Billy shook his head.
‘Where’s that flyer I sent you?’
‘Flyer?’
‘It came with the pleaser. In the package that led you to Brentford. I know you still carry it with you as a keepsake.’
‘This?’ Billy produced a sheet of crumpled paper from his pocket.
‘Read it out again, Billy.’
And Billy read it out.
‘Surfing the web?
Anyone can do that! Why not
Try something really radical?
Access the dear departed by body-boarding the
Necronet.
Never has it been more
Easy. All you have to do is
Enter the Soul
Database, by taking a left-hand turn off the Information
Superhighway and
You’re there. In the Land
Of the Virtual Dead.
U know it makes sense’
‘It says it all, Billy, doesn’t it? The soul database, all those millions of souls, no more heaven, no more hell, but endless paradise in cyberspace. Wish fulfilment, fantasy fulfilment. The virtual dead, happy in their virtual wonderland.’
‘It says more than that,’ said Billy.
‘What, the acrostic? I couldn’t resist it, Billy, it made me laugh.’
‘The acrostic, yes. I spotted it right away. Read the first letters down and you have SATAN NEEDS YOU. A bit of a giveaway, perhaps.’
‘Just my little joke. Something for the heavy metal fans.’
‘Tell me, I need to know.’
‘Who I am? What I am? Am I a man? Am I a god? Are you dreaming me or am I dreaming you?’
‘You’re not a god,’ said Billy. ‘But—’
‘I might be the Devil? Satan? The Anti-Christ? Well, I might be. But if science is the new religion, Billy, then surely I am its god.’
‘God,’ I said. ‘It’s dark in here. No chance of a light, I suppose?’ I felt my way along. It was black. Black as night. Black as the grave. Black as death?
Death was the ultimate horror, surely?
The walls were smooth, featureless. I had no idea how far I’d come or how far I had to go. How far can a man walk into a mountain? Perhaps the cave just went on and on and on. Like that Möbius strip of a town surrounding the virtual hospital. No matter how far you went, you never went anywhere. Was that an ultimate horror? Worse than death?
Or was it madness? Or isolation? Or just being lost?
Or was it to be powerless? Utterly powerless.
Utterly without control.
While something dreadful happened.
And you couldn’t do a thing to stop it.
The elevation of Billy Barnes to the exalted position of World Leader was timed to coincide with the millennial celebrations. The plain people of Brentford watched it on TV. They’d had their celebrations a couple of years earlier to avoid the rush, and were looking forward to a period of peace and love and a night in with the telly.
The fireworks and the motor cavalcades, the speeches and the swearing in, the fly-pasts, and the raising of the one-world flag with its Necrosoft logo, all made for an exciting watch. But not that exciting.
The camera panned over the hundreds that lined the route of the motor cavalcade. And it was hundreds now, not thousands. The population of America had been almost halved. As had that of the rest of the world.
Not so that of Brentford, however. The Brentford populace had little truck with computers and Necronets. They’d seen all this kind of stuff before, so they were just keeping their heads down in the hope that it would all blow over and not involve them personally. As it had so often in the past.
Uncle Brian watched the celebrations on TV.
‘Billy Barnes,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I wonder if that’s the same Billy Barnes the ancient mariner in my dream told me to warn my young nephew about. And come to think of it, what ever did happen to my nephew?’
I stumbled out of the Cave of Ultimate Horrors into a world of bright whiteness. I stopped and I blinked and I took off my bowler hat and scratched at my head. Had I missed something, or what?
I had gone into the right Cave of Ultimate Horrors, hadn’t I? I hadn’t perhaps gone into the “Cave of Very Little Horror at all, but Just a Bit of Dark and Dank”, by mistake?
I shrugged. And then it struck me that while I’d been wandering about in there, something really dreadful might have happened. Something I might have prevented, but had been utterly powerless to do so.
‘Phew,’ I said. ‘What an ultimate horror that would be. Let’s trust that it isn’t the case.’ And then I rubbed my hands together. ‘So,’ I continued cheerfully, ‘where’s this Land of Screaming Skulls, then? Oh, burger me backwards!’
And I beheld Golgotha. Which is
the place of the skull. And I beheld
the multitude there. They that had
lived and now were dead. And they
cried unto me, saying woe unto
thee that hath deserted us.
Before me a plain of white beneath a sky of likewise hueless hue. And on that plain were human skulls. They clothed the earth and filled the sky. An endless, endless, endless multitude. And they were not still, these dust-dry bones, these husks of men, they were not still. They murmured and they moaned. They gnashed their teeth and ground their jaws. They howled towards the heavens, screaming out for justice and for life. These bones, these skulls, these angry dead. They screamed and screamed and—
‘Er, excuse me,’ I said, ‘does anyone here know the way to Arkham?’
Two Canny Scotsmen Out with a Kite
Two canny Scotsmen out with a kite,
Out with a kite and a string,
Checking the wind and checking the light,
Saying, ‘I’ll have a wee pull if I might.’
‘Look at the fine wee thing in flight.’
(It makes the Scotsmen sing.)
Two canny Scotsmen out for a drink,
Out for a drink and a chat,
Out if the telly’s gone on the blink,
Saying ‘It’s your round I think.’
‘Look at them washing the pots in the sink.’
(That’s where the Scots are at.)’
Two canny Scotsmen down for the day,
Down for the day and the match,
‘Aye but it’s great to see them play.
‘We always win both home and away.
‘Hoots the noo, that’s what I say.
‘And what do you think you’re looking
at, you Southern sassy-knacker? Take that!’ etc.
21
Killing is the ultimate simplification of life.
HUGH MACDIARMID (1892—1978)
There was some unpleasantness.
A skull called Yorick thought he knew the way to Arkham. Well, not actually he himself, as he’d never been there. But a skull friend of his had a friend who had. I was not able to trace this particular friend, but I did encounter several other skulls who were sure they knew Arkham and had even been there at some time in the past.
Now I pride myself upon my patience, I’m an easy going chap, but I was anxious, very anxious, to get to Arkham and I was not in the mood to be trifled with. And I know that throwing human skulls around is not a politically correct activity, and I know that effing and blinding inside the mind of God is to say the least distasteful. But I was anxious.
And I did, eventually, learn the route to Arkham. It was just as I might have imagined it. A fishing village, snuggled into a bay. An ancient harbour with old-fashioned whaling boats. Steep cobbled streets with gabled cottages leading down to a quayside with an inn called Philthy Phrank’s. As I approached, the rain began to fall.
And it was coming down in buckets by the time I pushed open the rough-hewn oak door and entered the crowded bar. Oak beams and bottle-glass windows, whisky stench and sawdust floor, burnished copper, pewter tankards. A swordfish saw hung over a counter that was constructed from whale’s ribs.
I hung my bowler hat upon a peg, shook raindrops from my shoulders, and grateful for my wellington boots, I squeezed through the crush of seafaring men and made my way to the bar.
Philthy Phrank was just as I might have imagined him to be. Short and surly, evil-smelling, dressed in rags and tatters. He glared at the world through his one good eye and called no man his brother.
‘A pint of Death by Cider,’ I said in a macho kind of a way.
Philthy fixed me with his evil peeper. ‘Show me coin or get ye hence,’ he remarked.
I thought it might be handy to have a pocket full of gold dubloons, so I reached in a hand and fished out a couple.
Philthy Phrank drew me a tankard of gut rot.
‘Cheers,’ I said.
‘Pox,’ said Philthy Phrank.
I squinted about the bar. A grey pall of tobacco smoke cloaked the clientèle. They wore sou’westers and rainproofs, favoured eye patches and timber legs, muttered and mumbled and fidgeted about. In a not too distant corner I spied an ancient mariner.
He was just as I might have imagined him to be.
I eased my way between the mutterers and mumblers and bade him a big how d’ya do. The ancient one raised a gnarled appendage that had once been a hand and gestured to a vacant chair with it. I pulled up the chair and sat right down.
The ancient one gazed at me with glittering eyes, opened a mouth that offered a vacancy for teeth, spat a tobacco-coloured gobbet of phlegm into my lap and spoke a single word.
‘Prat!’
‘Excuse me?’ I said.
‘Prat!’ said the ancient one. ‘You, boy, are a prat.’
I smiled bravely and pondered over the phlegm in my lap.
‘Prat,’ said the ancient one once more. ‘Prat, prat, prat.’
‘Yeah, all right,’ I replied. ‘I get the picture.’
‘What did I tell your Uncle Brian to tell you? Beware of Billy Barnes. I told him. And did you beware, boy? Did you?’
‘Not perhaps as much as I should.’
‘You prat.’
‘Yes well, all right. I think we have established that I’m a prat.’
‘You are a prat. Ask any man here.’ The old boy nodded all about the place, the seafaring types nodded back.
‘We’re only allowed the one.’ The old boy rootled about in his nose. ‘Only the one and I wasted mine on you.’
‘Allowed one what? I don’t understand.’
‘One message from the other side. We’re all allowed one, to aid the living.’
‘Aid the living? You mean you’re—’
‘Dead? Of course I’m frigging dead. Every man Jack here’s a dead’n. Drinking away our time, till the flesh drops off our bones and we end up on the big heap along the road.’
‘What a bummer,’ I said.
The old boy shrugged, his shoulder bones made ghastly cracking sounds. ‘Serves us right,’ he said.
‘That’s very philosophical of you.’
‘Ain’t nothin’ philosophical about it. It’s the way it is and there ain’t no other. Did I mention, by the way, that you’re a prat?’
‘I believe you did, yes.’
‘Well you are. I had such big plans for you, we all did, all of us here. We were all going to use our messages on you. Help you to stop Billy Barnes.’
‘All of you? But why me?’
‘You’d have done. You were searching for him. Over the years we would have advised you in your dreams. And if we had, and you’d listened, the world out there wouldn’t be in the shit state it is now.’
‘Shirt state,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Nothing, it never really worked as a running gag.’
‘Prat.’
‘Well there’s still time,’ I said. ‘I haven’t been in here long, a few months at the most. I can still stop him doing whatever monstrous things he’s doing.’
‘A few months?’ The old boy threw back his head, and took to a bout of cackling laughter. And then he clawed at his head, which had fallen over his shoulders, and rammed it back into position. ‘A few months, boy? You’ve been in the Necronet for ten long years.’
‘I what?’
‘Time ain’t the same in here as it is out there.’
‘Ten years?’ My stomach dropped. I shook and I shivered. ‘Ten years I’ve been in here. I don’t believe it. That can’t be right.’
‘Tis right, boy. It’ll teach you to be a prat, won’t it?’
‘But my body, out there. Am I dead too now?’
‘No, no, no.’ The old boy held onto his head and shook it. ‘He’s still got your body, that Barnes. Keeps it in a suitcase under his bed. You’re still alive, what’s left of you.’
‘Oh no.’ I took to chewing on my fingers. ‘He’s been feeding me to the voodoo handbag. That monster’s been feeding me—’
‘Well, there ain’t quite so much of you as there used to be. But I’m told they can do all kinds of miracle stuff with surgery nowadays. Sew on a new pecker and everything.’
‘Pecker? Oh my God!’
‘Easy, boy. Don’t go all to pieces.’ The old boy set in to further chuckling.
‘Oh my God! What am I going to do? What am I going to do?’
‘Get out of here and best the scumbag. That would be my advice.’
‘But how? But how?’
The old boy sucked at his sunken gums.
‘Don’t spit on me again,’ I told him.
‘I was cogitating, boy.’
‘Oh dear oh dear oh dear.’
‘You should have got here quicker. All that mucking about on the desert island and in Rob’s Bar, what kind of prattery was that?’
‘You knew I was doing those things?’
‘Course I knew. I watched you.’
‘You watched me? And you knew the years were racing by and you did nothing to help me?’
‘I’m not God.’ The old boy bashed at his right ear and plucked a bit of lettuce from his left. ‘You had to find your way to me.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Me? I’m just an old sea captain. Who I am doesn’t matter.’
‘I’ll bet it does.’
‘It don’t! But you, boy. You’re special.’
‘I’m not special.’ I shook my head. ‘I’m just the same as everybody else. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since I’ve been trapped in the Necronet, it’s that everyone is special. Everyone. Each individual matters. We’re all as special as each other. But no-one, no-one has the right to claim that they’re more special than anyone else.’
‘Well, you’ve learned something.’
‘But at what cost?’
‘Don’t give up.’
‘Give up? I’ve been sitting here talking to you for five minutes. For all I know, another six months have passed in the real world and that creature Barnes has fed me into a mincing machine.’
‘Actually, that might well be what he has in mind.’
‘Oh woe is me.’
‘Now just calm yourself. We have to get you out of here and you have to put paid to Barnes.’
‘I certainly do.’
‘Drink up your ale.’
‘What?’
‘Drink your ale. It’ll give you strength.’
‘Good God.’ I drank my ale. ‘Hm,’ I said, ‘good ale. The last time I tasted beer as good as this was—’
‘Don’t even think about it. But listen here. You’ve learned much since you’ve been in here and you can use what you know to defeat Barnes. You must trap him and force the information out of him.’
‘Information?’
‘How to get you back into your body.’
‘Go on.’
‘There’s only one way you can get to Barnes and that’s in his dreams. If you can get yourself into his dreams, you can make him tell you what you need to know.’
‘But I don’t know what he dreams about. The Necronet, the mind of God, it’s endless, infinite. The only people I’ve met
here are the ones I’ve dreamed up myself. Apart from Arthur Thickett and he was dreaming back in the 1960s. What chance do I have of getting into one of Billy Barnes’ dreams?’
‘Not much,’ said the old boy.
‘Thanks a lot.’
‘Just listen to me. Say you knew someone who knew someone who knew Billy Barnes. And you asked that someone to ask the someone they knew to ask Billy Barnes what he dreamed about, then—’
‘Hold it,’ I said. ‘Hold it. Hold it. You are suggesting, I believe, that I engage the help of a friend of a friend.’
‘That’s what all this is all about, ain’t it?’
‘Search me,’ I said.
‘You find out what Billy Barnes dreams about, and the next time he dreams about it, you’re there waiting for him.’
‘And what do I do when I meet up with him in his dream?’
‘Torture the filthy scumbag, would be my advice.’
‘I do like the sound of that. But I do see a slight flaw in all this.’
‘Oh, and what’s that?’
‘I do not know someone who knows someone who knows frigging Billy Barnes!’
‘Yes you do.’
‘No I...what am I saying? Of course I do.’
‘Of course you do,’ said the old boy. ‘Only a matter of applying that digital memory of yours, wasn’t it?’
By the year 2007 books were only a memory. In the great Health Purge of 2001 all printed matter, books, magazines, newspapers, anything that constituted printing on a page, was destroyed. The dwindling population of the world knew it was all for the best. The dangers of viral infection were far too great and the cost of rubber gloves too high.
Necrosoft, now the planet’s single news network, kept the world informed of all that it needed to know: that everything was on the up and things were getting better. Crime was now a thing of the past. Folk never stole, for why should they? They all dressed the same in their Necrowear sports clothes, ate the same burgers at McNecro’s, listened to the top ten tunes on the Necropop channel, and thought what they had learned to think. Babies in their cribs sucked upon their pleasers and just as soon as they could talk they praised the name of Billy Barnes.