Robert Rankin - The Antipope

“Certainly these caverns appear to be the work of no earthly spade. I think that somewhere back along the bloodline of the Distants someone must have discovered this place by chance, although as to its original purpose and its manner of excavation, that is unimaginable.”

“Come quickly now!” screamed Soap, shining up ahead. “We are nearly there!”

Of a sudden they came to a halt, the tunnel terminating unexpectedly in what appeared to be a pair of massive iron doors.

“You see!” screamed Soap. Omally noted that beads of perspiration were rolling down his forehead and that evil lines of white foam extended from the corners of his mouth and vanished beneath his chin. “You see, you see, the holy Portal!”

Omally approached the gigantic doors. They were obviously of great age and looked capable of holding back the force of several armies. In the ghost light he could make out the heads of enormous rivets running in columns from top to bottom, and what appeared to be a large yet intricately constructed mechanism leading from two wheels that looked like the stopcocks on some titanic plumbing system. Central to each door was a brass plaque bearing upon it a heraldic device of uncertain origin.

It was the wheels that drew Omally’s attention. There was something hauntingly familiar about them, and he tried to recall where he had seen them before. As he stepped forward Soap Distant barred his way. “No, no!” he screamed. “You may not touch, it is for me, I the last in the line, I who must fulfil the prophecies, I who must open the Portal.”

“Soap,” said John seriously, “Soap, I do not feel that you should open these doors, something tells me that it would be a grave mistake.”

Pooley nodded wildly. “Best leave them eh, Soap? Can’t just go unlocking every door you come to.”

Soap turned and ran his hands over the pitted surface of the iron doors. “I think,” said John who was fast realizing the gravity of this particular situation, “I think Soap, that if you are adamant about this door opening business, then it would be better for you to be alone at the moment of opening. It would be wrong of us to stand around looking on. If the prophecies say that you are to open the Portal then open it you should. Alone!” Soap looked somewhat dubious but Omally continued unabashed, “The honour must be yours, we have no right to share it, show us back to the foot of the staircase where we will await your glorious return.”

“Glorious return, yes.” Soap’s voice was suddenly pensive. Pooley’s head nodded enthusiastically while at the same time his legs crossed and recrossed themselves.

“So be it then!” Soap strode between the two men and as the light moved with him Omally took one last look at the gigantic doors, chewed upon his bottom lip a moment, then followed the receding Soap back along the death-black corridor.

Soap’s will-o-the-wisp figure danced along ahead of them like a marsh phantom, weaving through the labyrinth of tunnels and finally into the huge central chamber. Peering up Omally could make out the lights of 15 Sprite Street, a reassuring glow high above. Soap stood breathing heavily through his nose, his fists clenched and his face a wax mask of sweat. Pooley was clutching desperately at his groin. Omally shifted nervously from one foot to the other.

“You wait then!” said Soap suddenly. “Tonight is the night towards which the entire course of mankind’s history has inevitably run. Tonight the ultimate mysteries will be known! Tonight the Portal will be opened!”

“Yes, yes,” said Omally, “we’ll wait here then.”

Soap’s eyes had glazed. It was clear that he no longer saw Pooley or Omally; he had become focused both mentally and physically upon some distant point. His voice boomed on, filling the caverns, washing over the black rocks like some evil sonic wave. “Blessed be the Gods of Ancient Earth. The dark ones and dwellers of the deep places. Great Rigdenjyepo, King of the World, Lord of the Nether Regions, Guardian of the Inner Secrets!”

Omally cupped his hands about his ears and muttered the rosary beneath his breath. Pooley, whose bladder was on the point of giving up the unequal struggle, rolled his eyes desperately.

Without warning Soap suddenly jerked forward. The two friends watched his glittering form flickering away into the darkness, his voice bouncing to and fro about the vaulted corridors, until finally the light died away and the ghastly echoing cries became only a memory.

Omally and Pooley stood a moment faintly outlined by the light above. Slowly they turned to face one another, came to a joint decision which argued strongly for the authenticity of mental telepathy, and with one movement made for the stairs.

Minutes later on the corner of Sprite Street Omally crouched, bent double, hands upon knees, gasping for breath. Pooley did little other than sigh deeply as he relieved himself through the railings into the Memorial Park. Between the gasps, gulps and Woodbine coughs, Omally uttered various curses, veiled blasphemies and vows of impending violence directed solely and unswervingly towards Soap Distant.

Pooley finished his ablutions to the accompaniment of one last all-embracing sigh. Having zipped himself into respectability he withdrew from his inner pocket a bottle of Soap’s fifty-year-old wine. “Shame to leave empty-handed,” he said. “One for the road John?”

“One indeed,” the Irishman replied. He took a great pull and swallowed deeply.

Pooley said “What should we do? Soap is clearly mad!”

Omally wiped his mouth and passed the bottle across. The full moon shone down upon them, in the distance cars rolled over the flyover and a late-night dog returning from some canine revelry loped across the road. All seemed so normal, so mundane, that their experience within the caverns was already taking on the nature of a bad dream. The clock on the Memorial Library struck two.

“If all that we saw was real and not some shared vision, I am truly at a loss to know what action we should take. Soap is not harming anybody, although I am certain that such an enormous maze of tunnels should be reported to the authorities, if only that they might be certified as safe. While I was down there I had the feeling that most of Brentford could have sunk easily into them, still leaving room for half of the Chiswick High Road.”

“But what about the doors?” said Jim. “Surely one man could not open them alone, they looked pretty hefty. You don’t really believe that they lead into the inner earth do you?”

Omally shook his head. “I haven’t a clue, although those crests, I’ve seen them before somewhere.”

All further conversation was however stifled by a low and ghastly rumble which came apparently from the lower end of Albany Road. Like a hideous subterranean clap of thunder it rolled forward. From far along the street, lights began to blink on in upstairs windows. Cats began to whine and dogs to bark.

Pooley said, “It’s an earthquake!”

Omally crossed himself.

Somewhere deep within the earth a monstrous force was stirring; great ripples ran up the paving stones of Sprite Street. A shock wave spread across the grass of the Memorial Park, stiffening the coarse blades into regimented rows. A great gasp which issued from no human throat shuddered up from the very bowels of the earth, building to an enormous crescendo.

Omally felt inclined to run but his knees had turned to jelly. Pooley had assumed the foetal position. By now Sprite Street was a blaze of light, windows had been thrown up, front doors flung open, people issued into the street clad in ludicrous pyjamas and absurd carpet slippers. Then as rapidly as it had begun, the ominous rumbling ceased, seemed to pass away beneath them and fade away. The denizens of Sprite Street suddenly found themselves standing foolishly about the road in the middle of the night. Shuffling their carpet slippers and feigning indifference to conceal their acute embarrassment they backed into their respective abodes and quietly closed their front doors.