Jasper Fforde - Lost in a Good Book

The incidents I am about to relate took place in the winter of the year 1985, at a place whose name even now, for reasons of propriety, it seems safer not to divulge. Suffice to say that the small village I visited that night was deserted, and had been for some time. The houses stood empty and vandalised, the pub, corner store and village hall but empty shells. As I drove slowly into the dark village, rats scurried among the detritus and small pockets of mist appeared briefly in my headlights. I reached the old oak at the crossroads, stopped, switched off the lights, and surveyed the morbid surroundings. I could hear nothing. Not a breath of wind gave life to the trees about me; no distant sound of humanity raised my spirits. It had not always been so. Once children played here, neighbours hailed neighbours with friendly greetings, lawnmowers buzzed on a Sunday afternoon, and the congenial crack of leather on willow drifted up from the village green. But no more. All lost one late winter’s night not five years earlier, when the forces of evil rose and claimed the village and all that lived within. I looked about, my breath showing in the still night. By the manner in which the blackened timbers of the empty houses pierced the sky it seemed as though the memory of that night was still etched upon the fabric of the ruins. Parked close by was another car, and leaning against the door was the man who had brought me to this place. He was tall and muscular and had faced horrors that I, thankfully, would never have to face. He did this with heart filled with courage and duty in equal measure, and, as I approached, a smile rose on his features, and he spoke.

‘Quite a shithole, eh, Thurs?’

‘You’re not kidding,’ I replied, glad to be with company. ‘All kinds of creepy weirdness was running through my head just now.’

‘How have you been? Hubby still with an existence problem?’

‘Still the same—but I’m working on it. What’s the score here?’

Spike clapped his hands together and rubbed them.

‘Ah, yes! Thanks for coming. This is one job I can’t do on my own.’

I followed his gaze towards the derelict church and surrounding graveyard. It was a dismal place even by SpecOps 17 standards, which tended to regard anything merely dreary as a good venue for a party. It was surrounded by two rows of high wire fences, and no one had come or gone since the ‘troubles’ five years previously. The restless spirits of the condemned souls trapped within the churchyard had killed all plant life not only within the confines of the Dark Place but for a short distance all around it—I could see the grass withering and dying not two yards from the inner fence, the leafless trees standing lifeless in the moonlight. In truth, the wire fences were to keep the curious or just plain stupid out as much as to keep the undead in; a ring of burnt yew wood just within the outer wire was the last line of undead defence across which they could never move, but it didn’t stop them trying. Occasionally a member of the Dark One’s Legion of Lost Souls made it across the inner fence. Here they lumbered into the motion sensors affixed at ten-foot intervals. The undead might be quite good servants of the Dark One but they were certainly crap when it came to electronics. They usually blundered around in the area between the fences until the early morning sun or an SO-17 flame-thrower reduced their lifeless husk to a cinder, and released the tormented soul to make its way through eternity in peace.

I looked at the derelict church and the scattered tombs of the desecrated graveyard and shivered.

‘What are we doing? Torching the lifeless walking husks of the undead?’

‘Well, no,’ replied Spike uneasily, moving to the rear of his car. ‘I wish it were as simple as that.’

He opened the boot and passed me a clip of silver bullets. I reloaded my gun and frowned at him.

‘What, then?’

‘Dark forces are afoot, Thursday. Another Supreme Evil Being is pacing the earth.’

‘ Another ? What happened? Did he escape?’

Spike sighed.

‘There have been a few cuts in recent years, and SEB transportation is now done by a private contractor. Three months ago they mixed up the consignment and instead of delivering him straight to the Loathsome Id Containment Facility, they left him at the St Merryweather’s home for retired gentlefolk.’

‘TNN said it was Legionnaire’s disease.’

‘That’s the usual cover story. Anyhow, some idiot opened the jar and all hell broke loose. I managed to corner it but getting the SEB transferred back to his jar is going to be tricky—and that’s where you come in.’

‘Does this plan involve going in there ?’

I gestured at the church. As if to make a point, two barn owls flew noiselessly from the belfry and soared close by our heads.

‘I’m afraid so. We should be fine. There’ll be a full moon tonight and they don’t generally perambulate on the lightest of nights—it’ll be as easy as falling off a log.’

‘So what do I do?’ I asked uneasily.

‘I can’t tell you for fear that he will hear my plan, but keep close and do precisely what I tell you. Do you understand? No matter what it is, you must do precisely what I tell you.’

‘Okay.’

‘Promise?’

‘I promise.’

‘No, I mean you have to really promise.’

‘All right—I really promise.’

‘Good. I officially deputise you into SpecOps 17. Let’s pray for a moment.’

Spike dropped to his knees and muttered a short prayer under his breath—something about delivering us both from evil and how he hoped his mother would get to the top of the hip replacement waiting list, and that Cindy wouldn’t drop him like a hot potato when she found out what he did. As for myself, I said pretty much what I usually said, but added that if Landen were watching, could he please, please, please keep an eye out for me.

Spike got up.

‘Ready?’

‘Ready.’

‘Then let’s make some light out of this darkness!’

He pulled a green holdall and a pump-action shotgun from the back of the car. We walked towards the rusty gates, and I felt a chill on my neck.

‘Feel that?’ asked Spike

‘Yes.’

‘He’s close. We’ll meet him tonight, I promise you.’

Spike unlocked the gates and they swung open with a squeak of long-unoiled hinges. Operatives generally used their flame-throwers through the wire; no one would trouble coming in here unless there was serious work to be done. He relocked the gates behind us and we walked through the undead no-go zone.

‘What about the motion sensors?’

A beeper went off from his car.

‘I’m pretty much the only recipient. Helsing knows what I’m doing; if we fail he’ll be along tomorrow morning to clean up the mess.’

‘Thanks for the reassurance.’

‘Don’t worry,’ replied Spike with a grin, ‘we won’t fail!’

We arrived at the second gate. The musty smell of long-departed corpses reached my nostrils. It had been softened by age to the odour of rotted leaves, but it was still unmistakable. Once inside the inner gates we made our way swiftly to the lichgate and walked through the crumbling structure. The churchyard was a mess. The graves had all been dug up and the remains of those too far gone to be resurrected had been flung around the graveyard. They had been the fortunate ones. Those that were freshly dead had been press-ganged into a second career as servants of the Dark One—not something you would want to put on your CV, if you still had one.

‘Untidy bunch, aren’t they,’ I whispered as we picked our way across the scattered human bones to the heavy oak door.