The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse

by Robert Rankin

  This leg, the right, was a weedy-looking article, but was superior to its companion, which was nothing but an empty flap of furry fabric.

  Eddie groaned, and it hurt when he did so. Eddie’s throat had been viciously cut and his head was all but severed from his body.

  Eddie surveyed the bleak landscape of himself. This was bad. This was very bad. Indeed this was very, very, very bad. Eddie was in trouble deep, and such trouble troubled him deeply. Eddie Bear was afraid.

  ‘I am done for,’ mumbled Eddie.

  And it hurt very much as he mumbled it.

  Eddie tried to recall what had happened to him, but this wasn’t proving an easy thing to do. The contents of his head were slowly leaking out through the gash in his neck. Eddie settled carefully onto his back and tried to scrape some in again.

  What could he remember?

  Well …

  He could remember the kitchen. And Madame Goose. And asking her what she knew about an agile woman in a feathered bonnet who was capable of leaping over the locked gates of the chocolate factory.

  Now why had he been asking about that?

  Eddie gave his head a thump.

  Ah yes, the woman was the suspect. The serial killer.

  What happened next?

  Eddie gave his head another thump and it all came rushing painfully back.

  That was what happened next.

  Eddie recalled it in all its hideous detail:

  The door of the broom cupboard opened and Eddie was the first to see her emerge. He was impressed by the way she moved. It was smooth, almost fluid. And you couldn’t help but be impressed by the way she looked. She wore a feathered bonnet, but it wasn’t so much a bonnet, more some kind of winged headpiece, which fitted tightly over her skull and covered the upper portion of her face: a mask with cut-away eyeholes and a slender beak that hid her nose. The mouth beneath was painted a pink that was as pink as. And this was set into a sinister smile. The teeth that showed within this smile were very white indeed.

  Her body was, in itself, something to inspire awe. Eddie had never been an appreciator of the human form. All women looked pretty much the same to him (apart from the very fat ones. These made Eddie laugh, but he found them strangely compelling). This woman wasn’t fat anywhere. She was slim as a whispered secret, and twice as dangerous, too.

  Her body was sheathed in contour-hugging black rubber, held in place by many straps and buckles. Eddie had never seen an outfit quite like it before. It looked very chic and expensive, but it also had the down-to-business utility quality of a military uniform about it. It flattered in an impersonal manner.

  She hadn’t spoken a word. And this made her somehow more terrifying – because, if she inspired awe in Eddie, she also inspired terror.

  She leapt right over the table and she wrung the neck of Madame Goose with the fingers of a single hand. And then she picked up a kitchen knife and cut Eddie’s throat with it.

  The rest was somewhat hazy.

  Eddie vaguely recalled being hauled up by his left leg, dragged along an alleyway and flung into the boot of a car. Then there was a period of bumping darkness. Then a horrible light. Then dark corridors. Then here. The cold damp cell.

  And oblivion.

  And now he was awake again. And gravely injured.

  And very scared indeed.

  Jack wasn’t so much scared as furious.

  He had been wrongfully arrested. And he had been beaten about and thrown into the rear of a police van. And now he was being driven uptown at breakneck speed. And there was a big policeman sitting on his head.

  ‘Get your fat arse off me,’ cried Jack. ‘You’re in big trouble. You can’t treat me like this.’

  Officer Chortle, whose bottom it was, laughed loudly. ‘We have you bang to rights, meaty-boy,’ he said. ‘We’ve all been waiting for this one.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jack asked.

  ‘For the chance to bring one of your lot to justice.’

  ‘I don’t have a lot,’ said Jack. ‘I’m just me.’

  ‘You’re a man,’ said Officer Chortle. ‘And men think, they’re above the law. The law is for toy folk, not for men. But you’ve killed your own kind and we have you now.’

  ‘I demand my rights,’ Jack demanded. ‘And I demand to see a solicitor.’ Jack had read about solicitors in a Bill Winkie thriller. Suspects always demanded to see their solicitors. It was a tradition, or an old charter, or something.

  It was a suspect thing.

  ‘No solicitor for you,’ said Officer Chortle, who read only weapons manuals. (Though mostly he just looked at the pictures.) ‘You’re going uptown and we’ll lock you away until all the paperwork’s done. Then I think we’ll take you to pieces, to see what makes you run.’

  ‘No!’ Jack shouted. ‘You can’t do that to me.’

  ‘Tell it to Bellis,’ said the officer.

  ‘Is he here?’

  ‘No, he went on ahead. Probably to warm your cell for you. He left me to act on my own initiative. I love it when he does that. It means that I can hit things.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Jack, trying to think straight, ‘can’t we make some kind of a deal?’

  ‘Are you trying to bribe an officer of the Law?’

  ‘Frankly, yes,’ said Jack.

  ‘Go on then,’ said the officer of the Law.

  ‘All right,’ said Jack. ‘You hate meat-heads, don’t you?’

  ‘I do,’ said Officer Chortle. ‘We all do.’

  ‘So you don’t really care about them being killed.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said the officer.

  ‘So the more that get killed, the happier you’ll be.’

  ‘That’s true,’ the officer agreed.

  ‘So let me go and I promise to kill loads more of them. I’ll kill them all, if you want. What could be fairer than that?’

  ‘Well,’ said Officer Chortle, ‘if you put it that way,’ and he raised his bum from Jack’s head.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Jack.

  ‘Had you fooled.’ Officer Chortle sat down once more. ‘That’s all the confession we needed. You heard what he said, didn’t you, men?’

  ‘Yes we did,’ said the officers, laughing fit to burst.

  The police van sped onwards through the night-time streets of Toy City, the bell on its top ringing loudly. The ringing of this bell gave Jack a headache. The pressure of Officer Chortle’s bottom didn’t help to soothe the pain.

  ‘You’ve got the wrong man, you know,’ Jack ventured.

  ‘You’ve said enough,’ said Chortle. ‘Be silent now, or I will be forced to plug your mouth.’

  Jack maintained another of his sulking silences.

  At length a new sound came to Jack’s ears. It was louder than the ringing bell and it caused Officer Chortle to raise his bum once more.

  ‘What is that?’ he shouted above the sound, which had grown to an all but intolerable din. It was now accompanied by a considerable grinding vibration.

  The driver of the police van shouted back at Officer Chortle. ‘It’s a fire engine,’ he shouted. ‘A Mark 5 Roaring Thunderer. The deluxe model. It’s trying to push us off the road.’

  ‘What?’ shouted Officer Chortle. ‘That’s outrageous. Push it back.’

  ‘But sir, it’s a Roaring Thunderer. It’s bigger than us. Much bigger.’

  Officer Chortle glared out through the police van’s rear window. The Roaring Thunderer was much bigger. Very much bigger indeed.

  ‘Do something, driver,’ he ordered. ‘I’m in charge here. Take evasive action.’

  The driver took evasive action. He swerved onto the pavement, scattering pedestrians, including several who had, by coincidence, been earlier scattered by Jack.

  ‘He’s coming after us,’ shouted the driver. And the Roaring Thunderer was.

  It really was a magnificent vehicle. Constructed of heavy gauge pressed steel and finished in glossy red and black, it had a nickel-plated ladder, with wheel-operated rotatin
g turntable and elevation extension, powered by a crank handle, pressed steel wheels and a cabmounted bell. It normally came complete with six tinplate firemen, two with hose-gripping hand attachments.

  Had Jack been able to see it, he would have admired it. And he certainly would have wanted to drive it. The reflected streetlights glittered on its polished bits and bots. It was mechanised by two extremely powerful double-sprung synchronised clockwork motors which took five clockwork firemen to turn its enormous key.

  The Roaring Thunderer careered along the kerb, striking down lampposts and tearing the overhanging awnings from the shops and bazaars. It struck the police van once again. The driver of the police van took to praying.

  ‘You’re not a mechanologist,’ shouted Officer Chortle. ‘You’re a bendy policeman. Cut that out and drive faster.’

  ‘The van won’t go any faster. Oh no!’

  The police van overturned. Over and over and over it overturned.

  Within the van, the officers of the Law and their captive revolved in a blur of blue bouncing bellies and long lanky limbs. The rear doors burst open and Jack found himself airborne.

  And then things went very black for Jack.

  Very black indeed.

  *

  Eddie moved once more into the black. Unconsciousness was never anything other than black for Eddie, for teddy bears don’t dream while they sleep. They exist in a state of non-being which is truly unconscious.

  How long Eddie remained in this particular period of blackness he was unable to say, because he didn’t have a watch. He had tried to wear one in the past, but it always fell off, his stumpy little arm lacking a wrist. This particular period of blackness ended in an abrupt fashion when a bright light shone upon him.

  Eddie peered up, shielding his eyes with a floppy paw.

  A figure stared down upon Eddie.

  Eddie flinched.

  The figure said, ‘Eddie, it’s you.’

  Eddie said, ‘Jack? My bestest friend? Is that you?’

  ‘It’s me,’ said Jack. ‘It’s me.’

  ‘And you’ve come to save me. Jack, this is wonderful, how—’

  But Eddie’s words were cut short as Jack was suddenly propelled forward at considerable speed. He landed heavily upon the bear, raising a cloud of sawdust and causing Eddie’s button eyes to all but pop from his head.

  Before he passed once more into blackness, Eddie was able to glimpse the force behind Jack’s untoward propulsion.

  Standing in the doorway of the cell was the woman in the winged headpiece.

  She didn’t speak a word. She just smiled.

  And then she slammed the cell door shut upon both of them.

  14

  ‘Kidnapped.’ Jack sat shivering in the coldness and dampness and in the mostly darkness of the horrid little cell. ‘She kidnapped me. She hijacked a fire engine, drove the police van off the road, I fell out, she picked me up and threw me in the boot of a car and drove here. Where is here, by the way? Oh, Eddie, I’m so glad to see you.’

  ‘Kidnapped?’ Eddie whispered. ‘Police van?’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ said Jack, giving the bear’s sunken belly a gentle pat. ‘And it’s far from over. Who is she, Eddie? She’s really scary.’

  Eddie tried to shake his head, but couldn’t.

  ‘I’m sorry I fell on you,’ said Jack. ‘And I can’t see you too well in this mostly darkness. But from what I can see, you look in a terrible state. Is there anything I can do for you?’

  ‘Get me out of here,’ Eddie’s voice was faint. ‘Get me to the toymaker. Only he can save me.’

  ‘Oh Eddie, I’m so sorry. Can’t I stuff you with something? I could tear up your trenchcoat.’

  ‘Won’t work. Get me to the toymaker, Jack. Save me.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘Use your clockwork pistol. Shoot the lock off.’

  ‘Chief Inspector Bellis confiscated my pistol. He said it was evidence.’ Jack rose and peeped out through the little grille in the cell door. ‘Perhaps the key’s in the lock,’ he said. ‘I know this really clever trick.’

  ‘Everybody knows that trick.’ Eddie made small moaning sounds. ‘The key won’t be in the lock.’

  ‘There might be a loose flagstone with a secret passage under it. There often is in books.’

  Eddie moaned a little more.

  ‘Don’t worry, Eddie, I’ll get us out of here.’ Jack knelt once more and cradled Eddie’s wobbly head. ‘You’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you to the toymaker. He’ll have you as good as new. Better than new.’

  Eddie’s button eyes crossed.

  ‘Stay awake, Eddie.’ Jack stroked the bear’s head. ‘We’re in this together. We’re partners, aren’t we? Partners don’t let each other down. Partners stick together through thick and thin.’

  Eddie said nothing.

  ‘Come on, stay awake.’ Jack shook Eddie’s head, but gently. ‘Don’t you …’ His words tailed off. ‘Don’t you …’

  ‘Die?’ whispered Eddie. ‘Get me to the toymaker.’

  ‘Right,’ said Jack. And he leapt to his feet.

  ‘Ow,’ went Eddie as his head struck the floor.

  ‘Sorry, sorry. But I’ll get us out. I will.’

  Jack looked all around and about. Around and about looked hopeless: a horrid little cell of coldness and dampness and mostly darkness. A sturdy cell door and not a hint of window. The floor was of concrete, with no hint of flagstone.

  ‘Only one way out,’ said Jack. ‘I’ll have to pick the lock.’

  Eddie said nothing. The chances that Jack could actually pick a lock were so remote that they did not require commenting upon.

  Jack peered into the keyhole. A wan light shone through it.

  ‘Hm,’ went Jack thoughtfully. ‘That would be a big old lock, by the look of it.’

  To save his energy, Eddie groaned inwardly.

  ‘But,’ said Jack, ‘it’s probably just your standard side-crank mortise lock, with a single-arc lever action and a drop-bolt sliding movement.’

  ‘Uh?’ went Eddie.

  ‘Locks are only clockwork motors without the motors,’ said Jack. ‘And if I do know about anything, Eddie, I know about clockwork.’

  ‘Mm,’ went Eddie, in an encouraging manner.

  ‘So,’ said Jack. ‘All I need is something to pick it with.’ He rooted around in his pockets. ‘Ah,’ he went at length. It was a discouraging ‘Ah’. The kind of an ‘Ah’ that a lad might make when he finds that he has nothing whatsoever in his pockets to pick a lock with.

  ‘Eddie,’ said Jack.

  Eddie said nothing.

  ‘Eddie, I don’t suppose you have a piece of wire about your person?’

  Eddie said nothing once more.

  ‘It’s only that if you did, I really could pick that lock. But I don’t seem to have anything on me.’

  Eddie raised a feeble paw.

  Jack knelt down beside him. ‘Sorry,’ said Jack.

  Eddie’s mouth opened.

  Jack leaned closer.

  ‘Growler,’ whispered Eddie.

  ‘Well there’s no need to be insulting. I’m doing my best.’

  ‘My growler. Use my growler.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s wire in the diaphragm of my growler, use that.’

  ‘What?’ went Jack again.

  ‘Put your hand down the hole in my throat. Pull out my growler; do it quickly, hurry.’

  ‘But,’ went Jack, ‘are you sure it won’t kill you or anything?’

  ‘Just do it now, Jack. There’s no time left.’

  Jack made a pained expression. The idea of putting his hand through the hole in someone’s throat and tearing out their voice box was most unappealing. But then, Eddie was only a toy.

  Jack made a brave face. Eddie wasn’t only a toy. Eddie was his friend. His bestest friend. And he had to save his friend. Jack steeled himself and then, very gently, he did what had to be done.
/>   Eddie sighed softly. His mouth moved, but no words came from it.

  ‘We’re out of here,’ said Jack. ‘Just trust me.’

  Now as anyone who has ever tried to pick a lock will tell you, there’s a definite knack to it: a bit like riding a bike, or holding a tiger by the tail, or dining with the devil with a very long fork. Or, if you are into sexual gymnastics, engaging in that position known as ‘taking tea with the parson’.

  Or doing algebra.

  Or climbing a mountain.

  Or knowing the secret of when to stop.

  But the point of all this is, that some of us have the knack.

  And some of us haven’t.

  And when it came to picking locks, Jack hadn’t.

  ‘There,’ said Jack. ‘That’s got it.’

  But it hadn’t.

  ‘There,’ he said once more. ‘That’s got it.’

  And it had.

  Which certainly proves something.

  Jack eased open the cell door. No hideous groaning of hinges broke the silence.

  What light that could fall through the cell doorway fell through, in and onto Eddie. It displayed, in gruesome detail, just how dire the little bear’s condition now was.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ said Jack, although there was a lack of conviction in his tone. ‘I’m going to have to fold you up a bit and stuff you into my big inside pocket. I’ll stick you in head downwards, so you don’t, you know, lose any more brains or anything.’

  Jack did the business as delicately as he could.

  He closed and buttoned his coat. Patting softly at the bulge that was Eddie, he whispered, ‘You’ll be okay, my friend.’ And then, upon very light feet indeed, Jack tiptoed up the passageway.

  It was a low and narrow passageway and all along its length there were other cell doors. Jack didn’t stop to peep in at any, but he felt certain he could feel eyes peering at him through the nasty little grilles. Jack hastened his tiptoeing. This was not a nice place to be.

  Up ahead was an iron staircase. Jack took the steps two at a time.

  And then there was another passageway.

  And then another.