Robert Rankin - The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse

Jack stared and then Jack ceased his futile tuggings. And then Jack took a step or two back. Three steps in fact. And very smartly indeed.

In the very centre of the toymaker's kindly loveable old forehead there was a hole. It was a neat, round hole. The kind of hole that a bullet fired from a clockwork pistol might make.

'You!' said Jack. 'It's you.'

'That would be the smell,' Eddie whispered.

'Me,' said Mr Sredna.

'But I shot you dead.'

'Do I look dead to you?'

'Oh dear,' said Jack. 'Oh dear, oh dear.'

'And you call yourselves detectives.' Mr Sredna laughed. It was Tinto's laugh, the one that resembled small stones being shaken about in an empty tin can. 'But you had me going there, almost. I believed you were Jon Kelly. But I never take chances. You shot a false head.' Mr Sredna lifted this head from his shoulders and cast it down to the floor. An identical head rose up through the collar of his shirt. 'This is my real head,' he said, 'and you won't be shooting this one.'

'Oh dear,' said Jack once more.

Eddie might have had something to say, but he was far too scared to say it.

'Fun and games,' said Mr Sredna. 'It was such a delight to see you running around Toy City, always too late.' Mr Sredna glared down at Eddie, who had taken to cowering behind Jack's leg. 'I do have to say,' said he, 'that, on the whole, you're not a bad detective. Not as good as Bill Winkie though, but then he knew that I was the prime suspect. He tracked me down to the chocolate factory within twenty-four hours of receiving his advance money and being put on the case.'

'He did?' said Eddie, fearfully. 'He never told me that he did.'

'I don't think he wanted to put you in danger. He broke into Humpty Dumpty's apartment and worked out how I'd done it. The moment he saw that lens in the roof he knew it had to be me. Or perhaps it was my little chocolate calling card in the fridge.'

Eddie might have shrugged, but his shoulders were too trembly.

'And then he broke into the chocolate factory while I was asleep. Searched the place. Even found my strongroom. All that gold down there had him thinking. And so did the Maguffin. He found that along with all my maps of the outer •world and my accounts books. He stole the Maguffin to trap me here in this world and must have passed it to Tinto for safekeeping. Probably, I think now, so that Tinto would pass it on to you if something happened to Bill and you continued with the case.'

'He was very clever.' Eddie shook fearfully.

'But not that clever. The next morning he went to see Chief Inspector Bellis to tell him that / was the murderer and lead him and all his men to the chocolate factory in the hope of capturing me. But he never got to see the real Chief Inspector Bellis; I just happened to be loafing around outside the police station, impersonating the real Inspector. He was very brave, was Bill Winkie, he never talked, even under all that torture. He wouldn't tell me what he'd done with my Maguffin.'

If Eddie had been able to make fists, he would have made very big ones now.

'And that's about all,' said Mr Sredna. 'There isn't anything else to say. I won't bother to ask you for the Maguffin, Jack. Neither you nor the bear will be leaving this room alive.'

'Now hold on,' said Jack. 'Don't be hasty.'

'There goes that deja-vu again.'

'I'm sure that we could come to some arrangement.'

'I pride myself,' said Mr Sredna, 'upon having an all-but-limitless imagination. I can think up things that no other mortal being can think up. Apart from that one over there.' Mr Sredna gestured towards the bound and gagged and quivering toymaker, all bunched up in the corner. 'And the remaining moments of his life are numbered in seconds. But even I, with all of my imagination, cannot think of any arrangement that might be made which does not involve you dying.'

'You may well have a point there.' Jack's eyes darted all around the room in search of, perhaps, some very large and deadly weapon. Or something else that might provide a final twist in the tale and allow him and Eddie to miraculously survive.

Nothing was immediately forthcoming.

Mr Sredna snapped the fingers of his right hand. The fingers extended; the fingertips hinged; evil-looking blades sprung forth.

'You first,' said Mr Sredna, pointing at Eddie. 'Shredded teddy, I think.'

'No you don't.’ Jack raised his fists.

'Don't be absurd, Jack.' Mr Sredna lunged forward, swinging his unclawed fist. It struck Jack in the side of the head, carried him from his feet, across the workbench and down the other side, where he fell to the floor next to the kindly loveable white-haired, all-tied-up-and-trembly old toymaker.

Jack floundered about amongst the sawdust bales and rolls of fabric. Jack heard a terrible scream from Eddie.

And then Jack leapt back to his feet. He saw Mr Sredna holding Eddie by his un-special-tagged ear and he saw the claws, glistening and twinkling in the glow from the firelight. And he saw the hand swing and the claws go in, piercing Eddie's chest, shredding the cinnamon-coloured mohair plush fur fabric, spraying out sawdust, tearing once, then tearing again and again.

'No,' screamed Jack, and he leapt onto the table and then onto Mr Sredna. Shredded Eddie flew in every direction: a cascade of arms and legs and belly and bits and bobs. Jack's momentum bore the evil twin over, but he was up in an instant and he flung Jack down and stood astride him, grinning hideously.

'You killed him.' There were tears in Jack's eyes. 'You evil shit. You wicked, vicious, filthy...'

'Shut it,' said Mr Sredna. 'It was only a toy. A toy teddy bear. A big boy like you shouldn't get weepy over a toy teddy bear.'

'He was my friend.'

'That's very sad,' said Mr Sredna. 'A big boy like you should have grown out of toys. A big boy like you should have got yourself a girlfriend.'

Jack crawled back upon his bottom, but he really had nowhere to crawl to.

'In a way I'm sorry that you have to die too.' Mr Sredna grinned as he spoke. He didn't look that sorry. 'Folk here are so dull, do you know what I mean? They lack any kind of spirit. But you're full of it. Independent. And tricking me into believing that you were Jon Kelly: inspired.'

'Rather obvious, I would have thought,' said Jack.

'I'm trying to pay you a compliment. Being an innovative hands-on sort of a God is a very lonely calling. You can always do with a bit of stimulating conversation. But I never seem to be able to get that. No one in my own league, you see. So I just make do with having lots of sex. They're very sexy, my women, aren't they?'

'You're quite mad.’ Jack curled his lip. 'You're insane.'

'They said that about Hitler. Fancy Jon Kelly telling you about him. But Hitler wasn't actually mad. He was the way I made him: a bit of a prototype. Wait until the folk out there find out what the new president of America is going to do. They sent Jon Kelly here because they were worried about the way he was behaving. They have no idea, but it is going to be spectacular. He'll be employing a private army. And my private army will be unstoppable.'

'And then you'll be in charge of everything, will you? Not just here in Toy City.'

'Today Toy City! Tomorrow the World!' Mr Sredna laughed that laugh that evil geniuses laugh. The one that really gets on the hero's nerves.

'Mad.’ Jack wiped tears from his eyes. 'Quite mad.'

'It's simply beyond your comprehension.' Mr Sredna reached down with his clawed hand and hauled Jack back up by the throat, lifting him once more from his feet. 'Small minds have no comprehension. I am indeed one of a kind, placed upon this planet by the Big Figure himself

'You'll answer to Him,' said Jack. 'You'll answer to God.'