by Scott Innes
The two Terrors landed on the floor of the cave, the battle – and their revenge for their own losses – almost complete. There was only me, Gillian, Barrington12, a broken Akplatak and Gerry, still sitting there in his weird daze, the prat. And, of course, there was poor Rodway, who had suffered more than enough already at the hands of these awful creatures. We were here to take away their dinner and that simply would not stand. I briefly considered trying to reason with them, to point out that there were several dead Watlaq all around us that would make for a nutritious, if stringy meal that would last them for weeks. But, like trying to reason with Joey Barton when he insisted the JFK assassination was an inside job despite the footage of the incident clearly taking place outside, I knew it would be pointless.
‘Well,’ I said, deflated, ‘we came so close. It’s even more of a sickener this way. But I’m proud of what we did here. You should all be too.’
I looked at Gillian, but she didn’t respond; she was still casting about looking for some kind of escape route. But short of flinging ourselves to our deaths, there was to be no getting away from these winged monstrosities. I glanced at Rodway, still out for the count, his mangled body lying limp in Barrington12’s arms.
‘I’m sorry, son,’ I said. ‘At least you won’t have to die here on your own.’
I sighed and stared at the two Winged Terrors now advancing into the cave. One (the guy Gillian had stabbed with the spear) advanced towards us, the other closed in on the now barely conscious Akplatak and the off-his-tits-on-something Gerry. I never even had the chance to say a proper goodbye to him, which was heartbreaking. Still. This would all be over very soon.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and waited for the end. It came mere moments later – but not in a way any of us could have anticipated.
Even with my eyes firmly shut, I could feel the cave being filled with a brilliant white light – it was a pleasantly warm sensation, like a summer’s day in the shade, or my seat in the dugout after my old assistant, Terry Mac, had dutifully sat in it for ten minutes pre-kickoff to heat it up for me. I inched my eyes open, with a hand in front of my face to shield myself from the blinding glow. Where on earth was it coming from? But then I realised.
It was coming from Gerry.
He was standing rigid as though he’d been stuffed – he had excellent posture, which was unusual for Gerry. He was staring at the Winged Terror, who had already shrunk back in fear. Akplatak was watching Gerry with adoration, his mouth wide open. From Gerry’s eyes, mouth, fingertips and the ends of each mulleted hair shone beams of pure white light, illuminating the entire cave. There was a peculiar ethereal hum which seemed to come both from Gerry and from the very air around us all at once. The other Winged Terror, which had been coming for me and Gillian, was now backing away against the wall. Both of them seemed too astonished to even take flight.
‘SOMETHING STRANGE IS HAPPENING HERE,’ Barrington12 remarked from behind me.
‘Maybe it’s just his hay fever playing up,’ I whispered, though of course I didn’t believe it.
This was… what was this? The hum grew louder; Gillian had her hands over her ears. I was pleased that whatever David Blaine-esque trick Gerry was doing had so far succeeded in putting the frighteners up the Winged Terrors but he was going to hurt somebody if he wasn’t careful. As usual, I’d have to step in.
‘Gerry, lad…’ I said calmly, stepping over to him. ‘That’s enough now.’ I put a hand on his shoulder and flew back against the wall like I’d been given an electric shock. I shook my head to try and clear the fug – for a moment I feared I’d gone blind but a few heavy blinks brought everything back into sharp focus. Gillian was beside me, her palm on my forehead.
‘You’re boiling hot,’ she said in a worried voice. ‘What is happening here?’
‘God knows,’ I said over the ever-increasing buzz. ‘It’s like it’s not even Gerry standing there. It’s like it’s—’
‘Slasabo-tik,’ Gerry said in a bizarre, deep booming voice nothing like his own. ‘I have returned. The prophecy must be fulfilled as the Heavens have willed it. Stand and be true.’
‘Who’s that meant to be an impression of?’ I asked Gillian, frowning. ‘Brian Blessed or something?’
‘The day approaches fast,’ Gerry said, and then he paused. ‘But it is not today.’
With a loud smacking sound, a surge of powerful light emanated from Gerry. Gillian and I were thrown back against the wall, winding us both. Nearby, I heard a clanking sound as Barrington12 too was forced back, toppling over and no doubt spilling the unfortunate Rodway to the floor. Then, like a blown light bulb, the cave fell back into the natural semi-darkness of before. I staggered to my feet and helped Gillian rise.
‘Oh my god,’ she said, which just about summed it up. The Winged Terrors were no more – their silhouettes were burned into the walls of the cave, a two-dimensional black-scarred memorial to their existence, frozen for all time in fearful poses, their clawed hands covering their frightened faces. Gerry stood there where he’d been before, but he was now looking around in bemusement, scratching his head like he’d just woken up from a vivid dream. Most astonishingly of all, Akplatak stood up slowly and touched his shoulder and chest, where a combination of a Winged Terror’s talon and my own dodgy throwing arm had combined to damn near end his life. Now his skin was smooth and undamaged; there was no scar tissue or even any blood. It was as though nothing had happened. Those who had fallen in battle sadly remained that way, but Akplatak, the sole survivor, had been completely healed. By Gerry bloody Francis.
‘Gerry,’ I said eventually. ‘What in blazes did you just do?’
‘What do you mean?’ he asked fearfully. ‘I didn’t do anything!’
‘Slasabo-tik!’ cried Akplatak, falling to his knees and bowing over and over again to Gerry.
‘You vaporised those Winged Terrors,’ Gillian said in a thin voice.
‘What are you both on about?’ Gerry asked, his face flushing red. ‘That’s not true. I just… I guess I nodded off for a second or something, I don’t know, and then I woke up and everything was fine. I didn’t do a thing.’
Whether he was trying to convince us or himself was up for debate.
‘Gaffer…?’ came a voice from behind me. I whipped round – I’d forgotten all about poor Rodway and his horrific injuries. But to my amazement, these too had been miraculously cured: his scars and wounds had vanished and his sickeningly broken leg looked as good as new. Aside from his soiled and damaged clothes, he looked the picture of health.
‘My word…’ I whispered. ‘This cannot be…’
‘Can we go home now, gaffer?’ Rodway asked. ‘I don’t want to stay here a moment longer.’
I smiled a tired smile.
‘That might just be the best idea I’ve ever heard,’ I said.
And I really meant it.
VICTORIOUS DEFEAT
The walk home from Great Strombago was a sombre one. I hadn’t experienced an atmosphere like it since the collapse of my campaign to change the national anthem when I was England manager. I remember when I got my OBE in 1982, I was absolutely made up. I said to Liz, ‘I hate to gush but honestly, “Bohemian Rhapsody” changed my life. It’s your masterpiece.’ She didn’t reply, which is testament to her humility.
Anyway, despite my enthusiasm for the Royals, I find the national anthem an absolute dirge. It just drones on and leaves you feeling completely cold by the end. With England, I used to encourage my lads to sing whatever they liked when we lined up before a match. I’d often belt out ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ by Bonnie Tyler just to get the blood pumping. In any case, before Euro 2000 I lobbied the FA to pull some strings and sort out a replacement. Personally, I advocated ‘Summer of ’69’ by Bryan Adams but I was flexible. To help speed up the process, I drew up a whole list of potential tunes with the intention of holding some kind of national public vote – and it wasn’t just personal favourites of mine, like ‘Deeply Dippy�
�� or ‘Pipes of Peace’, I also threw in a few modern numbers for the youngsters out there so that they wouldn’t feel they were being dictated to by old fogeys like me. There was stuff like ‘Ooh Aah… Just a Little Bit’ by Gina G, ‘Scatman’ by Scatman John and ‘Mambo No. 5’ by Lou Bega (which, I don’t care how old you are, is just an absolute treat for the ears). And to placate the posher crowd, the old-school Radio 3 demographic for whom I have the utmost respect, I threw in a few classical options too, like ‘Orinoco Flow’ and the theme music from the ITV series Sharpe. The FA were having none of it but my boys were supportive and some of them even helped me make a case in the boardroom.
‘God won’t save the Queen,’ Martin Keown told them darkly. ‘She’ll die one day, just like everybody else.’
I said, ‘All right, son, let’s dial it back a bit.’ I do like Martin, but he’s a bit of an odd bod. He has the unsettling gaze of a man whose Sky box is chock-full of documentaries about serial killers and nothing else.
In the end, the FA told me that I ought to be focusing on matters on the pitch and not being distracted by ‘trivial nonsense’ before a major international tournament. I felt sickened at hearing the importance of our national song downplayed and belittled by a load of out-of-touch grey-faced men in suits but, at the end of the day, they were calling the shots. With regret, I abandoned my campaign and concentrated just on the football, and we went on to have a fantastic tournament. But the frustration I felt at such short-sighted, pig-headed leadership left me at a low ebb.
That had been nothing compared to the walk back through the marshland after the massacre at Great Strombago. We all felt battered, exhausted and, in a peculiar way, defeated. The mission had, on the face of things, been a complete success: we had navigated the wilds of Palangonia, perhaps further than any outsider had for centuries and certainly more extensively than any human beings in history. We had retrieved Rodway and were bringing him home. And yet… there was no elation. No feeling of achievement, of a job well done. The Watlaq had endured horrendous losses, much like Billy Davies’ Derby County side when they were in the Premier League. Akplatak was a shell of a man, his spirit and verve all gone as he trudged silently through the bog alongside Gerry. He had taken his soldiers, brave men and women all, into battle to protect their Mullet God, and in the end he was the only one to make it out alive, returning to break the awful news to those of his people who had remained at home.
But the way that Akplatak stuck close to Gerry on the walk back confirmed for me that, despite it all, he wouldn’t ultimately see this as a terrible or ill-judged decision. The casualties had been enormous and unexpected, yes, but the cause was true and the sole objective – keeping Slasabo-tik alive – had been fulfilled. And Gerry’s display of… whatever the hell that was, would only serve to confirm for him the power which his god truly held.
That part was a source of enormous unease to me. I had no explanation for what had happened back there and Gerry himself refused to talk about it. It was clear that he had no memory whatsoever of the event and, by extension, no way of explaining it. But it had happened – it had been no trick, no illusion. Before our very eyes, Gerry had gone into a trance, begun speaking of the prophecy and had destroyed the Winged Terrors and healed the sick in a burst of blinding light. I’m sorry, but that’s not the Gerry Francis I know – a man who believes that Hamlet is about a pig that thinks it’s a sheepdog.
And as for Gerry… I hadn’t seen him look so grey-faced and depressed since he finished reading David James’ self-published Robinson Crusoe erotic novel, Friday, I’m In Love. It was hardly surprising that he should look such a state after what he’d just been through, but nevertheless, I was privately a little worried. He was quiet, withdrawn, not like himself at all. I was going to have to keep a close eye on him.
‘We need to talk about what happened back there,’ Gillian said to me in a low voice as we left the marshes behind and headed back into the forest. It was pitch black and gone midnight, but none of us wanted to make camp for the night. We were weary but somehow, collectively, felt we had to carry on. We were relying on the distant pale glow of Palangonia’s triple moons – Barrington12, having not been charged since we left the Compound, had been forced to close down all non-essential processes one by one as we walked, and this included his ‘night mode’ shoulder bulbs. His walking became more measured and he spoke little. It was a bonus that Rodway had been completely healed, because I doubted then that Barrington12 would have been able to carry him all the way back without his battery running flat. And I certainly couldn’t carry the lad – not with my back.
‘What is there to say?’ I asked. ‘Gerry doesn’t want to talk about it. He was sulking all the way back down Great Strombago; as far as he’s concerned, it didn’t even happen.’
I sighed and picked at a dead twig from one of the trees as we passed.
‘It’s daft, this,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Are we really meant to… I mean, I intend no disrespect to Gerry, but… can he really, actually be some kind of supernatural being? Him, of all people? What does Gerry have – apart from a mullet, obviously – that makes him the Mullet God?’
Gillian looked away into the distance as she considered this.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘You know him best. You tell me.’
I’d never really thought about it before. Was he so special? Gerry was loyal, kind, entirely free of cynicism, an optimist. Then suddenly I recalled Barrington12’s translation of the Watlaq as they explained the prophecy to us: ‘SLASABO-TIK IS KINDNESS, HOPE, POSITIVITY; ALL THE FINEST ATTRIBUTES THE DENIZENS OF THIS GALAXY CAN STRIVE FOR. HE IS THE BEST OF ALL OF US. HE EMBODIES THAT WHICH WE SHOULD BE.’
That was certainly Gerry. I just hadn’t realised it could also be so much more than that. That it could actually be a god with the ability to save the galaxy from complete annihilation. I mean, I’d heard people talk about ‘the power of positive thinking’ but this was in a different league altogether.
‘I’d be just as dubious myself,’ I agreed. ‘Except we saw it, Gillian. Something very, very strange is afoot here. I honestly don’t know what happens next.’
‘According to what Akplatak told us of the prophecy,’ Gillian went on, ‘Slasabo-tik would return when the galaxy was at its darkest moment and save us all. If that’s true…’
I said nothing, walking on into the night in silence. It wasn’t that part of the stupid prophecy that was bothering me. It was the last part. Akplatak said that, in order to save the galaxy, the Mullet God would eventually have to sacrifice his own life.
That was not going to happen. Not on my watch.
*
Early the following morning, after a restless night’s sleep under the eaves of the forest, we packed up our belongings and prepared for the home stretch. Akplatak approached me – he looked old and so very tired in the white dawn light. Despite the healing effects of the Mullet God, the expedition to Great Strombago looked to have added years to him. He spoke to us, Gerry standing solemnly by his side. Barrington12, whose voice was slower and more deliberate in its delivery now, translated.
‘HE WISHES TO ACCOMPANY US AS FAR AS THE TUNNEL ENTRANCE,’ he explained. ‘HE WOULD SEE SLASABO-TIK SAFELY ESCORTED TO HIS NEXT DESTINATION AS HE JOURNEYS ON TO PROPHECY’S END.’
‘Right you are then,’ I said. I felt oddly comforted having Akkie come with us – and, selfishly, the more we put off the parting of the ways, the further away the crippling guilt of what we had done to his people would remain.
Rodway, who was more energised than all of us after being healed by Gerry, heaved open the grille leading back into the tunnel. It felt like an eternity since we had clambered out of there into the fresh air of the Palangonian wilderness. Now, at last, we were going home.
‘Who knows, maybe they’ll have caught the spy while we were out here,’ Gerry suggested optimistically. ‘We could have the club back up and running within a week. Think of that, Kev.’
I
couldn’t. Not then. All I could think of was saying goodbye to Akkie, a man who had given literally everything he had in his life to help us. Or to help his Mullet God, anyway. I put a hand on his shoulder before we descended into the darkness of the tunnel and took him to one side. Had I tried this the day before, I had little doubt that he would have tried to stab me in the neck but now he obliged without complaint. I signalled to Barrington12 to join us.
‘I want you to tell the lad what I’m saying,’ I told him. ‘This is important.’
‘O… KAY… KEV… IN… KEEEEEEEGAN…’ Barrington12 replied. His batteries were really running on air now – I didn’t have time to faff about. But, to my surprise, Akplatak spoke first. Infuriatingly slowly, the robot relayed his words to me.
‘SLASABO-TIK IS THE MOST PRECIOUS THING IN THE GALAXY,’ he said in a grave voice, far removed from his animated and enthusiastic relaying of the prophecy when we had first arrived. ‘I ENTRUST HIM TO YOU FOR NOW, BUT YOU MUST DO ALL YOU CAN TO KEEP HIM SAFE.’
I was stunned – I’d agreed with Gillian when she’d observed that the Watlaq would not countenance letting Gerry go. And yet here stood their leader, doing just that, for the greater good. I looked at Akkie with a level of respect beyond any I had felt for any human (save perhaps Al Shearer, but then that kid is just on another level). I wasn’t at all convinced that I could do what Akkie was now doing had our roles been reversed.
‘WITHOUT HIM, THE STARS WILL FALL AND DARKNESS WILL REIGN FOR ALL THE TIME LEFT TO COME. IF SLASABO-TIK IS LOST, SO ARE WE ALL. HE WILL DIE TO COMPLETE THE PROPHECY. HE MUST. IT IS TOLD AND YOU CANNOT STAND IN HIS WAY. A DAY WILL COME, AND SOON, WHEN YOU MUST CHOOSE BETWEEN YOUR FRIEND’S LIFE… AND THE ENTIRE GALAXY.’
