Robert Rankin - Retromancer

‘But mere moments later the waggon stopped and the door was unlocked and the waggoner looked into the back of his waggon. And there he saw the two sisters, dirty and dishevelled, with blood all about their faces and all over their hands. And the waggoner gave forth a terrible wail and wept for the loss of his treasure.

‘And there and then he cursed those sisters for eating the sacred flesh of a merperson. And he cursed them with an everlasting hunger that should never be satisfied but by eating one of their own kind. The waggon had stopped high in the mountains and as the waggoner vented his curse a lone wolf howled on the mountainside.

‘And so that curse came to be, that the sisters would live for evermore, tormented always by a hunger that they could only slake once every month. When, with the coming of the full moon, they would take on the awful aspects of that lone wolf and consume human flesh. And so must they do this for ever.’

‘That is quite a story,’ I said. ‘And it has two monsters rather than one. Would you like me to tell you a story about how Mr Rune and I once travelled upon a subterranean ark and also visited the sunken city of Atlantis?’

‘No,’ said Esmerelle. ‘You fail to understand. My story is not just a story. My story is real. Those events really happened.’

‘I suppose it is possible that they might have done,’ I said. ‘I have experienced some very weird occurrences, so I would be prepared to believe such a tale. At a stretch.’

‘It is a true story,’ said Esmerelle. ‘And there is a little more to it than that. The curse was even more horrible in that only one sister is able to eat at each full moon. And the sister who is unable to eat ages overnight to become a wizened, wretched creature. So each sister must nurture the other, if both are to survive. And so the strong one, who remains young, selects a victim for the one who has become old to feast upon. This victim is always a young, fit boy of teenage years and he is dowsed with a pungent unguent to tenderise his flesh and mask his human smell, which makes him easier to eat. And he is fed a last supper of fat bread rolls, well-buttered, great big pie and huge rolly pud. For stuffing, you see. As one might stuff a Christmas turkey. And washed down with a milkshake to add extra vitamins.’

A certain chill had now entered my bones and a certain squeaking sound came also to my ears. Along the deck trundled the wicker bath chair containing the ancient prune-like nanna, still being pushed by the striking gentleman with the amazing mustachios.

The bath chair was drawn level and the nanna stared at me. ‘Meet my twin sister,’ said Esmerelle.

And the nanna’s eyes glowed in the moonlight.

I would have run like the wind at this point. Or, if not at this point, then definitely at the point where the ancient, wrinkled, prune-like nanna rose from her bath chair and metamorphosed right there and then into a terrible wolf. And it was a proper full-scale animatronicstyle metamorphosis at that, with pruney skin shredding and big wolfy bits bursting out all over the place.

I would have run, I really would. But I did not. I could not. I was all weighed down by that special last supper, which was clearly designed for such effect. So I sort of staggered to my feet and lurched forwards like some B-movie zombie. The werewolf monster was clawing through blankets and old-lady trappings, its jaws all salivaed, its growlings most awful to hear.

And although I could not move too fast upon my wobbling legs, I was still able to lash out with justified and considerable fury and I managed to welt the fellow with the fine moustaches a blistering blow to the hooter, which sent him sprawling over the monster that was scrabbling up to eat me.

Which did not give me very much time, but gave me just enough. There was one of those things that I have never really understood rising from the deck near at hand. One of those things that look a bit like a grossly oversized ear trumpet and are constructed of polished-up brass on period liners like this. And although I did not know just what I might be getting into, anything was preferable to being eaten alive by a monstrous wolf, so I flung myself into this polished brass item and fell into darkness below.

The next thing I knew a couple of stoker-type sailors were yanking me into the light and telling me that I should not have been in there because that was a very dangerous place to be. And I was thanking them very much for this, but emphasising the fact that there were many more dangerous things in this world, when a lot of growling and clawing and scrabbling announced the imminent arrival of wolfish wickedness.

‘I would run if I were you,’ I told the stoker-types. ‘It is what I intend to do and you would both do well to emulate my example.’ Which was quite nicely put, although I think they failed to grasp the full import of its meaning.

I ran at a belly-sagging stagger as fast as I possibly could.

Behind me I heard growls and screams but I just lumbered on. Through a hatchway I went, but there was no lock, nor nothing to bar it behind me. And on and on I went, down a narrow corridor, until I reached a door with a sign that said CARGO HOLD.

Behind me rose growls and horrible sounds, and so I entered the cargo hold.

It was dimly lit and there were many steamer trunks and packing cases and crates of stuff and this, that and the other. I edged this way, that and the other trying to shrink through confined spaces and do my best to make myself invisible. But I was aware of one thing and that one thing was how members of the dog family are so noted for their sense of smell. And the way I smelled, I knew I must be leaving a trail that a half-nosed pup could follow.

But I kept right on squeezing and held my breath as I heard the door to the cargo hold smash and the growlings grow louder and louder.

‘What would Hugo do?’ I wondered to myself. ‘Perhaps he would cast a mystic lightning bolt or simply pull a derringer from his shirt cuff and dispatch the beast in an instant. And then probably have some tailor in Knightsbridge run up a nice wolf-skin jacket for him from the pelt.

I heard the beast do sniffings, then heard it growl once more. And I fumbled along, as quietly as I could in the dim light, hoping desperately that some solution to my dire predicament would hastily reveal itself.

And then something nearly took off my hand.

And I say nearly because I felt it coming at me rather than saw it and I tore back my hand in a rush.

I had got myself a bit wedged against something that looked like a mighty steel coffin. It was all metal plates and rivets and seemed the sort of thing that would be likely to house something really dangerous.

And on this occasion first impressions were not incorrect, because as my hand had brushed past a little barred air-hole kind of arrangement in the bolted lid, whatever lurked within had gone for it.

I flapped my hand. I was trembling now and I had had enough of this business. I stared down at the metal coffin affair and read the label that was pasted upon it:

PROPERTY OF BARON VON BACON.

DO NOT FEED.

DO NOT TOUCH.

AND CERTAINLY DO NOT OPEN.

Baron von Bacon, I knew that name. Creator of the Hell Hound with the human brain that had feasted on dead bodies back at Mons. Was the evil baron aboard this ship? It seemed that if he was not, then his Hell Hound was.

And now there was growling in stereo, Hell Hound to the left of me, werewolf to the right, here I was, stuck in the middle with… just me.

And then an idea dawned that was little less than inspired. Had I had longer to weigh up the disastrous potential attendant to the execution of this idea, I might well have thought twice about translating thought into action. But I was still young and foolish in my way and it did seem such a good idea at the time.