Pooley thought that it possibly could, and Pooley was absolutely right.
13
Ahead the red light glowed evilly and the spectral figures moved into its aura to become cardboard silhouettes.
Pooley and Omally lurched along to the rear of the strange brigade as silently as their inebriate blunderings would allow. None of the queer horde turned a head, although the sounds of their pursuers, as they stumbled amongst corrugated plot dividers and galvanized watering cans, rang loudly across the silent allotments. As the stark figures neared the light they fell into line and strode through the doorway of Soap Distant’s hut like so many clockwork soldiers.
When the last of them had entered, the light grew to a blinding intensity then dimmed away to nothingness. ‘There,’ said Pooley, faltering in his footsteps, ‘a trick of the light, nothing more, probably landing lights on a Jumbo or some such. Off to our beds now then, eh?’
Omally prodded him in the loins with the rake he had wisely appropriated in the interests of self-preservation.
‘Onward, Pooley,’ he ordered. ‘We will get to the bottom of this.’
His words, as it happened, could not have been more poorly chosen, but Omally, of course, was not to know that at this time. The two men neared Soap’s hut and peered through the open doorway. There was nothing to be seen but sheer, unutterable, unfathomable darkness.
‘Lighter,’ Omally commanded. Pooley brought out his aged Zippo and sucked at the wick. Omally snatched at the well-worn smoker’s friend and as the flame bravely illuminated the hut’s interior the two men gave forth with twin whistles of dismay.
The shed was empty: four corrugated walls, a ceiling of slatted asbestos and a concrete floor.
John Omally groaned. Pooley shook his head in wonder. ‘These council lads certainly leave the great Houdini with egg on his chin/ he said respectfully. ‘How do you suppose they do it?’
‘I utterly refuse to believe this,’ said Omally, holding the lighter aloft and stepping boldly through the doorway. ‘There is no conceivable way they could all have . . . ‘
He never actually finished the sentence. Pooley’s lighter was suddenly extinguished and Omally’s words were swallowed up as if sucked into some great and terrible vacuum.
‘John?’ Pooley found himself alone in the darkness. ‘John, this is not funny.’ His voice echoed hollowly in the sinister hut.
‘Oh dear me,’ said Jim Pooley.
The moon slowly withdrew itself from its cloudy lair and shone a broad beam of light through the open doorway. The tiny hut was empty. John Omally had simply ceased to exist. Jim snatched up Omally’s discarded rake, prodding ahead of him as he gingerly moved forward. The moon was still shining brightly and now, along the nearby rooftops, the thin red line of dawn was spreading.
‘Oh!’ The tip of Pooley’s protruding rake had of a sudden become strangely fuzzy and ill-defined. Another step forward and Pooley noted to his utter stupefaction that it had vanished altogether into empty air. He withdrew it hastily and ran his finger along its length; it was intact. Jim looked at the rake and then at the empty shed before him, he scratched at his head and then at his chin, he weighed the thing up and tried to make some sense of it.
The shed was obviously not what it at first appeared. An ingenious camouflage indeed. But to camouflage what, and, most importantly, where was John? Obviously somewhere behind the simulated reality of the empty shed lurked another something, and obviously it was a thoroughly unwholesome something which boded ill for unwary golfers.
Pooley approached the doorway once more, and thrust the rake in up to the hilt. He waggled it about and swished it to and fro; it met with no apparent resistance. Jim pulled out the rake and stood a moment re-scratching his head. It really was a very clever thing indeed. Possibly that was how these council lads had eluded them before. Probably the one in the Swan’s bog had switched on some sort of 3-D projector, whipped up a holographic image of an empty cubicle and sat down on the seat for a good sneer whilst Omally got foamy about the jaws.
They were probably standing there in the shed even now doing the same.
Pooley took a step backwards. He’d show the buggers! Wielding the rake in as menacing a manner as he could, he took a deep if drunken breath and rushed at the image. ‘Ooooooooooh,’ went Jim Pooley as the concrete floor of the shed dissolved beneath his feet and he plunged down into the perpetual darkness of the now legendary bottomless pit.
How far Jim fell, and how long his plummet into the nether regions of the great beneath actually took, must remain for ever a matter for conjecture. That his life had plenty of time to flash before his eyes was of little consolation, although it did give an occasion for him to recall that during it he had consumed a very great deal of alcohol. Also, that should he survive this, he had every intention of consuming a great deal more.
Finally, however, after what had been up until then a relatively uneventful if windy fall to oblivion, Pooley’s descending form made a painful and quite unexpected contact with a body of ice-cold and seemingly unfathomable water.
‘Ow . . , ooh!’ wailed that unhappiest of men. ‘Ow . . . ooh and glug.’ Pooley surfaced after several desperate and drowning moments, mouthed several very timely and well-expressed obscenities and sank once more into the subterranean depths.
‘I forgive all,’ he vowed as his head bobbed aloft for a second time. Possibly Jim would have survived for a goodly while bobbing up and down in this fashion. It is more likely, however, that he would have breathed his last as he went down for that famous old third time, had help not arrived from a most unexpected quarter.
‘Climb aboard, Jim,’ said a voice which struck a strange chord in Pooley’s rapidly numbing brain. Jim squinted up from his watery grave to realize for the first time that he was no longer in darkness. Above him he could see the cowled head and shoulders of a man, leaning from what appeared to be a coracle of skin and bark, extending a rugged-looking oar. Without hesitation Pooley clutched at the thing and was unceremoniously hauled aboard. Huddled low in one end of the curious craft lay John Omally, swathed in blankets.
‘Nice of you to drop in,’ said the Irishman with the rattling teeth. Pooley made some attempts to wring out his tweed lapels, but soon gave up and resigned himself to death by pneumonia.
‘Where are we?’ he asked, peering about him.
A wan light emanating from some luminescent substance within the very rocks, which swept dome-like and dizzying high above them, illuminated a monstrous cavern. The black waters of the subterranean lake spread away in every direction, losing themselves into a great vastness of absolutely nothing.
It all looked a little worrying.
Jim shuddered, and not from the icy cold which now knotted his every muscle. It was the sheer mind-stunning hugeness of the place, and the fact that it actually existed somewhere deep beneath the roads where he daily set his feet. And those waters, what might lurk in them? It didn’t bear thinking about. Jim turned to his saviour.
‘You have my thanks, sir,’ said he, ‘but tell me . . . ‘ His words trailed off as the dark figure turned from the oar he had been carefully slotting into its rowlock and confronted the dripping Brentonian. ‘Soap?’ said Jim. ‘Soap, is that you?’
The boatman slipped back the cowl which covered his head and grinned wolfishly, ‘Have I changed so much then, Pooley?’ he asked.
Jim surveyed the darkly-clad figure, whose black robes threw the deathlike pallor of his face into ghastly contrast. His hair was peroxide blond and his eyebrows and lashes naught but snowy bristles. Soap was as white as the proverbial sheet. Pooley recalled the ruddy-faced Hollow Earth theorist with the sparkling green eyes who had regaled them with talk of Rigdenjyepo and the denizens of the world beneath. He also recalled only too well that terrible night when Soap had invited him and Omally down into a fantastic tunnel system beneath his house to witness the opening of what Soap believed to be the Portal to Inner Earth.
Pooley and Omally
had made a rapid exit from the workings, but Soap had gone through with the thing and opened what turned out to be the stopcocks of the old flood sluices of Brentford Docks. An entire stretch of Grand Union Canal had drained forthwith into Soap’s diggings and that had been the last Brentford had seen of the Hollow Earther.
Pooley stared at Soap in disbelief. ‘You do appear slightly altered in your appearance,’ he said carefully, as he gazed into the latter’s eyes, now pink as an albino’s, and slightly luminous.
‘Five years below can alter any man,’ said Soap, readjusting his cowl. ‘I have seen things down here that would stagger the senses of the strongest man. I have seen sights which would drive the sanity from your head quicker than shite off a shovel.’
Pooley now also recalled that he and Omally had always been of the opinion that Soap was a dangerous lunatic.
‘Yes,’ said Jim, ‘indeed, ah well then, again my thanks for the old life-saving and now if you would kindly show us the way out of here. I feel that it must be nearing my breakfast time.’
Omally piped up with, ‘I have pork in the press if you’d care to come topside with us, Soap me old mate.’
The hooded figure said no more, but sat carefully down and applied himself to the oars. The curious little craft, with its extraordinary crew, slowly edged its way across the pitch-black waters. How Soap could have any idea of which way he was travelling seemed totally beyond conjecture. Hours may have passed, or merely minutes; time did not seem to apply here. Pooley’s Piaget wristwatch had now ceased its ticking for good and all and maintained a sullen rusting silence. The high dome of rocks seemed unchanging and Omally wondered on occasions whether they were actually moving at all. Presently, however, a thin line of white appeared upon the horizon.
‘Land ho,’ said Soap, grinning at his marrow-chilled passengers.
‘Would there be any chance of light at the end of the long dark tunnel?’ Pooley asked. ‘Such as nutrition, or possibly the warming quaff of ale or lick of spirits?’
Soap tapped at his nose in a manner which the two remembered only too well. ‘You will be well cared for, you have been long expected.’ Upon that doubtful note he withdrew once more into silence and rowed on towards land.
The island, for such it now showed itself to be, was a strange enough place by any reckoning. As Soap beached the craft and ushered the two ashore, Pooley viewed the place with the gravest misgivings. There was a dreadful prehistoric gloom about it; if the black waters were bad enough, this was somehow worse.
The island was a long, rough crescent, covered for the most part with enormous stalagmites. These gave it the appearance of the half-submerged jawbone of some long-dead behemoth. Pooley felt instinctively that to set foot on such a thing was direly wrong and his thoughts were shared by Omally. Yet both were wet, cold, hungry, and demoralized, and with little complaint they numbly followed Soap along the bone-white beach to a craggy outcropping which seemed the highest point of the bleak landfall.
‘Would you kindly turn your backs a moment?’ Soap asked politely. Pooley eyed his colleague and the blue-faced Irishman shrugged in his blanket shawl. Soap was but a moment in performing whatever action he had in mind, and when the two turned back, a great doorway yawned in the faceless rock revealing a comfortable-looking room of extraordinary size.
‘Step inside quickly now, please. I have no wish to expose the entrance any longer than need be. There are eyes everywhere, even here.’
Pooley shook his head in redoubled wonder and the two men scuttled inside, followed by their amiable if enigmatic host. The door swung shut, predictably leaving no trace whatsoever of its existence.
‘Now,’ said Soap, ‘cup of tea, is it?’
A thin smile flickered momentarily upon Omally’s arctic boat-race, ‘Only Soap Distant could offer a cup of tea at the Earth’s core.’
‘There have been others,’ said Soap, indicating the letters A.S. which were scratched into the stonework of one of the walls. ‘But that is another story entirely.’
Pooley cast his eyes about the room. It had all the makings of the average Brentford front sitter: the moquette three-piece, the nylon carpet, the occasional table whose occasion was yet to come, the fitted bookshelves and the television set. But for the hewn rock walls and the obvious lack of windows one might have been fooled into believing that all was suburban mundaneness.
‘Surely reception hereabouts must be a little ropey?’ said Jim, indicating the television.
‘Kept purely through nostalgia for my former existence,’ said Soap. ‘Now, my suggestion of a nice hot cuppa is eliciting very little in the way of positive response. I have some fine Riesling in my cellar, or perhaps some Bordeaux red? Shall I open a case or two?’
‘That would be the thing,’ said Pooley, with some enthusiasm, ‘events have sorely taxed us of late.’
Soap Distant vanished from the room, away down a flight of hewn rock steps which had escaped previous mention.
Pooley and Omally sat a moment in silence before the great man of Eire gave voice. ‘If I might say so, Jim,’ John ventured, ‘your suggestion of having it away to our cosy beds and starting afresh on the morrow was one which I really should have picked up on before it went out of fashion.’
‘I blame nobody,’ said the noble Jim, ‘but would sincerely ask what in the name of all the holies we are doing in this godforsaken place and how we might facilitate our escape?’
Soap appeared from the cellar, cradling several bottles of wine in his arms. ‘The day is yet saved,’ he said, beaming hideously. ‘The cellar brims with vintage vino of all varieties. I have brought up a selection.’
Omally, who was certain that the day was very far from being saved, rubbed his hands thoughtfully together. ‘Why are we here, Soap?’ he asked.
‘Well now, that is a question and no mistake,’ the other replied. ‘Some incline towards the theory of a divine creator with reasons of his own for doing things. Others favour the theory of natural selection or hint that we are nothing more than an accident of DNA. I myself have a rather more radical theory.’
‘No doubt,’ said John sourly, ‘but you know perfectly well that is not what I meant. Why are we, that is Pooley and myself, here, that is, sitting upon this ghastly settee, slowly but surely freezing to death?’
Soap popped the corks from two of the bottles and handed them one apiece to his guests. ‘In words of one syllable,’ said Soap, ‘you are in big schtuck. I think that you might do well to take a sup or two before I fill you in on the details.’
The two sub-zero golfers did not need telling twice, and in a matter of seconds two bottles of vintage Rhine wine had vanished away into the nether regions of two stomachs. ‘The floor would seem to be yours,’ said Jim wiping his chin. ‘Is there any more of this?’
Soap handed over two more bottles and positioned himself in a dignified pose against the stucco fireplace.
‘As you will remember,’ he said, ‘I have spoken to you many times in the past about the family Distant’s conviction that an entire world exists here, beneath the Earth’s surface, and that it is peopled by super-beings, benign and benevolent, who would bestow the great wealth of their knowledge upon the man from above who came in peace to speak with them.’ John and Jim nodded thoughtfully. ‘Well, I was wrong.’
‘Tough luck,’ said Omally. ‘Say la vee as the French say.’
‘Are you certain?’ Pooley asked. Soap had always spoken with such conviction that even though Jim considered him to be three-halfpence short of a shilling, he had half-romantically wondered whether his tales might be true.
‘I am indeed certain,’ said Soap. ‘It is the exact opposite. There are dwellers beneath, but far from being benign and benevolent they are foul and evil and intent upon one thing only: to leave this world of darkness and conquer the sun-soaked realm above.’ Soap’s pink eyes travelled upwards and John and Jim’s followed them.
‘Now, now,’ said Omally. ‘I cannot believe all this. Surel
y if it were so, these fellows would have emerged years ago. They could surely have dug their way out. How did they come to be here in the first place?’
‘Ah,’ said Soap, giving his nose an annoyingly significant tap. ‘That is a tale indeed, and if you have time I will tell it.’
‘It would seem,’ said John, ‘that unless you feel so inclined as to lead us skywards, then we have all the time in the world.’
‘Certainly you are a captive audience, but I must impress upon you that this is a very important business, and that your help is sorely needed. I have no wish to return to the surface, my world is here. But neither do I have the wish to see mankind destroyed by these beings, or worse still, driven here to plague me.’
John took off one of his boots and emptied the contents into a nearby aspidistra pot. ‘Go on then,’ he said, ‘let’s hear it.’
Soap withdrew a shining disc from an inner pocket and held it towards his guests. ‘You recognize this, no doubt?’
Pooley peered at it and nodded. ‘The symbol is the same as those on the allotment. You wouldn’t happen to know what it means, by any chance?’
‘I would, and so would Professor Slocombe.’
‘Well, he certainly didn’t feel fit to confide in us. “C” the fifth of the ten was all we got for it.’
‘I was in the room when he told you,’ said Soap. ‘The Professor and I have known about the symbols and the plans of the Cereans for some time. We agreed that we should enlist help to assist with their destruction. Men of enterprise, we agreed, men of sterling stuff, good men and true, hearts of oak, valorous men with big-’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Omally, ‘naturally you thought of us.’
‘Actually no,’ said Soap, ‘we had hoped that Small Dave might be passing, but as you turned up . . . ‘
‘Thanks a lot,’ said Omally.
‘I nearly drowned,’ said Jim.
‘Just my little joke,’ said Soap, smiling sweetly. ‘The Professor said that you two were his first choice.’