Jasper Fforde - The Eye of Zoltar

The snail was steaming with the exertion and smelled faintly of scorched rubber, but seemed pleased with itself. We gave it a lettuce leaf, popped it in its box and Perkins opened the note that had been stuck to its shell. It was from Lady Mawgon.

‘Reports from worried citizens place the T three miles down the road at Woolhope.’

Woolhope was the Kingdom’s sixth-largest town and home to twelve thousand people and a Marzoleum processing plant. I had a sudden thought.

‘It’s heading for the flare.’

Marzoleum refineries always had a gas flare alight from a tall tower and it was this, I guessed, that would attract the Tralfamosaur. Brain the size of a ping-pong ball it might have, but when it comes to looking for food at night it was no slouch. Fire and light, after all, generally denoted humans.

‘There,’ I said, stabbing my finger on the map near a place called Broadmoor Common, just downwind of Woolhope. ‘He’ll be able to smell us easily from there.’

I whistled to the Quarkbeast, who jumped into the back of the car, and we were soon hurtling along the narrow roads as fast as we could. It was about 3 a.m. by now, and I drove, I agree, recklessly. The police had locked down the area tight and everyone had been told to stay in their homes, but even so, I was half expecting to run into a tractor or something. I didn’t. I ran into something much worse.

The Quarkbeast cried out first, a sort of quarky-quark-quarky noise that spelt danger, and almost immediately, my headlights illuminated something nasty and large and reptilian on the road ahead. The Tralfamosaur’s small eyes glinted dangerously as it looked up. It was bigger than I remembered from my occasional visits to the zoo, and it looked significantly more dangerous out in the open.

There were about fifty yards between it and us and Perkins and I sat there for a moment, the engine of the Beetle idling. It stared at us blankly for some moments until I realised we were upwind, and it probably wasn’t aware of the liquorice. I slowly backed away, but the Tralfamosaur didn’t follow. Quite against my better judgement I stopped, and then inched slowly forward again. It still didn’t seem that interested.

‘Better show yourself,’ I said to Perkins, ‘and try to look appetising.’

‘Yes,’ he said sarcastically, ‘I’m well known for my pie impersonations.’

Perkins took a deep breath, undid his seat belt, stood up through the sunroof and waved his hands. The effect was instantaneous. The Tralfamosaur gave out a deafening bellow, and charged.

I slammed the car into reverse and swiftly backed away. Luckily there was an open gateway nearby, and I reversed into this, pulled the wheel around, thumped the gear lever into first and drove off with the Tralfamosaur in close pursuit. Part one of the plan was now in operation.

Tralfamosaur Hunt Part 1: Chase and Capture

The Tralfamosaur could now smell the liquorice, and it took a wild bite at the car as we accelerated away. We felt the jerk as a single tooth caught in the bodywork, but a moment later the metal split, releasing us. I glanced into the rear-view mirror as we took off back the way we had come, and could see the Tralfamosaur glowing red in the tail-lights as it chased us with a heavy, lumbering gait. Thankfully, a Volkswagen is speedier than a Tralfamosaur, and we maintained a safe distance.

We took a left at Mordford, then a right over the River Wye, where the Tralfamosaur, now quite hungry, stopped to sniff at the ironically named Tasty Drinker Inn. The Tralfamosaur was so distracted by the smell of citizens hiding inside that we had to reverse almost to within reach of it before the creature changed its mind, and, overcome by the sheer succulence of the liquorice, once again moved after us, knocking over two cars in the car park and demolishing both bridge parapets as it lumbered across.

‘Wow,’ said Perkins, watching the spectacle while hanging out of the window, ‘I think I’ve seen everything now.’

‘I sincerely wish that were the case,’ I said, ‘but I doubt it. You’re new to the magic industry. Pretty soon, stuff like this will be routine .’

After another ten minutes I took a tight left turn into a field. I had left the gate open ready and hung an oil lamp on the gatepost so I wouldn’t miss it. I had to slow down to take the corner, however, and the Tralfamosaur, seizing the opportunity, closed his teeth around the rear bumper. The back of the car was lifted high in the air, held there, and then with a tearing noise the bumper ripped off. Almost immediately the car fell back on to the grassy slope with a thump and bounced back into the air. The Quarkbeast was catapulted off the rear seat to hit the roof, where he became stuck fast when his scales got embedded in the steel.

Undeterred, I put my foot down and aimed the car towards the second pair of oil lamps, positioned where we had removed a length of fencing between the field and the railway.

‘Stand by for SpellGo one,’ I yelled as we drove up the stone ballast and on to the railway track, the tyres bumping noisily across the sleepers. Perkins’ hand hovered over the first of the two spell activation buttons.

‘ Now! ’ I shouted and Perkins thumped the one marked ‘Bogeys’. There was a bright flash and a buzzing sensation and the Volkswagen’s wheels were transformed into railway bogeys, that is to say, train wheels . They immediately slotted on to the rails and the ride smoothed out. We were now, technically at least, a train. I didn’t need to steer so let go of the wheel, pressed on the accelerator and looked out of the window.

The Tralfamosaur was close – and even more angry. It was snapping at us wildly, driven on by the overpowering smell of liquorice.

And that was pretty much when we entered the Kidley Hill railway tunnel. The Tralfamosaur followed us inside and the engine sound and angry bellows bounced off the tunnel sides to create a noise that I would be happy never to hear again.

‘Right,’ I yelled. ‘Timing is everything for this one. I’m on the SpellGo button, you’re on the grenade launcher.’

‘Right-o,’ replied Perkins, and shouldered the weapon as he stood up in the sunroof and faced, not the beast, but the other direction – the far tunnel opening we were fast approaching.

I accelerated to give us some distance between the creature and us, then came to a halt alongside a single green lamp I had left there earlier. I switched off the engine and flashed my headlights. In the distance a light flashed back at us, then stayed on. Perkins took aim at the light with the grenade launcher and flicked off the safety.

I placed my hand over the SpellGo button marked ‘Float’ and stared out of the broken rear windscreen. I could hear the footfalls of the Tralfamosaur and its panting, but could not see it, and after a few more moments everything went quiet.

‘Now?’ asked Perkins, finger hovering on the trigger.

‘When I say.’

‘How about now?’

‘When I say.’

‘Has it gone?’

‘It’s moved back to stealth mode,’ I whispered. ‘It’s there all right, somewhere in the darkness.’

I peered into the inky blackness but could still see nothing, then had an idea and stamped on the brake pedal. The brake lights popped on, bringing much-needed extra luminance to the brick-lined railway tunnel. It was a good job they did. The creature was less then ten feet from the rear bumper and I could see its small black eyes staring at us hungrily in the warm red glow.

‘ Now .’

There was an explosive detonation as Perkins pulled the trigger, and the liquorice rocket flew down the railway tunnel, illuminating the tunnel sides as it went. There was a metallic thang noise as the rocket hit something. It didn’t explode, of course – the warhead had been replaced with liquorice.