The Irascible House

Munchie was waiting for him. Most of her tail was missing and she was ferociously angry. Her tongue shot out and lassoed his legs and she began to reel him in like a fish on a line.

‘Oh, no you don’t,’ said Mel. He snatched out his bodkin and stabbed her tongue.

Munchie uttered a howl of pain and let go, her tongue recoiling as if spring-loaded. Mel scrambled to his feet and backed away, bumping into something solid. He looked behind him and saw that he was trapped against a rock face. The vermiraptor leapt at him. Mel raised his hands and cowered but Munchie’s leap was checked in mid-air and she dropped, choking, to the ground a few paces from him. Against all the odds she was still attached to the leash, which remained fastened to the tree. She screamed in frustration and lashed her bloody tongue once again at Mel. He had his bodkin ready and parried her attack and was able to retreat to one side, beyond her reach. A moving scene of pure malice erupted across her hide. Mel saw a stylised representation of himself being torn apart by the vermiraptor. It would have been fascinating had it not been so horrible.

He looked beyond her, but the wall of mist had vanished. He moved around in a wide arc, careful to stay outside the range of Munchie’s tongue, and the mist came back into view. It was as he had thought – the way home was only visible from a head-on angle. With dismay, he realised that Munchie, at the limit of the leash and with her long tongue, commanded the way out of the painting. He imagined getting her to chase him round and round the tree until her leash shortened as it wound around the trunk, but then remembered the way the flow of time was altered inside the pictures. He could stay here a week and Groot would still be waiting for him when he came out. What I need is another exit.

Mel made his way down to the shore of the lake and stared across at the strange house. He could not escape the feeling that the house was staring back at him. He stepped on to the bridge, which unexpectedly felt as soft and pliant as a thick carpet, and crossed. The building not only looked human from the outside, the interior also mimicked the inside of a mouth. He found himself in a cavernous hallway with a vaulted, red brick ceiling. Underfoot was a rich, red carpet, and the walls were loosely draped with scarlet tapestries. At the rear was a huge spiral staircase leading down. Suspended immediately above the stairwell was a great chandelier made from a multitude of sparkling rubies. It must be so perfectly imagined that even the bits the master didn’t paint are as detailed as the bits he did. Mel approached the staircase and shouted down into the void.

‘Hello, anyone down there?’

‘… down there … down there … down there,’ his voice echoed back.

He did not like the thought of descending wherever that led and withdrew. Then a vibration began under his feet that grew until the entire space trembled. The rubies on the chandelier tinkled loudly. An almighty wind filled the chamber, accompanied by a roaring belch and a nauseating smell. Mel was blown off his feet, catapulted out of the entrance and hurled down the bridge. The soft surface left him shaken but otherwise unscathed. He picked himself up and, as he approached the entrance once more, the ivory white portcullis dropped shut with a heavy thud.

‘Bog off!’ came a deep, gruff voice. ‘Yer needn’t think yer coming back in ’ere.’

‘What?’ said Mel, startled.

‘I said bog off. How would you like it? Something crawling around inside yer gob like a spider. S’orrible. Sling yer ’ook. Scarper. Vamoose.’

‘Who’s there?’

‘What’re you, blind as well as stupid?’

‘Who said that?’

‘Ruddy deaf too. Struth!’

‘I … I ….’

‘And the little scut stutters. What ’ave I done to deserve this?’

With a shock, Mel realised that the house was talking to him. He looked up at the two great windows and saw the overhanging thatch rumple as if the facade was frowning. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended you but – ’

‘Huh!’

‘… but I’m lost. I need to find my way back home.’

‘Right behind you, Sonny-Jim, past yer pet crocodile. Couldn’t be plainer. Just do a sweet little one-eighty and Bob’s yer uncle. And while yer at it, tell yer pet to put a sock in it. That racket’s doing me ’ead in.’

‘I can’t go back that way, there’s … I can’t go that way.’

‘Not my problem, squire.’

‘I need to find another way. Can you help me?’ pleaded Mel.

The house did not answer.

‘If you won’t help me then I might as well stay here.’

No response.

‘In fact, I think I might pitch camp on this bridge.’

‘Tongue! It’s not a bridge, it’s me tongue.’

‘Whatever. I think I might make it my home.’

‘No, you skegging won’t.’ There was a long silence. ‘All right, Pip-squeak, if I tells yer where to find another way back will yer bog off and leave me in peace?’

‘That’s all I want. I’ll be out of your face as quick as you like.’

‘See that hill over there to the right? My right, blockhead, not yours. Well, just beyond that there’s another way out. Climb to the top and yer’ll see it. But yer not going to like it.’

‘Oh? Why not?’

‘Look, d’yer want a way out or not?’

Mel was about to press the building further but thought better of it. ‘Yes, I do. Thank you. I’ll be on my way. Goodbye.’

He returned to the shore and set off for the hill. After he had gone a little way the house called after him. ‘Out of yer face. I like that.’ It gave a chuckle. ‘Out of yer face. That’s a good ’un.’

When Mel climbed the hill and reached the summit, he understood the house’s warning.

There was a town at the foot of the hill. It looked to be completely in ruin and the shells of the buildings were burning fiercely. Thick black smoke rose and made an already overcast sky as dark as night. There were a great many semi-naked people running about, pursued by misshapen demons that were scourging them with whips or prodding them with long, many-pointed spears. They were herding them towards an enormous, yawning chasm which had opened up in the earth, belching flames. A broad river with the remnants of a bridge bisected the town. Some of the hunted had swum out to seek refuge in the cool waters or on an island but, as Mel watched, dark creatures rose from the depths to snatch them and drag them below.

On the far side of the river, beyond the town and some open ground, just as the house had said, he saw the wall of mist and his way home. How am I going to get all the way over there? he thought in despair.

Several figures ran up the hill towards him. As they drew nearer Mel was surprised to see that they were imperfectly formed. They had only the most rudimentary faces, almost like a child’s drawing, with just two dark holes for eyes and a gash for a mouth. Their limbs – such as they were – were in proportion but without any detail. They silently mouthed something at Mel.

‘What? I can’t hear you.’

Mel jumped out of the way as an equally ill-formed demon rushed past in pursuit. I hope the others show as little interest in me, he thought as he started down the hill. Other people fled past him as he descended and he saw that their features were more defined the farther he advanced. Then it struck him that the first figures were in the background of the scene, furthest from the wall of mist and the picture plane. He had entered this canvas from the rear.

By the time he had reached the outskirts of the town everyone whom he saw was perfectly formed and detailed. The place was hideous but of one thing he was sure: it wasn’t made by Ambrosius Blenk. The technique and the subject matter were unfamiliar. Mel had stumbled into someone else’s depiction of the underworld.

Whether from anxiety or from the noxious fumes oozing out of the ground all around him, Mel began to feel unwell. I need to get out. But how to get across the river?

There were demons everywhere and they took a huge variety of forms, among them snail-like fiends with warty skins and huge shells on their backs. Tubes led from these, with which the demons squirted gouts of flame at the damned. Mel saw that some of their shells had become floppy and realised that they weren’t actually part of the creatures. They were soft and more like bladders attached to their backs. Near the river’s edge a couple of them knelt and refilled these with the gas that bubbled to the surface. When they were inflated once more, Mel noticed that they leapt much higher because the gas in the bladders made them lighter.

I wonder …. He saw two snail-fiends who had been overcome by those they were tormenting, their bladders now as slack and as lifeless as their bearers. He crept towards them and removed the sacs, which were attached to their backs by shaggy ropes, and dragged them to the edge of the river. Tying them securely to a large rock, he began to inflate them with the gas bubbles as he had seen the others do. The gas made him feel increasingly nauseous and he tried to hold his breath as the sacs filled. When they were full, Mel grasped the ropes firmly with one hand and cut himself free. He rose into the air. Now he could get across to the wall of mist.

‘Yaaahhh!’ I’m flying. I’m actually flying. It was a mixture of terror and pure exhilaration.

The wind took him in the direction of an island. Then, to his horror, a flock of airborne demons swooped down at him. They had lizard-like bodies and weasel heads, with snapping jaws full of sharp teeth. They were borne along on bat wings that were incongruously patterned with butterfly markings. Mel kicked wildly at them as they attacked him, but one soared over his head and tore a long gash in the side of one of his balloons. Foul-smelling gas gushed from the puncture, and he began to plummet downwards. He only just made it to the central island before it deflated completely. He landed with a bump as another wave of the flying creatures dived on him, forcing him to release the other bladder.

As he searched the bleak vegetation for a hiding place he began to feel movement underfoot. The island wobbled and lurched as it began to rise, dripping glutinous river water as it did so.

‘What the – ’ Mel soon saw that what he had taken to be an island was the carapace of a grothling like the one he had seen in the bestiary. He lost his footing on the slimy surface and began to slide down towards the river, trailing the tattered remains of his balloon, which snagged on the encrustations and slowed his descent. The creature’s long, antlered head broke surface and snapped at the flying demons. Those must be megaphines! thought Mel as he desperately tried to stop his headlong slide. The grothling blew a mighty jet of dirty water from a blow-hole on top of its head. Mel slid towards this and when he reached it, jammed the limp balloon into the beast’s air passage. For a moment nothing happened, and then the creature gave out a series of choking, gurgling noises and uttered an enormous sneeze that blew the obstruction – and Mel – high into the air. As Mel began to fall back to earth and certain death, the ripped balloon opened above him with a sharp snap and became a parachute that glided him slowly down on to the far bank of the river. His panic vanished as relief flooded his body. He felt an absurd urge to laugh out loud.

Mel abandoned his parachute and ran through the far side of the town towards the wall of mist. It lay beyond the open ground that Mel soon found was a mire. A band of demons gave chase as a strange contraption rolled on to the bog after him. It moved on four broad paddlewheels studded with suckers. Inside each of these wheels sat a muscular demon peddling furiously. Mounted on top were several more fiends with spears and ropes and a flame-squirter. The machine was bedecked all over with human scalps and skulls and a carved prow with a hideous figurehead projected from the front. It advanced over the boggy surface as easily as a boat over water.

The wall of mist was now only a short distance away, but it might as well have been a mile as the bog sucked at Mel’s feet. With a roar, the demons’ flame-squirter fired and Mel felt a searing heat at his back. Nearby bubbles of swamp-gas ignited, which in turn lit others, and then still more, until the whole surface of the bog was alive with leaping columns of flame.

Eventually, Mel reached the wall of mist. He made the unlocking gesture and leapt at the wall just as a lasso fell over him. But the strength of the portal pulled him through.

Unfortunately, it also pulled the demons and their entire swamp-machine through with him, together with the flock of megaphines.

The far side of the portal was in pitch darkness, broken only by the feeble glow of the fire drizzling from the end of the demons’ flame-squirter. This then spewed a long tongue of fire that swept in a wide, roaring arc, brilliantly illuminating the surroundings. The demons spotted Mel and began cackling wildly. He could now see that they had arrived in a huge hall. The flame-squirter fired again. Several of the flying megaphines were caught in the jet and burst into flame. They flew about the space screaming and colliding with the remainder of their flock that also caught fire. As the flickering light of the conflagration increased, Mel glimpsed the painting they had all emerged from, seen this time from the viewpoint the artist had intended. It was terrifying. If he had seen it from this perspective he would never have attempted to travel through it.

He felt a sharp tug on the lasso as he was yanked helplessly towards his tormentors. The flame spat again, this time aimed directly at him. The heat was intense but did not reach him. The rope caught fire and, as Mel struggled against it with his remaining strength, it snapped. He threw off the smouldering remnant and took to his heels, in a kind of racing stagger, for the safety of the darkness. It felt like he was running in slow-motion. The demons were right behind him, shooting more gouts of flame and throwing their spears as they stampeded after him, jabbering with excitement. He ran as fast as his trembling limbs would allow, but after a short distance he was overcome by nausea. His legs turned to jelly and he collapsed forward on to his stomach. He raised his head and something in front of him caught his attention.

Tiny pinpricks of light like a swarm of fireflies hovered in the darkness. These sparks grew bigger and brighter and with a great, whistling swoosh shot over his head, followed by a rapid series of wet thuds and screams. He turned and saw that each of the demons had collapsed with a flaming bolt embedded in them. They shrieked as they were engulfed in fire. Mel looked back in the direction the bolts had come from and out of the darkness emerged twenty or more figures carrying discharged crossbows. They were illuminated by the flickering light of the burning fiends.

‘We meet again, Mel.’