by Mick Farren
Jesus fumbled with the remote, shaking his head. “He doesn’t seem to be interested.”
Semple’s fury rolled back in again. “Then make him interested, damn it.”
Jesus attempted a few halfhearted commands but to no avail. “He doesn’t want to know.”
“How can the damn thing be so fucking useless?”
“Wait a minute.” Mr. Thomas nodded to the screen showing the close-up of Anubis. Anubis was issuing orders to his rocketeer guards. Although the dome was not blessed with sync sound, his intention was obvious. He had clearly decided that the monster might, in fact, not be as unassailable as it appeared. The rocketeers moved to the edge of the roof and formed a double line. As one, they raised their weapons. Each jacked a round and switched to full auto. Semple could hardly contain her excitement. “Will you look at him? That half-witted maniac thinks he can hurt Gojiro with machine guns.”
Jim should have expected the graveyard. The disembodied pain, the opium den, the frozen heart of hell—why not a fucking graveyard? By this point, he wouldn’t have been surprised to suddenly find himself a womb-entombed fetus. Jim could, as yet, see no pattern in what Dr. Hypodermic was doing to him or doing with him. He didn’t believe the bullshit about finding him a context. Perhaps he was being sucked into some deeply convoluted Afterlife version of addiction, but he couldn’t even see a pattern that might lead to that. All he could see was that the graveyard was elaborately Catholic; white marble angels clutched their brows and wept while seeking the support of broken pillars. Porticoed family mausoleums reared like baroquely munchkin cathedrals, and flat-topped sepulchers lay sprawled so large they would do justice to a Transylvanian count. Depressed and depending willows and sinisterly contorted pines drooped over an acreage of crosses and headstones so closely packed that the avenues between them resembled the narrow streets of a dark miniature city; along them blue vaporous tumbles of wraith-fire danced and flared. Overhead, ten thousand almost unflickering stars shone down from a cold velvet sky, mirrored on the ground by ten thousand flickering candles, which dripped wax on almost very available flat surface.
Dr. Hypodermic gestured in a proprietorial manner. “You like the candles.”
Jim showed no emotion. “It’s like the lighters at the end of a Grateful Dead concert.”
“My cousin, Le Baron Samedi, spends a lot of time in places like this.”
“This isn’t a real place, though, is it?”
“It’s largely symbolic.”
The two of them drifted rather than walked through the graveyard, almost becoming an extension of the wafting wraith-fire. Jim wondered if this was how it felt to be a ghost. If it was, maybe he should try it sometime. “I hope this isn’t my funeral. I’ve already been buried.”
“This isn’t your funeral.”
“So whose funeral is it?”
“Here it is now.”
A funeral procession carrying more candles, and dressed in scarlet robes, moved down one of the broader avenues between the tombs, making for a small vacant plot with a freshly dug grave. Two Shakespearean sextons leaned on their spades and tried to look unobtrusive. A white, child-sized coffin was borne on the shoulders of four black-clad pallbearers. Jim looked hard at Hypodermic. “I asked whose funeral it is.”
The Doctor’s eyes glowed eerily. “Does it really signify?”
“It looks like a child.”
“It’s a dwarf who was bitten by a poisonous spider.”
“Can they see us?”
“They can see you, kind of.”
“What do you mean, kind of?”
“They think you’re the Gatekeeper of the Underworld. If you stick around, they’ll offer you the traditional libation. A few shots of that stuff and you can really wail.”
“Why is it I have the notion that this graveyard libation can quickly become one bad motherfucker of a habit?”
Hypodermic smiled as wryly as is possible for a naked skull. “Because you know me too well.”
“I’m starting to remember.”
Jim noticed the woman who led the mourners was carrying a gold chalice. He was all but tempted to check out the libation. “But I’m not the Gatekeeper of the Underworld.”
Dr. Hypodermic brushed tiny diamond particles like lint from one black sleeve. Where the hell had they come from? Tiny stardust from the largely symbolic sky? “The gig could be yours if you wanted it. If you got a taste for the stuff, you might really enjoy it.”
“But I don’t want it.”
“The gig or the libation?”
“Neither.”
The woman with the chalice was coming straight toward Jim. Hypodermic treated him to one of his most penetrating stares. “You sure you don’t want to try it?”
Jim shook his head. “Not even for a dwarf who’s been bitten by a poisonous spider.”
“I thought you were always ready for a new stimulant.”
Jim continued to shake his head. “I’ve got enough confusion going for me.”
“Are you turning soft on me?”
“You can’t dare me to drink it. I’m past that.”
“You’re not afraid of me anymore, are you?”
“All that stuff about finding me a context was bullshit, wasn’t it?”
Dr. Hypodermic’s eyes flickered from red to yellow and back again. “I asked you first.”
“Am I still afraid of you?”
“Right.”
“No, I don’t think I am.”
“You’re only afraid when you’re running away from me?”
“Right.”
“Then we’ll have to do something about that, won’t we?”
With an illusionist’s flourish of white gloves, Dr. Hypodermic snapped his fingers and Jim found himself in a brightly lit padded cell.
The rocketeers opened fire and Semple had to give them credit for acting with heroic panache while engaging in what they must have known to be a suicidally impossible action. They had formed two firing lines, the front kneeling, the rear standing, and on their God-King’s command they started blasting. Even the ceremonial Nubians sought to get in on the act, taking short runs across the flat roof and gamely hurling their spears at the great beast. The spears, unfortunately, all fell short, and although the small-arms fire hit the target, it did Gojiro no harm whatsoever. All it achieved was to get his angry attention. Semple shook her head in disbelief. “I wouldn’t have thought even Anubis could combine that degree of arrogance and stupidity.”
Gojiro also looked as though he couldn’t quite believe the audacity of these human survivors. The first bursts of automatic fire hit him in the side as he sat digesting his meal of U-248. His eyes opened; he blinked three times and turned his huge head. The next burst hit him square in the face, dislodging flakes of loose skin, like dinner-plate-sized dandruff. At first he’d only been mildly interested; now he was exceedingly pissed. He flexed his shoulders at the effrontery and rose majestically to his feet.
“GGGGGGGGRRRR0000000AAAAARW!”
Again, Semple had to give the rocketeers points for blind courage. Even in the face of Gojiro, drawn up to his full height and mad as hell, they didn’t break and run. They held their orderly ranks and went right on firing. This was absolutely too much for Gojiro. He took two fast steps and, like a man who, wishing to make a dramatic point in the grip of a temper tantrum, furiously clears a shelf of ornaments with a single sweep of his arm, the reptile sent the two lines of Anubis’s masked police flying clean off the roof and out into empty air. At the same time, in the background, unnoticed by anyone—even Semple—the Dream Warden quietly vanished, leaving only a rapidly collapsing gray robe. Unable to resist the hopeless flourish, a Nubian guard hurled one last spear. With the range less than a quarter of what it had been previously, the crazy Nubian actually managed to lodge his spear in Gojiro’s left eye. It hung there for a couple of seconds before the monster blinked it away and then reached out for the unfortunate man. With an impossibly delicate neatness for o
ne so vast, Gojiro lifted the Nubian between thumb and index finger and brought him up to eye level, turned the Nubian over twice, and then closed his fingers, squashing him to a red smear.
With the rocketeers taken out and the Nubian borne aloft to his messy fate, Anubis appeared to grasp, for the first time, that the game was up. A window appeared on the dome’s screen that showed the God-King in tight close-up. With nothing left between his holy personage and the wrath of Gojiro, his eyes widened in shock and his tongue lolled out. He seemed to be saying something, but Semple couldn’t hear the dog’s final words. “Why the fuck don’t we have sound in here?”
Anubis, still staring transfixed at Gojiro, began slowly to back away across the roof to where the near-hysterical remnants of his harem were huddled together waiting for the end. After half a dozen paces, he managed to break the paralyzing eye contact and turned and fled, pushing his way into the group of concubines and actually holding one of them, a pouty, full-breasted teenager Semple had known as Nephra, in front of him as a human shield. Semple was instantly outraged. “Will you look at that shameless son of a bitch hiding among the women? He can’t even go out with fucking dignity. He’s got to know there’s no way the body of one nubile babe, no matter how big her tits, is going to save him. Why can’t he accept that he’s pod-bound and exit with a bit of class?”
Mr. Thomas sniffed. He wasn’t taking the fate of Anubis quite as personally as Semple. “A lot of leaders have tried to get away among the women. Britain’s Charles II tried it, so did Bonnie Prince Charlie, and Jeff Davis after the Civil War.”
“But he knows he can’t escape.”
In one respect, Semple was wrong. Whether it was actually Nephra’s ample breasts or not was unclear, but when Anubis grabbed her, Gojiro did actually pause. Although he could have crushed Anubis and the women of the harem in one fell handslap, he hesitated. Inside the dome, lizard-brain fireworks were visible as synapses processed the dilemma. Could it be that the big reptile held the dogheaded king’s cowardice in as much contempt as Semple? He hardly seemed capable of such finesse, and yet there he was, standing and waiting, wondering what to do next. Semple, too, was at something of a loss. She had no personal animosity against the women. When Anubis had appeared on the rooftop, she had assumed that they would share the same fate as the other innocent victims of the razing of Necropolis—regrettable, but too damned bad. Now that Gojiro was displaying this unexpected streak of dinosaur chivalry, she saw that she was going to have to revise her ideas.
“Has he ever behaved like this before?”
Jesus shook his head. “It’s extremely peculiar. He never used to be a respecter of gender.”
Gojiro’s next move was even more peculiar. He extended a clawed index finger and pointed at Anubis. It was the simplest of gestures, but its effect on the God-King was electrifying. His dog jaw dropped; he hurled Nephra from him. Gojiro continued to point at Anubis as he ran to the edge of the roof. Now it was Anubis’s turn to hesitate. He was plainly teetering in both mind and body, unable to decide whether to jump or to wait for the Big Green to tender his fate. Semple had no doubt what she wanted him to do. “Jump, you bastard! Do the decent thing and end it now.”
But Anubis didn’t jump. Clearly, terminating his own incarnation was not a part of his nature under any circumstances. Gojiro, however, had an idea of his own about how the wretched creature should meet his fate. The monster pressed his lips together and very gently blew. The radioactive breath came in a narrow stream, but it was enough. Anubis was engulfed in flame. His entire body was burning like a torch as he lurched over the edge of the roof and fell. Arms and legs outstretched, he spun as he dropped, leaving a spiral of smoke while plummeting to the ruins below. He struck the ground on an incline of rubble beside an upended block of masonry with a tangle of steel projecting from its broken end. As sharp steel penetrated his burning body, a final hiccup of flame vaporized all that remained of Anubis.
Semple was silent for a moment. “So I guess that’s the end of that.”
Mr. Thomas asked the obvious question. “And how does it feel?”
Semple didn’t immediately answer and Jesus cut in. “The most divine of emotions is that of revenge well executed.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“What do you mean?”
“To tell the truth, it doesn’t feel as good as it ought to.”
“You wanted him to suffer more? It was a long fall and he was on fire all the way down. He definitely crashed and burned.”
Semple frowned. “It’s not that. It’s just that what’s done is done, and I guess it’s over and that’s kind of hard to accept.”
The goat gave a superior sniff. “They say some people are never satisfied.”
Semple bridled. “I didn’t say that I wasn’t satisfied—”
“I’d also point out that it isn’t exactly over. The women are still there. Didn’t they used to be your co-workers?”
“What do you think he’s going to do to them?”
“I suspect that’s exactly what he’s thinking about now.”
Gojiro stood staring at the trembling group of women. Semple shuddered. “I wouldn’t like to be in their position.”
Jesus raised an eyebrow. “Do you really care?”
“They’ve got to be scared out of their minds.”
“But do you really care?”
Semple turned angrily on them. “I don’t know. I’m safe in here, so it’s all fucking hypothetical, isn’t it?”
Gojiro turned and began to walk away. The women of the harem, up to this point huddled together, started to spread out as if they couldn’t quite believe their unexpected deliverance. After a half dozen paces, though, Gojiro halted and looked back. The women also froze.
“Is he going to kill them after all?”
The thought may well have crossed the King of the Monsters’ mind. Certainly, inside the dome, Semple, Jesus, and the goat were treated to another brief synaptic fireworks display, but then the second-unit screens showed him turning again and moving on.
“He let the women go.”
“I guess he’s still into this new knight-in-shining-armor mode.”
“Yeah, but where’s he going now?”
The forward view on the screen was an extreme long shot, the replication of Gojiro’s distant gaze, fixed somewhere beyond the city limits, not only in a direction in which Semple had never been during her sojourn in the city, but directly into a totally surprising and highly colorful purple and magenta sunset.
Mr. Thomas looked worried. “Where did that fucking sunset come from?”
Jesus spread his hands. “Don’t look at me, I didn’t conjure it. Besides, the colors are just a result of crap in the air. It’s probably the dust he kicked up smashing down all those buildings.”
Mr. Thomas looked even more worried. “I think he deliberately made the sunset himself.”
Jesus shrugged. “He always gets a bit weird after he’s whacked a city.”
“He never made a sunset before.”
“You can’t say he doesn’t have a sense of theater. We’ve always known that.”
Mr. Thomas refused to let the matter drop. “I think he made the sunset to walk off into.”
“So he wants to impress the girls on the roof. So what?”
“So I think after he’s walked off into the sunset, he’ll go right on walking all the way to the polar ice cap.”
Jesus went white. “You’re not serious.”
Under stress, Mr. Thomas’s accent had become extremely Welsh. “Of course I’m bloody serious, boyo. That’s why I’m looking so worried.”
Semple interrupted. “Would someone like to tell me what’s going on here? Why should he be walking off to the polar ice cap?”
“If he’s walking off to the polar ice cap, it means he’s going to go to sleep for a couple thousand years and we’re in a lot of trouble.”
“I didn’t even know there was a polar ice cap in the
Afterlife.”
“If there isn’t, he’ll make one.”
“And we’re in serious trouble.”
Semple was perplexed. “I don’t understand. What’s the problem?”
“If he goes to sleep, we’re prisoners in here for the next two millennia or more. No light, no heat, no power, no TV. We’d go insane.”
Semple looked at Jesus and the goat as though they were total idiots. “But that’s crazy. With the three of us, we ought to be able to raise the kinetic energy to wind-walk out of here.”
Jesus and Mr. Thomas exchanged glances. “Will you tell her or shall I?”
“I tried to explain it to her earlier.”
“We can’t get out of here.”
“Why not?”
Jesus shifted uncomfortably on the couch and put the remote to one side. Gojiro was now jogging steadily across the landscape with an ominous sense of purpose. “It’s the bit between the tumor and the eye. Remember the way you came in?”
Semple nodded. “Of course I remember. It wasn’t that long ago, even though it might seem like it.”
“In order to make it through there, we have to put ourselves in animation mode.”
“Mr. Thomas already told me that.”
“Well, we can’t do it anymore. The equipment broke and we couldn’t fix it.”
Semple turned sternly to the goat. “I though you said he’d forgotten how to do it. You didn’t mention equipment.”
“I was giving you the simplified version.”
Jesus arched an eyebrow. “And probably trying to make me look bad at the same time. He does that, you know?”
“But it’s true that we can’t get out of here?”
“Absolutely. One hundred percent.”
Semple thought about this for a long while. “My sibling Aimee and her nuns may be able to get us out of this.”
Mr. Thomas treated her to a long and slightly suspicious sideways look. “They could?”
“I think so.”
“How?”
“Either of you know the gold telephone trick?”
