Robert Rankin - Nostradamus Ate My Hamster

Russell sniffed suspiciously at his pint, then took a small sip. “I’m not an idiot, you know,” he said. “I am quite capable. I could do things.”

“Yes, but you know you won’t. Chaps like you never do. No offence meant, but you just don’t.”

“But I could, if the opportunity presented itself.”

“I think you have to make your own opportunities.”

“So you just said.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You did, and you said that too.”

“What?”

“Oh no.” Russell glanced about the place. Luis the landlord had gone off to the cellar with the blond barmaid and but for himself and for Morgan the bar was deserted. “Quick,” cried Russell. “Jump over the counter. Quick.”

“You’re not going to rob the place? Russell, no!”

“Something’s going to happen. Quickly, quickly.” Russell shinned up from the barstool and scrambled onto the counter.

“Have you lost all reason, Russell?”

“Quick, it’s going to happen, I know it is.” Russell grabbed Morgan’s arm and began to haul at him.

“What is? Oh shit.”

A vibration ran through the bar. A shudder. Optics rattled, ashtrays shook. The dartsboard fell off the wall.

“Earthquake!” cried Morgan.

“Not an earthquake, quickly.” Russell dropped down behind the bar, dragging Morgan after him.

“Oh my God!”

An icy wind sprang up from nowhere, became a mini-hurricane, snatched chairs from the floor and hurled them about the place.

“Keep your head down,” Russell shouted, but Morgan didn’t need the telling. Tables whirled and twisted, splintered against the walls, beer mats and ashtrays, glasses and bottles filled the air, rained down from every direction.

And a blinding light.

It shot up before the counter, became a sheet of blue-white, expanding to extend from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling. Then it folded in upon itself with a sound like water vanishing down the plughole and was gone.

A tinkling of glass, a final thud of a falling chair and all became silent.

Very silent.

Unnaturally silent.

Russell got to his knees, brushing glass and beer mats from his shoulders. He peeped over the counter and gawped at the devastation.

“Is it over?” called Morgan, from the foetal position.

“I think it’s just about to start.”

The sound was like an express train coming out of a tunnel, or a jet plane taking off, or a rocket being launched (which is a bit like a jet plane, though less like an express). Sort of “Whoooooooosh!” it went. Really loudly.

The wall at the far end of the bar seemed to go out of focus and then to open, much in the fashion of a camera lens. As Russell gawped on he saw the light reform, blaze out, and a figure, a distant moving dot of a figure, running. Closer and closer. Though two dimensionally. It’s a bit hard to explain really. Imagine it looking like a movie projected onto the wall. That’s what it looked like. The figure running towards the camera. With a further much-intensified whoosh, the figure burst out of two dimensions into the third.

It was a woman. A beautiful woman. She wore an elegant contour-hugging frock of golden scales. Cut above the knee, her stockings were of gold, as were her shoes.

And her hair.

She flashed frightened eyes about the bar. “Russell,” she called, “where are you?”

“I’m here.” Russell’s gawp had achieved the status of a mega-gawp. But he said, “I’m here,” none the less.

“I knew you wouldn’t let me down. I knew it.”

“It’s you. It’s you.”

And it was her. It was the barmaid from The Bricklayer’s Arms.

“Take it quickly, there’s no time.”

“Take what? What?”

The beautiful barmaid thrust a golden package into Russell’s hand. “The programmer, keep down, don’t let them see you, and, Russell …”

“What? What?”

“I love you,” she leaned across the counter and she kissed him. Full on the lips. Russell felt his toes begin to curl and his hair becoming straight.

“Oh,” said Russell, as she pulled away. “I don’t …”

“Understand? You will. And thank you, for everything.”

“I … er.”

Metallic clangs and crashes. She glanced back towards the way she had come, clicked something on her belt. Another white disc sprang up upon the far wall. “Keep down,” and with that she ran towards the disc.

Russell watched her dash across the bar, leap at the disc on the wall, which swallowed her up. And she was gone.

“Oh,” said Russell once more, and then he turned his head, saw something rather fearful and took a dive for cover. From two dimensions into the third they came, clashing and clanking. They were like knights in dead black armour.

Two of them, both tall and wide, of terrible bulk, the floor shook to their footfalls. The helmets were spherical, featureless, without visors or eyeholes. The metal gauntlets had but the three fingers. These clasped enormous black guns of an advanced design. Little red lights ran up and down the barrels.

They came clanking to a standstill before the bar.

Morgan raised his head but Russell forced it down again, rammed a hand over his mouth.

Above, the mighty figures stood immobile as statues, and then their heads began to revolve. Whirring, clicking sounds, the heads turned. Round and round they went.

“The woman is not here,” said one, in a voice like a long-distance telephone call.

“Readjust the coordinates. Search mode. And delayed correct, two minutes.”

Lights flickered upon the carapace breast plates. The white spot grew once more upon the far wall.

Crashing and banging they ran towards it. Terrible creaks and groans of grating metal. Into the disc of light, then zap. Gone. Kaput. Vanished.

Russell peeped out once more. The walls of the bar were as before, no trace of anything remained. Morgan struggled up. “What the bloody Hell …?” he mumbled.

“I think we’re in some kind of trouble,” Russell said.

“Trouble?”

“Trouble?” The voice was that of Luis Z the Spanish landlord. “ Trouble ? You bastards, what have you done to my pub?”

“It wasn’t us.” Morgan took to backing away. Luis had his big peace-keeping stick in his hand. Russell took to backing away also.

“You bloody mad men! I step out for a moment and you smash my pub to pieces. You’re dead. You’re frigging dead.”

“Run,” Morgan said.

“Run,” agreed Russell.

Luis put up a spirited chase, but Morgan and Russell had youth to their account and they finally out-ran him down near the Butts Estate. Bent double in an alleyway, hands upon knees, they gasped and gagged for breath.

“What bloody happened?” Morgan managed. “What went on back there?”

“I don’t know.” Russell had a bit more breath left in him than Morgan. “I just don’t know.”

“Earthquakes,” croaked Morgan. “And bright lights and flashes and crashes and bangs and voices and –”

“I still don’t know.”

“What did you see? Tell me what you saw.”

“I don’t know, I –”

“A woman, I heard a woman.”

“A woman, yes.”

“You knew, Russell. Whatever it was, you knew it was going to happen.”

Russell nodded slowly. He had known something was about to happen. Though he hadn’t known what and he didn’t know how he’d known. So to speak.

“We’re in deep shit,” puffed Morgan. “That Luis will call the police for sure. We’re wanted men. We could go to prison.”

“It wasn’t our fault, we didn’t do anything.”

“So who did, Russell?”

“I don’t know. The walls sort of opened, she came out, then these things came out. Great black things in armour. I don’t think they were people.”