Simon Clark - The Fall

‘Good. Maybe you can explain to me, please, why the British fuck with their days? I got up today – it was Tuesday. I came to this hole in the ground. Then I go back to my hotel and the porter tells me it’s Monday. Now I don’t know fuck. Only that my watch says Tuesday. Tell me, sir, why do the Brits fuck around with their time?’

Sam smiled back and shrugged. ‘Inscrutable island race, I guess.’

‘Me too. Thank you. Good day, sir.’ The man bowed his head.

Now that was a peculiar exchange , Sam told himself as he strolled back towards the Range Rover. He saw Zita looking under the bonnet. The Japanese tourist had been talking in a light-hearted, probably even deliberately whimsical kind of way about the peculiar habits of the natives. But he’d already latched onto the fact that the continuity of time was all over the place. Like anyone else, the Japanese man didn’t want to blurt right out and say, ‘ My God, time’s gone all peculiar! ’ and then risk looking stupid if everyone else insisted nothing was amiss. That today really was Tuesday 23 rdJune.

‘Here, grab this.’ He handed Zita the drink. She pulled the tab while still looking down into the engine.

‘See anything the matter with it?’ he asked.

‘Nothing. Looks perfect.’

‘All the other engines were knocked out at the same time as the phones.’

‘Do you know anything about cars?’

‘The great internal combustion engine? No. Zilch. Do you?’

‘I took a car-maintenance course at school. But I think this problem goes beyond dirt in the fuel feed or a flat battery.’ She took a deep grateful drink of the sparkling water. ‘Ooohhh… that’s good.’

‘What’s Jud Campbell up to?’

‘He knows those four in the fancy dress. Apparently they’re travel reps who came in on the coach.’

‘What does he want them to do?’

‘Just help him calm down their clients and suggest they all wait here while someone goes into town and finds out what’s happening.’

‘It should work for a while. But it won’t be that long before those people get restless and start asking why the driver doesn’t either fix the bus or call out the local garage.’ He pulled out his phone and pressed the keys. ‘I think Jud is onto a loser if he reckons he can keep all those people corralled here forever. Ah, that’s better…’

‘You’ve got through?’ Zita dropped the hood of the bonnet.

‘Well, I’m through to the speaking clock. Listen.’

Zita stood beside him and he held out the phone so she could hear the male voice reciting the hours, minutes, seconds. ‘Still not brilliant,’ she said. ‘It sounds like someone frying eggs.’

‘ Third stroke …’ Crackle of interference. ‘… sponsored by Accurist …’ More interference, snapping and clicking. ‘ Fifty-eight and 40 sec—’ A whiz, crackles. Then the three bleeps of the speaking clock.

Zita said, ‘It sounds better than it was, anyway.’

Sam held up a finger as the automated voice ran on to the next announcement. On this occasion, although the voice was still distorted by interference, they made out the time: ‘ At the third stroke, the time sponsored by Accurist will be 2.58 and 50 seconds …’ Sam thumbed the button, cutting the voice. ‘2.58,’ he said. ‘Call it three o’clock. I make it five to.’

‘Maybe this thing… this temporal anomaly is sorting itself out?’

‘Maybe.’

‘But don’t you think it’s a real possibility? If our watches are telling us it’s five to three and the speaking clock says it’s three o’clock, as near-as-damn-it.’ She looked relieved. ‘That’s only a difference of three or four minutes.’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I just don’t know. But if the phone’s working, the car’s electrics might have sorted themselves out. Want to give it a try?’

Zita popped the can of water onto the car roof, climbed in and turned the key. The engine started and ran. Not evenly, Sam noted. It sounded rough, and kicked out a lot of black smoke from the exhaust, but it was still idling of a kind.

When other drivers saw Zita’s success they immediately tried their own cars. But they soon found out that their motors were still refusing to fire. The coach stayed dead, too.

Zita had an answer. ‘The Range Rover’s a diesel. So there are no spark plugs to ignite the fuel. Diesel combusts by compression.’

‘So it looks as if their spark plugs still aren’t sparking. Well, that’s probably for the best if we want to keep the people here for a while.’

Zita climbed out of the car, leaving it ticking over. She grinned at him. ‘But it might not matter soon if we’re catching back up to British Summer Time. Another half hour and everything could be back to normal.’

‘I hope so,’ he told her. ‘I really do.’

He looked down at his hand with its long finger where the thumb should be. The skin covering the two joints was tingling like fury again.

And again the lines from the half-remembered lesson came to him:

Jud returned with a tall man of around 20. It was the guy dressed as Dracula, complete with black cape, frilly white shirt, corpse-white make-up and lipstick-drawn blood trickles down the sides of his mouth. It was also the same guy who had freaked out in the amphitheatre, clutching his stomach and yelling wildly about a truck.

Sam Baker stood by the Range Rover’s open passenger door and watched Jud amble up, his gold waistcoat flapping open. ‘I heard you’d started the car,’ Jud said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. ‘Are you going into town now?’

‘May as well?’ Sam said and looked at Zita, who nodded before climbing into the driving seat. ‘We’ll be back in about an hour.’

‘I’ve asked this gentleman if he’ll go along with you. His name’s Lee Burton. He’s a rep with Coast and County Tours.’

Sam tried not to stare at Lee Burton in his Dracula costume, but it was hard not to. The cloak looked so big it seemed to weigh the man down.

Sam said, ‘Well, I don’t know if we need any help, Jud. We’re only going to take a look round, maybe buy a paper, and… you know.’

‘It’s all right, Sam. I’ve talked to Lee, here. He’s aware of the situation. But you might need an extra pair of hands, even if it’s only to push the car if it breaks down again.’

‘How are you feeling now, Lee?’ Sam asked, looking him up and down. ‘You took a bad turn in the amphitheatre a little while ago.’

‘I’m fine now. Believe me, I’ll do anything to help. Anything .’

Sam saw Lee smiling through his fake blood, but he also heard a throbbing desperation in the way he said ‘Anything.’

‘Come on, Sam,’ Zita called as she grabbed her can of water from where she’d left it on the car roof. ‘The engine’s missing again.’

‘Just a minute.’

‘If we wait any longer we might not go at all.’

‘Okay, Lee,’ Sam told him. ‘Hop in the back.’

‘Good luck,’ Jud said, and Sam knew he meant it.

‘Thanks. See you soon. Less than an hour. Promise.’ Sam climbed into the passenger seat and belted himself in.

Lee Burton climbed in the back, cloak rustling.

‘I’ll do whatever I can to help,’ Lee insisted. ‘Trust me.’

‘Okay, Lee,’ Sam said reassuringly. ‘You’re on the team.’ He twisted round in the seat, hand extended. ‘My name’s Sam Baker. This is Zita Prestwyck.’

Lee still looked jangled as he shook Sam’s hand. He glanced nervously left and right through the windows as if he expected to see tigers or lions or something equally lethal stalking him through the grass.