Graham Masterton - The Doorkeepers

Strangely, he could feel the same rapport that he felt with the overfed lapdogs of Marin County, but this was even stronger, in a way. These were real dogs, little more than wild, and they had never been treated as if they were human – as if they were capable of thinking for themselves. It was a new experience for them, and they were bewildered.

“They’re bewildered,” he told Nancy.

“They’re bewildered?” said the thin young man. “I’m bleeding mystified.”

Josh dropped the dog that had attacked Nancy and it shook itself and trotted back toward its handler. The man threw back the hood of his cloak. He was shaven-headed and scarred, with a heavy gray moustache, and half of one of his ears was missing. Without taking his eyes off Josh, he reached down and looped the dog’s lead around its neck, and twisted it tight. Then, with a grunt, he started to throttle it.

The dog made a thick choking noise and struggled wildly, but the handler kicked it in the stomach. He kicked it again and again, until the animal was limp, and then he picked it up by its hind legs, swung it over his head, and smashed its skull against the granite curb. There was a hollow crack! and bright red blood and bright beige brains were spattered all over the other dogs, who visibly flinched. “Go!” the handler screamed at them, “Go! Or the same thing’s going to happen to you!”

The dogs hesitated, confused, yipping and yapping and thrashing their tails.

“Go!” screamed the handler; and it was now that the Hooded Men approached, their sackcloth faces blank and threatening, their swords held high.

“Take them!” ordered a harsh, thick voice. Josh couldn’t tell who it was, but one of the Hooded Men kicked the dog’s carcass to one side and deliberately stepped on its shattered head, so that its one remaining brown eye was squeezed out of its socket.

The thin young man took two or three steps back. “I hope you’re light on your feet, missus,” he told Nancy.

“Let’s just get out of here, shall we? You direct us, we’ll follow.”

“They’ll have you, if they catch you. You’ll wish you was dead, believe me.”

The Hooded Men were beginning to circle them now, but they were playing their attack very cautiously. Their swords were very long, thin-bladed, with plain cruciform handles, and they looked extremely sharp. Because of their hoods, their faces seemed even more threatening, like scarecrows that had come to life, to seek their revenge.

One of them said, in a muffled voice, “In the name of the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth you are detained for trespass. Come quiet, and you will have nothing to fear, so help me God. Resist, and your fate will be the talk of all damnation.”

Josh kept his hand raised and his eye on the dogs. Their handlers were whipping them now, and cursing them, and he knew that he couldn’t control them for very much longer. “When I say ‘run’,” said Josh, “don’t even think about it – go like hell.” He paused for two or three seconds, and then he shouted, “Run ! ”

Nancy galloped up Star Yard with her buckskin fringes flying, and even though she was wearing high-heeled boots Josh found it almost impossible to keep up with her. The thin young man was right behind him, his coat whirling up. The dogs were so close that they were almost biting at their heels, barking hysterically, but all the barking and the shouting of their handlers and the jingling of swords and scabbards were drowned out by a shattering drumbeat. Ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta-tat!

As they rounded the first corner, the thin young man said, “In here!” and pushed open a flaking, black-painted door. Nancy had run so far ahead that Josh had to give her a sharp dog-whistle to call her back.

The thin young man slammed the door behind them and jammed it with a broken chair. “Where does this lead?” asked Josh, as he stumbled along a hallway stacked with faded rolls of floral wallpaper, paint-caked buckets and stepladders.

“Upstairs, guvnor,” panted the thin young man. “Upstairs and over the roof. Dogs can’t follow you through thin air.”

Gasping for breath, they climbed up one bare-boarded flight of stairs after another. There was a strong smell of damp and mildew in the building and as they climbed higher, Josh could see that half of the slates were missing, and the attic was open to the sky. On either side they passed derelict rooms with no floorboards, still decorated with faded wallpaper, their fireplaces clogged with ash.

Four floors below them, they heard the front door being kicked open, and the wild barking of dogs. The thin young man said, “Follow me,” and led them up a narrow staircase into the attic. Again, all of the floorboards were missing, and they had to cross the attic by balancing from one joist to the next, taking care not to catch their feet on any protruding nails. They could look down and see the rooms two and even three floors lower down, and hear the clattering of dogs coming up the stairs.

The far side of the roof was already stripped of tiles, and the wind made gusty, fluffing noises through the rafters. The thin young man led them out on to the narrow parapet, ninety feet above Chancery Lane. “Oh God, Josh,” said Nancy. “You know how much I hate heights.”

“You climbed up Spirit Rock, didn’t you?” Josh reminded her. “That was three times higher than this.”

“That was different. I had my ancestors around me then, to catch me if I fell.”

Josh gripped her hands and kissed her forehead. “I’ll catch you, if you fall.”

They stepped out on to the parapet, one after the other, with the thin young man leading the way. There was nothing between them and the street below except for a low wall of sooty bricks, and they didn’t look very safe. They could see the tops of buses and taxis and people hurrying along the sidewalk. Although it was such a pearly, overcast day they could see right over the rooftops of the Public Record Office toward the misty dome of St Paul’s, and the twin Gothic towers of Tower Bridge. Josh was surprised to see that there were no tall buildings in the City – no NatWest building, no Canary Wharf.

“Hurry up,” snapped the thin young man. “We ain’t got time for seeing the sights.”

He balanced along to the very end of the parapet, and Josh and Nancy followed him, their arms spread wide. “Eat your heart out, Blondin,” said Josh, his heart thumping. Nancy gave a nervous, hysterical laugh.

When the thin young man reached the corner of the building, he crouched down behind the parapet and beckoned them to join him. They looked over the edge and saw the Hooded Men gathered in Star Yard, directly below them. A few curious people were standing around, but only a few, and when the Hooded Men turned their heads toward them they covered their faces with their hands and hurried off.

“Who are these characters?” asked Josh. “Are they like cops, or what?”

“Cops?”

“Policemen. Bobbies. Is that what they are?”

The thin young man didn’t answer him, but stood up, and pointed to the parapet of the building opposite. It was about a foot higher than the building on which they were standing, and it had a curved coping on top of it, encrusted with pigeon-droppings. In fact there was a matronly pigeon sitting on it not far away, blinking at them with suspicion.

“We’ve got to jump,” said the thin young man.

“You’re kidding me,” Josh retorted.

“It’s the only way, guvnor. It’s jump, or give yourself up to the Hoodies. Do you know what they do? They eat the pancreas out of you, while you’re still alive. Or else they make you play the Holy Harp.”