobby Dern, take Barry Rawlins to be your lawful wedded husband?”
“I do.”
“And do you, Barry Rawlins, take Bobby Dern to be your lawful wedded, erm, husband?”
“You bet your soppy bollocks I do.”
The priest nodded. “Then I now pronounce you husband and wife and husband and husband. You may now kiss your respective other halves.”
The church erupted with applause. People leapt to their feet, cheering and clapping, throwing confetti—which was frowned upon inside the church, not that anyone seemed to care. It was a wonderful day, one that would go down in Cromer history, one that seemed to draw a line under the preceding months’ events. Cameras flashed, people clapped, and Judi Dench danced with her new toy boy, and the sergeant looked forward to the after-party, where there would hopefully be an impromptu paintballing session. At the back of the church, a single Humboldt penguin stood watching, concealed by the pews and the tumult.
One day, Roger Whipsnade, the penguin thought, frowning at this new crossing of threads in the fabric of fate. One day, when you least expect it…
It slunk out through the back doors unnoticed, a plan was already forming in its little penguin head.
Adam Millard is the author of thirteen novels and more than a hundred short stories, which can be found in various collections and anthologies. Probably best known for his post-apocalyptic fiction, Adam also writes fantasy/horror for children. He created the character Peter Crombie, Teenage Zombie just so he had something decent to read to his son at bedtime. Adam also writes Bizarro fiction for several publishers, who enjoy his tales of flesh-eating clown-beetles and rabies-infected derrieres so much that they keep printing them. His “Dead” series has been the filling in a Stephen King/Bram Stoker sandwich on Amazon’s bestsellers chart, and the translation rights have recently sold to German publisher, Voodoo Press. Adam also writes for This Is Horror, whose columnists include Shaun Hutson, Simon Bestwick and Simon Marshall-Jones. Adam lives in the post-apocalyptic landscape known as Wolverhampton, England, with his wife, Zoe, and son, Phoenix.
