They Came and Ate Us: Armageddon II: The B-Movie

by Robert Rankin

  He watched the workers whistle while they worked. (Say that with your teeth out.) It was possible that somewhere close by work was already in progress upon the bunker he would one day call his home. The thought sent a shiver down his spine. But what could he do about it? Could he actually change anything here? And if he could, was it right to do it? It was all down to predestination.

  ‘So, what are you going to do, Rex?’

  ‘We have several options.’ Rex squeezed the accelerator and the Tiger set off once more. ‘We could go to this top-secret establishment and check on Project Wormwood. We could go to the Tower and talk to Elvis.’

  ‘About Elvis?’ Jack asked.

  Rex ignored this.‘We could follow the newscasts and await development. Which would you do?’

  ‘I would withdraw to a place of safety.’

  ‘Of that I have no doubt. But we shall do none of these things.’

  ‘Not even the last, which has much to recommend it?’

  ‘Especially not. Firstly we will attempt to lose the car which has been following us since we left the hospital this morning. No, don’t look round. Ah yes, I thought so.’

  ‘You did? What?’

  Rex put his finger to his lips. Drew the car to a halt once more. Still counselling silence he gave Jack a thorough rummaging. In Jack’s top pocket he unearthed the small unobtrusive bugging device. Rex turned it back and forwards beneath Jack’s nose and then flung it out of the open window. ‘Did you know?’

  ‘No, certainly not. But how did you?’

  ‘My suspicions were aroused back at the hospital when the police arrived right on cue carrying flame-throwers. I thought we were being followed when we left Crawford. The car turned back as soon as I identified it to you. They had to be listening in. It had to be you, Jack, old pal.’

  Jack buried his face in his hands. ‘All right. I knew. I was supposed to be the respectable Dean of the university. I could hardly refuse. They wanted to know who you were, how you’d turned up in the nick of time last night. Trouble was that in all the excitement I forgot the thing was still in my pocket. And now . . .’

  ‘And now things are going to be very difficult indeed. Crawford will be investigated. Project Wormwood will be investigated. They have heard everything we said. This is very bad, Jack.’

  ‘We had best give ourselves up. I am clearly the innocent party. I will speak up in your defence. With remission for good behaviour you might get off with life. And I’d visit. Bring you books and stuff. Rex, don’t hit me.’

  ‘I’m going to make a big adjustment now,’ said Mr Smith.

  ‘Jack,’ said Rex. ‘Our relationship has not been altogether a happy one thus far, has it?’

  ‘Not altogether,’ Jack agreed. ‘But in one short year we have certainly come to understand each other.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Well, I respect you and you hold me in utter contempt.’

  ‘Not that, you said in one short year.’

  ‘And why not? It must be nearly a year to the day since we first met.’

  ‘Jack, it is nothing more than six weeks since we first met.’

  ‘Nonsense. I’ve been Dean at the Misk for at least ten months.’

  ‘But Asmodeus . . .’ Rex began.

  ‘Ancient history, Rex. All cleared up now.’

  ‘Ancient history? It was last night.’

  Jack laughed. ‘Don’t wind me up. You came to dinner last night with your girlfriend. What are you talking about?’ Rex gazed down at himself. He became suddenly aware that he did not recognize the clothes he was wearing. The fabric was a reflective polysylicate. It put him in mind of the radiation suits he would wear in the future. He flipped the driving mirror and fell back in alarm. ‘Oh my Lord,’ croaked Rex. ‘I’ve grown a beard. When did I grow a beard?’

  ‘Always the joker,’ said Jack.

  ‘Jack, I am never the joker, as you well know. What is going on?’

  ‘Rex, are you all right?’ Jack seemed genuinely concerned. ‘You said let’s stop here and see how the development is coming along.’

  Rex jerked towards the window, thumbed it down. The sun’s glare hurt his eyes. The holographic hoarding still read TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY ECO-HOMES, but now the green tones were somewhat off register. The estate was complete. It had become a pleasantly landscaped park. A river meandered through it. The bunker doors were hardly discernible so deft was their camouflage. It was really quite idyllic. It was really very frightening.

  ‘Jack. Something is very wrong.’

  ‘Your catch-phrase, Rex.’

  ‘Jack, I cannot remember a single thing that has happened since the morning after Asmodeus was destroyed. We were just driving away from Crawford’s. I took a bugging device from you. Now all this time has passed.’

  ‘You’re not serious? You are serious.’

  ‘Of course I’m serious. Jack, what has happened to Wormwood? And Elvis, is he all right?’

  ‘Your curious friend? We just came from his place. He’s no better. Perhaps you’re in shock or something. He’s pretty bad.’

  ‘Pretty bad? How bad?’

  ‘As bad as it gets. The doctor said . . .’ Jack hung his head. Rex squeezed the steering wheel. ‘The car’s broken.’

  ‘It’s a foot job, Rex. The steering wheel accelerators were discontinued, too many accidents, you remember? You don’t remember. Where are we going?’

  ‘Back to the Tower. And on the way I want you to tell me every single thing that has happened during the last ten months.’

  ‘I’ll try.’ Jack tried.

  The mirror-glass of the Tower was visibly corroded. Garbage piled up against it almost to the first floor. Even though it was mid-afternoon the street was empty. Rex climbed from the car. Instantly the sunlight scorched him. ‘Your cap, Rex, and your glasses.’ Jack passed them out to him. Rex thrust them on and he thrust his hand over his face. The smell was appalling. And so was the pain. His hand was beginning to cook. ‘And your gloves.’

  ‘What happened? What is all this?’

  ‘The ozone hole. Sorry, I forgot to mention it. The car windows are reflect-optical.’ Jack’s words were now muffled beneath the weatherdome he wore. Rex felt a terrible sadness. Domes and facemasks. Radiation suits. Not so soon. It couldn’t be.

  Jack put his shoulder to the cracked glass door. It swung slowly in, its hinges groaning desperately. Rex followed him, his eyes, adjusting to the uncertain light, took in the horror. Faces gazed up at him, fearful and suspicious. Bodies huddled in bundles of rags. Dozens of them. Vagrants? Transients?

  ‘Who are these people?’ Rex whispered.

  ‘Non-folk. Don’t worry about them. Your friend lets them stay here as long as they do no damage. I reckon he’s one of the good guys, right?’

  ‘Right. But why are they here?’

  ‘They can’t go out. Disenfranchised. Dis-carded, dis-credited, know what I mean? Shut the door and let’s go on up before we get our throats cut. Why did we have to come back here?’

  ‘I must find out.’ Rex made to step into the lift. On the floor two of the dis-carded were engaged in a violent sex act. Rex drew back in disgust and turned his face away.

  ‘The stairs Rex, as ever.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Rex kept saying it again and again as he plodded up the stairs. The plush carpets were gone beneath rubbish and human excrement. On the walls, rare artworks were daubed with obscenities. The air was rank.

  ‘This way.’ Jack finally led Rex into the penthouse. The furniture was gone. The walls were bare. In a far corner was a mound of dirty linen stained with blood and vomit. Rex stepped forward. Jack caught his arm. ‘If you really can’t remember, perhaps you’d better not look. It’s pretty grim.’

  ‘Let me see.’ Rex crossed the room and approached the makeshift couch. With a trembling hand he drew down the rough grey blanket.

  His breath caught in his throat.

  It was Elvis. But his face w
as scarcely recognizable. The mane of black hair was gone. A few white strands clung to the shrunken skull. Bloodshot eyes gazed with little sight from loose sockets. The killer sideburns were no more. The toothless mouth twitched. Crusted puke caked the lower lip.

  ‘No!’ cried Rex. This can’t be.’ Jack had turned away. He stood before the stained window, shoulders hunched.

  ‘What happened to you?’ Rex leaned down, grasped the skeletal shoulders. The near-corpse groaned painfully, bones crackled. ‘Elvis . . .’

  ‘Chief?’

  ‘Barry, is that you?’

  ‘Only just, chief, can’t hold on much longer.’

  ‘Barry, what has happened? I’ve lost my memory. Nearly a year’s gone from my life. I remember nothing. What happened to Elvis?’

  ‘Wormwood, chief. Infection. Elvis picked it up on that first night. Everyone else is dead. Everyone who had personal contact with Wormwood. He’s a plague-pit, chief, a walking disease. I can’t hold Elvis much longer.’

  ‘Can’t you take him back in time? Restore him, something?’

  ‘But you said . . .’

  ‘I said? What did I say?’

  ‘You promised him, chief.’

  ‘What did I promise? What did I say?’

  ‘Can’t speak now, chief. Got to rest is all. Do it, what you said, what you promised, before it’s too late for all of us.’

  ‘Barry, wait.’ But there was nothing more but a strangled croak from deep in the throat of the dying King.

  Rex turned upon Jack. ‘What did I say? What did I promise?’

  ‘How should I know?’ Jack shrugged. ‘Some great scheme or another. You have so many. You’ve cost him, Rex. You’re costing all of us.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Have I been here, all this time? What was I doing? Was it me doing it if I can’t remember? Am I dreaming this or what?’

  ‘Something happened. I don’t know what. The assault on the UN building. At the talks, Wormwood was with all the heads of state from around the globe, putting together a single world government. There was some kind of attack. All were killed except Wormwood and he’s in a wheelchair now. But you were right, Rex. He’s evil. And Crawford, that bastard.’

  ‘Tell me Jack. I have to know it all.’

  ‘OK. But not here. The smell of that guy, this place, I can’t take it.’

  They drove out of the city. The transformation was terrifying. Hardly a vehicle moved and only a figure or two stole from shadow to shadow. The roads were cracked, the store windows smashed. Evidently there had been big riots and bad ones. And Rex saw the holographic hoardings proclaiming the big three religious bodies he had come to know and hate as a child. They were on the rise. The transition had occurred and although he had been there to witness it, had witnessed it, it was stricken from his mind.

  ‘Here. Pull in here.’ They were some miles from the city. Jack gestured towards a newly constructed building. Long and low, sealed beneath a protective shell. Before it a neon sign flashed on and off advertising it as THE TOMORROWMAN TAVERN. Rex closed his eyes and bit his lip. A thin line of blood divided his chin and dripped on to his heat-proof suit.

  ‘It’s okay here,’ Jack was saying. ‘As safe as it gets anyway.’ They turned into the new car park. Memories smashed into Rex’s brain. His battered air-car. The death of the informer Rogan Josh, burned before his eyes by the acid rain. The one-eyed barman. His first encounter with Elvis.

  They left the car and passed through the plastic flaps to enter the bar. ‘Jack,’ said the barman. He was blond, fat and lacking a right eye.

  ‘Rick,’ said Jack, removing his weatherdome. ‘Two of your finest.’

  ‘Tomorrowman brew,’ Rex whispered.

  ‘Exactly.’ Jack gazed at him strangely. ‘Have you been here before, Rex?’

  ‘Not before.’

  ‘Come on. We’ll sit over here.’ Jack indicated the very chair Rex had once occupied in a future time. A plastique bucket job, the latest innovation. Rex dropped wearily into it. The barman came over with the drinks. He eyed Rex with open hostility. ‘Don’t I know you?’ he asked.

  Rex accepted his drink and shook his head. ‘I think not.’

  ‘I really don’t know where to begin,’ Jack began, once the barman had finally removed himself, with many a surly backward glance.

  ‘Tell me about the talks.’

  ‘There’s not a lot to tell. Media reports were pretty confused. Terrorist attack, they said and blamed it on the Zens. They weren’t killers. Pirates, hackers, but not killers. They didn’t deserve what they got. Public execution, what is that all about, I ask you? Live on TV. Sick, really sick. If you want to know all the gory details, ask Spike.’

  ‘Spike? Who’s Spike?’

  ‘Your girlfriend, as if you don’t know.’

  ‘Jack, I don’t. Go on.’

  ‘You really don’t, do you?’ Jack toyed with his glass. Rex drained his. ‘Something pretty weird happened, I know that. But we couldn’t get at it. You had us everywhere. Track down Elvis. Track down the research establishment. We got nowhere and twelve days later at the talks, when we are lying low with our pictures in the papers and up on wanted posters, someone hits Wormwood and the eleven heads of state. There must have been some major craziness, bodies came out in pieces, swollen up, all twisted.’

  ‘A bomb.’

  ‘No bomb. No damage to the building. It was like they tore each other to pieces. And Wormwood was the only one left alive. And him barely. Next time we saw him he was in a wheelchair, looking bright and new but with only one hand waving. And no more public appearances, just TV broadcasts to the nation. And then the shit really hit the fan. This new card business.’ Jack pulled out his and laid it upon the table. ‘The Americard. We all got one. Activated by your personal thumbprint. The lot, credit, passport, medicare, status, all rolled into one. No card, no live. I told you, those people back at the Tower, dis-carded. The building programme surged ahead. Cities came down. Holes in the ground for all. No threats of war. Shit, Russia is our greatest ally. We got no enemies but the sun. The planet is all to pot. Wormwood is going to forest over the continent. Genetically engineered trees. Restore the planet, he says. And everyone still believes in him. The country, the people.’

  ‘Because he’s always right.’

  ‘You said it. He’s protecting his people. Keeps it all simple. All black and white. Bastard.’

  ‘Bastard?’

  ‘Too many killings, Rex. Public killings. It’s become entertainment. There’s no news any more. Real news. Only his news. I wish I couldn’t remember.’

  ‘But, he’s crippled. I can’t understand this.’

  ‘He’s a wheelchair. No-one speaks to him in person.’

  ‘And Crawford? Another bastard you said.’

  ‘The fixer. He fixed it for us. Got the police off our backs. Gave me my job back. Just write, he said. And I have, I’ve been writing it all. Not that anyone will print it. I thought you said . . .’

  ‘I did. Tell me about Crawford.’

  ‘He’s the military. Now more so than ever before. We don’t have an army, just a security force. The president’s security force. His armed bully-boys. Crawford runs all that. The pogroms. The reprisals. The witch-hunts.’

  ‘How come I don’t remember?’

  ‘Perhaps you don’t want to. It all happened so fast. You kept saying you knew. You knew what to do. You said it to me, to your friend. You said it. Here, have another drink.’ Rex passed over his empty glass, Jack wandered off for refills. The barman engaged him-in conversation with many glances towards Rex. Rex patted his pockets in search of a cigarette. Perhaps he’d given them up. He hadn’t. His patting disclosed a packet. He took it up. Kharma Cools. Rex did not recognize the lama on the packet. He took out a cigarette and sucked upon it. It was not a self-igniter. He delved into further pockets and found a lighter.

  It all happened so fast. And he had been powerless to stop it. What had he done for almost a ye
ar? Grown a beard and taken a girlfriend. A girlfriend? He was a married man. Married to ... but where was Christeen? Reality and unreality had become blurred. What did he remember of now, then, and to be?

  ‘Here you go,’ said Jack placing another drink before him. The barman’s a stone-bonker. Says you’ve been in here without the beard. Says you’re a trouble-maker.’

  ‘I am,’ said Rex. ‘And will be again as soon as . . .’

  ‘As soon as you’ve sorted yourself out, eh? I know. Drink up.’

  ‘What happened at the Miskatonic? Did Crawford continue with the project?’

  Jack shook his head. ‘No. After the massacre at the UN he dropped it. Mind you it was dropped anyway. I couldn’t persuade the Zens to come back after Asmodeus. Spike was in hospital for months. You were the only one who could get through to her. You brought her back to life. Guess that’s why you and her . . .’

  ‘I see. But Crawford let you be Dean again. Why?’

  ‘Just wanted me to write. And I do. But no-one will publish. And who’s going to buy my books? I think I’ll chuck it all in.’

  ‘No,’ said Rex. ‘Don’t do that. Don’t even think of doing that.’

  ‘You did read my stuff, didn’t you? In the future, I mean.’

  ‘My Uncle Tony read it to me. A great reader the uncle. A great man. He gave me The Book. But he gave me a lot more. More to be used here.’

  ‘Obscure as ever. The Book, my books. I wish I knew what you were about.’

  ‘You know what I’m talking about, Jack. Books, words on the page. When you hear music, after it’s over, it’s gone into the air. You can never capture it again. Someone once said that.’

  ‘Eric Dolphy,’ said Jack.

  ‘Yes, him. And images on the screen. But the words on the page, they live as long as there’s someone alive to read them.’

  ‘You can’t be drunk already. You’ve only had two drinks.’