Chapter Seventeen

 

The Worm Turns

 

Reaching the entrance hall in a state of near hysteria, Hiram stopped, realizing that he needed to be in the house to find Barbara. His blood pressure was high, creating a loud thumping of his heartbeat in his ears. His breath was being drawn in short gulps and every nerve and muscle trembled. Hammy turned to face the way he came. The girls were coming after him. In a couple of seconds he found himself engaged in a struggle for life.

The laird stood and watched as the girls tried to drag Hiram down. His size and strength prevailed. A couple of them were holding his arms. As he struggled he was able to kick out, keeping most of the others off, then with a momentous effort he freed one arm. Suddenly he was able to swing out with his fist and in moments the girls were scattering on the floor, his powerful blows knocking them down like ninepins.

With his temper running almost as high as his blood pressure, he fled from the shack and ran to the bus. Quickly he leapt aboard, closing the door behind him. By the time he had the engine started, one of the girls was already prying the door open. Hammy floored the throttle and the vehicle rushed forward. Clumsily he drove round the pithead, spraying dirt and gravel off the wheels. The girl who had made it aboard physically attacked him, paying no heed to that fact the bus was moving.

Struggling both to steer the bus and fight off the girl, Hiram drove erratically towards the trees. After a few moments he was able to hit the girl hard enough to knock her down, then he regained full control of the vehicle. The small bus rushed through the grove of trees at breakneck speed, leaving a giant dust trail. When he reached the main highway he saw in his rear-view mirror that the girl was about to attack him yet again.

Barely slowing down, he threw the vehicle round the corner and onto the hard street. The turning inertia threw the unwelcome passenger to the floor. Barely slowing down, he wheeled the bus round again. Violently the vehicle leapt into the air as it left the road and crashed through the churchyard gateway. Hiram was going to use the weight and speed of the bus to destroy the stop fire.

His foot was hard on the accelerator as they rushed up the short pathway to the tomb. With an explosive force, the bus struck the stop-fire tomb and bounced into the air. It crashed down on its side and rolled, landing back on its wheels. Hiram had fallen from the driver’s seat and was bundled up near the exit door. The engine had stopped and the girl was nowhere to be seen. Many of the windows were smashed and a cloud of dust filled the air.

Pulling the latch, Hiram fell out of the vehicle onto the cemetery ground. He climbed to his feet and looked around. The stop fire was still there and spouting its plume into the heavens. His blood still high, he looked at his watch. There was still ten minutes to go to zero hour and Bernard was nowhere to be seen. Light shone from the ruined church. Almost in a state of panic, Hammy ran to the church doorway. Bernard was sitting on one of the dilapidated pews, his PXI beside him.

“Oh, God!” Hiram exclaimed and ran to the old man. “What the hell are you doing, Bernie? Put your PXI on and let’s get out of here.”

Bernard looked up and smiled in a dreamy manner. “You do not understand, Hammy.”

“Where’s the explosives? Where did you put it, you silly old twit?”

Bernard smiled again. Hearing a noise behind him, Hiram turned in time to see the vicar taking a swipe at him with a candle snuffer. Hammy ducked then met the attack with a powerful right cross. The vicar was sent sprawling to the floor and did not move again.

“You are wrong, Hammy, give yourself to the master,” Bernard said. “He is all benevolent.”

“Screw the master, I’ve seen the bastard. Now, where’s the explosives?”

The old man stood up. “I must take you to the master, Hammy,” he said. “We can have everlasting peace.”

With his anger almost at the point of uncontrollability, Hiram hit the old man as he had the vicar. Bernard did not fall to the floor as Hammy caught him on the way down. “Sorry, Bernie, you stupid old fool.” He grabbed the prof’s PXI and draped it over the old man’s head. In order to carry him, Hiram picked him up using the standard fireman’s lift. Heaving the unconscious professor over his shoulder, the PXI fell to the floor. With great difficulty Hammy picked it up.

Running as best he could with the prof. draped over his shoulder, Hammy made it to the door. He looked at his watch; it was on the button of ten. With a rumble the stop fire ceased operating. It was a relief of indescribable proportions. Gently Hammy put the old man down in the vestibule. Then with an ear-shattering burst of energy the stop fire started again, filling the sky with renewed mystic energy.

Whilst catching his breath, Hammy noticed people coming from across the street. For fear they may be hostile and under the control of the laird, he picked up Bernard again and made a dash for the bus. He reached the vehicle and opened the door. Quickly he placed the prostrate professor on the floor of the vehicle. As Hammy attempted to close the door he was attacked by the girl Mindy, who was already inside.

In his usual quick and violent manner he subdued the wild female. Jumping into the driver’s seat, Hiram turned the key and started the engine. He slapped it into gear and floored the pedal. Reluctantly the bus moved forward, then jammed against a large boulder. Backing up a short distance just as some of the villagers were trying to enter the vehicle, he threw it in forward and floored the pedal again.

Awkwardly the bus leapt forward, then noisily rushed through the cemetery towards the side road, occasionally knocking against large rocks. With a thunderous crash, it plunged through the dilapidated wooden fence then nosedived into a shallow ditch. The vehicle stopped abruptly casting a cloud of dust, steam and smoke. Again Hiram found himself lying on the metal floor, but this time he was in great pain.

Dizzily he looked around for survivors of the crash. Bernard was wedged awkwardly between two seats and Mindy was tight up against the front bulkhead. Nothing inside the vehicle moved. With great difficulty he forced the exit door open. He could hear and see the villagers coming across the cemetery towards him. One took a shot at him with a shotgun but fortunately the range was too great to be effective.

Suddenly seized with panic, Hiram grabbed Bernard’s PXI in order that it would not fall into enemy hands. Then, with pain and difficulty, he attempted to make a run for it. He headed for the trees towards the old mansion, feeling that his chances of survival would be improved if he could reach tree cover. Half staggering, half running along the dust road he noticed a car coming towards him from the wooded area. It had no lights and was moving dangerously fast.

As the vehicle flashed past him it locked up all its wheels and slithered to a halt in a giant cloud of dust. Quickly the driver backed it out of the dust cloud. It stopped and the door flew open.

“‘Urry up, Yank,” Terry yelled. “The bloody world’s fallin’ apart.”

With a feeling of excited relief Hiram scrambled into the car. Even before he was completely in, Terry floored the pedal and sped off. The wheels spun and the car slithered and snaked to higher speed.

“Thanks,” Hiram gasped.

“I fink we’s done this afore,” Terry shouted. “Keep your ‘ead down, we in’t art yet.”

Hiram wearily obeyed, crouching down by the dashboard as they rushed through the crowd of villagers who had been chasing him. One of the people was hit by the car and thrown completely off the road, another opened fire with his shotgun. Little or no damage was done to the car.

“Turn right at the main road,” Hammy advised.

Barely slowing down, Terry flung the car round the corner and onto the main road, heading for the hills. “Nah what?” he asked.

“Go for a couple of kilometres and then pull off the road. They’ve got Bernard. We can’t go without him. Somehow we’ve got to rescue him.”

Terry was driving without lights, though the road seemed quite clear in the light of the stop-fire plume.

“I ain’t ‘appy wiv any of this,” he snapped. “Nofin’ worked art the way it should ‘ave.”

“Shut up and bloody drive. It was your stupid idea in the first place.”

After a couple of minutes Terry pulled the vehicle off the road and drove a little way into the brush. He stopped and shut the engine off.

“What nah?” he asked, turning to Hammy.

Hiram turned to face him, though in the dim light he could only see an outline. “The whole bloody raid was a total failure. They’ve got Bernard. I don’t even know if he’s still alive. I’m fairly sure Mindy’s dead and I’m certain Martha is. God, I hate you, you stupid little shit. Look at the mess you’ve landed us in now. That bloody monster is unkillable.”

“Me,” Terry said indignantly. “You are the bloody fool ‘oo got us into this crap in the first place. That daft old Nightingale could of ‘elped if ‘e ‘ad done ‘is bit. I didn’t ‘ear no bloody bang. What did you do? ‘ow did you git in the cemetery? You was supposed to be in the ‘ouse.”

Hiram breathed out audibly. His eyes scanned the horizon as he tried to think how to explain his failure. “I was there, I was in the house. I saw the thing, the bloody alien. I saw the goddamned thing that’s the real enemy. It’s bulletproof. While you were farting about I faced the demon myself.”

“The laird, you mean?”

“No, they call it the Laird of Craigai Castle. But it’s not human.”

“Well, enlighten, enlighten?”

“Man, you wouldn’t believe, you just wouldn’t believe.”

“I will if you ever gets to tellin’ me.”

“It’s a thing, like a 10-ton bug. I saw it eat Martha. That’s when all hell broke loose. I shot at it. I shot the thing at point-blank range. It ignored me, like I wasn’t even there. It caused every one else to attack me, the girls and the laird-thing. It just … it just absorbed her and ignored my gun.”

“The laird-thing, elucidate.”

“Oh, God. I can’t begin to explain. The Laird of Craig Manor is a thing, it’s not a person, it’s a bloody thing that looks like … well, it looks like a bloody great bug.”

“But it in’t a bug?” Terry quizzed.

“No, it’s not a bug, it’s a thing. Holy shit, man, you’ll have to look for yourself, it just looks like a 10-ton bug. So what did you do while I was defending the world?”

“I blew up that room at the bottom of the pit, the one wiv all that machinery in it, electric machinery. I reckon I put that alien’s lights out. Then some’ow it corrected itself. Some’ow it managed to bypass the damage.”

“So what the hell are we going to do now, genius?” Hammy smirked.

Terry was silent for a few seconds thinking. “We’ve got only two fings we can do. One, we ‘ave to know ‘oo or what is the enemy. Two, we’ve got to recapture that nutty old professor of yourn. ‘e’s the one wiv contacts. We need more explosive and better weapons.”

Hammy sat silent, thoughts fleeting through his head. He knew Terry was right, they couldn’t leave Bernard to the mercy of that blood sausage and its bug master. “I don’t see how we can?” he said eventually.

“That’s your trouble, cock. You never use your finkin’ bit. Where did that ol’ fool put the explosives?”

“Why?”

“Well, if we ‘ad ‘em, we could give that fing a good ‘eadache. Maybe enough to rescue all the uvers. It might be bulletproof but what if we gives it a few kilograms of explosive?”

“There are no others. Mindy’s dead, Martha’s dead and probably by now every one else is dead. But we might be able to blow up the bug.”

“I bet that old fart left the bomb in ‘is jam jar.”

Hammy looked surprised. For the first time he realized that he was not sitting in Bernard’s car. “Where did this one come from?”

“It’s mine,” Terry said, opening the glove compartment. “Look, ‘ere’s forty rounds of ammo for that gun o’ mine. You do still ‘ave it?”

“Sure, I’ve still got it.”

“Or-right. This is the plan.” A wry smile spread across Terry’s face. “We’ll show these soddin” aliens you don’t muck abart wiv no ‘umans. I fink I know where the old geezer would ‘ave parked ‘is jam jar. We’ll pop over there and purloin it back. If the plastercine’s in it, we’ll do ‘em up but good. You wiv me?”

“I’m with you, Terry, but I think you’re crazy and you’ll probably get us all killed.”

“I was crazy to get mixed up in this fing in the first place, now I wants revenge.”

“Okay,” Hiram said. “But let’s get our priorities straight. First we rescue Bernard. Then we blow up the stop fire.”

“You ain’t got no sense o’ leadership, cock. We’ll work to a pragmatic plan, sort of loosely on the rails, like.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hiram said with a sigh.

“Listen, you dumb Yank. How the ‘ell are we gonna rescue the old fart if we don’t know where ‘e is? We’ve got to play it by ear but at the same time ‘ave a plan that’s viable. Our target is the stop fire, right?”

“Alright, General Hardwick, why don’t you show me how wonderful you are and get this show on the road.”

“Right, cock. First, we’ll find the old geezer’s jam jar, rescue the gelly and maybe the old geezer at the same time. Our prime objective is to shut down that stop fire. If that fing is still running by mornin’ we’ll have the ‘ole bloody Royal Constabulary arter our guts.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s go, general.”

“Right,” Terry said, handing Hiram a box of ammunition. “Load that gun and don’t be frit to use it, cock. It don’t matter no more, we’s marked as dead anyway.”

As the car turned round and began its journey back to Craig Village, Hiram placed six new rounds of ammunition in the pistol then tipped the rest into his pocket.

“I feel better with a loaded gun,” he said softly. “But that bug is bulletproof.”

“When we find the old geezer’s jam jar, you drive this one and I’ll jemmy ‘is. You follow me, or-right?”

“No. When we find Bernard’s car I’ll drive it, I’ve got the keys. He thoughtfully gave me a spare set days ago.”

“There,” Terry yelled, slamming on the brakes.

He threw the car into reverse and with a squeal of tyres reversed down the street.

Bernard’s car was parked outside the Seven Suitors Arms.

“This is it,” Hammy said and jumped out.

He felt like he was about to make a delayed jump with someone else taking his parachute out for him. His heart pounded in his chest. He ran to the car with the excitement overpowering the pain in his leg. The car was locked as hoped. Quickly he opened it and as he did, someone came out of the pub. Hammy jumped in the car, locked the door and started the engine.

The person on the street put his hands through the broken window and grabbed Hiram’s arm. The car sped off ahead of Terry’s and the pedestrian let go and fell on the street. Nervously Hammy slowed the car down and allowed Terry to overtake him. For a while they sped along the road towards Edinburgh, then they pulled off the street.

As the two cars stopped, Terry leapt out and came running to Hiram. “Great,” he said. “Phase one complete. One enemy down. ‘ave you got the gelly?”

“One down, what d’you mean, one down?”

“I ran ‘im over, didn’t I. The one ‘anging on your car.”

“Oh, God!” Hammy exclaimed. “You mean you killed him?”

“Couldn’t ‘elp it. Got in the way, didn’t ‘e. Nah, is the gelly in the car or not?”

“I’ll look in the trunk,” Hammy said.

“The what?”

“The … the back, the boot.” He opened the lid and sure enough, the explosives were sitting on the spare wheel. “Sure, it’s all here except for the bit you used.”

“Or-right, then,” Terry said. “We’ll put it in my jam jar. You drive that one. Park it abart ‘alf a kilometre before the village. Togever we’ll go in my jam jar. I’ll park up in the grove. Then we walk the rest of the way.”

“Where the hell to?” Hammy asked.

“To the bloody mine fing, that’s where it seems vulnerable.”

“What for? Like, what are you going to do?”

“I fink it’s connected to the stop fire in that underground tunnel. We’ll go down there an’ blow the ‘hole fing to ‘ell.”

“I don’t think these radio detonators will work from any great distance underground.”

“Not to worry, cock. There’re timers an” all. It’ll be alright.”

“Okay. What about Bernard?”

“Once we silence that stop-fire fing, we’ll be a lot safer. Then we’ll look for the old fart. Nah, are you wiv me?”

“Okay, sure. Let’s go.”

Quickly Terry put the explosives in his car and drove off. Terry swung round and headed back towards Craig. Hammy followed. After a while Terry pulled off the road. It was the place where he wanted to leave Bernard’s car as a spare in case of trouble. Hiram shut off the engine, took the two lanterns and locked the door. Placing the keys in his pocket he jumped in with Terry. Moments later they entered the village of Craig. The dead body was still lying in the middle of the road where Terry had hit it.

With lights out they turned into the dirt lane beside the church. The bus was still nose down in a shallow ditch.

“Stop!” Hammy yelled.

Terry slithered the vehicle to a stop near the front of the old bus. Hammy jumped out and ran into the still open vehicle, but there was no sign of either Bernard or Mindy. He ran back to the car.

“Okay, let’s go, there’s no one in the bus. Both bodies have gone.”

When they reached the trees, Terry turned right and drove into the woods for a few dozen metres. Then he stopped and shut the engine off. He turned to Hammy. “This is it, cock. We do or die. Are you still wiv me?”

“Sure. I’ll follow.”

“Bring that other PXI, if we find the old geezer we’ll need it.”

Hiram leaned in and took the PXI off the back seat. Together they crept through the woods towards the manor house. In no time they reached the place where the driveway circled the pithead. The house, or shack, looked quiet, everything looked quiet, maybe too quiet. There was no activity anywhere, except for the roar of the stop fire in the distance.

Cautiously they crossed the road and entered the area where the mine stood. The pithead consisted of two wooden buildings joined by a wooden breezeway. The wheel of the hoisting gear protruded above the top of the larger ramshackle building. Entry was easy, nothing being locked. To normal people the entire place looked like a fountain. In single file they walked to the mineshaft. The inside of the rundown building was very dark. The lanterns illuminated the way down the shaft to where the first explosion had been fired that night.

“The buggers won’t expect us to come back to the scene of the first crime so quick,” Terry chuckled.

The big problem the two would-be saboteurs faced was how to get the explosives down the ladder to the bottom of the pit. The case was three quarters full and still weighed about 10 kilograms. Quickly Terry flashed his lantern around the building.

“There,” he said excitedly. “Rope, go get it quick.”

Hiram walked off in the direction of the light beam and collected the rope. Within minutes Terry tied the case in such a way that it hung on his back, allowing him to climb down the precarious ladder. Hiram put his trouser belt through the handle of his lantern to give him a hands-free descent. Before descending he put the spare PXI in a safe place, to be collected on the way back. The small cockney detective was quite tired when they reached the bottom of the pit. Hiram looked around after freeing his lantern from his belt.

The evidence of the previous visit was quite prominent. The entire wall to the machinery room had been blown out into the pit shaft. Much of the machinery was severely damaged and the ceiling to that room had collapsed. The force of the explosion had also knocked much of the wall down in the once blind tunnel.

“So, which way?” Hiram said.

“I fink that way,” Terry said, pointing with his lantern to the blind tunnel.

“That’s the mine workings. It probably goes for miles.”

“Right, I fink it goes to the cemetery. That’s where the stop-fire fing is. It’s fed from ‘ere.”

“You mean you want us to walk all the way to the cemetery under the ground? This place probably isn’t safe. What if the ceiling falls in?”

“If you’re scared,” Terry said, “bloody well stay ‘ere. I’ll go alone if I ‘ave to.”

“Alright, alright. I’ll come with you, but I sure hope you’re right. I don’t want to spend what little life I have left wandering in the nether regions of the underworld, hoping to avoid being found by a giant bloodsucking bug.”

The two forced their way through the broken wall and into the old tunnel. It was surprisingly clean and dry. The floor looked smooth and free of debris.

“Listen,” Terry said after they had walked for a few minutes.

The two stood still and listened. Sure enough something reverberated in the distance, the sound of some terrible machine. They could feel it more than hear it, like a slow, rhythmic throb, almost imperceptible. Along the side of the passage was a shiny tube that ran the length of the tunnel.

“I reckon that pipe’s got something to do with it,” Hiram said.

Terry walked over to the 15-centimetre diameter pipeline and placed his ear on it. “Yah!” he said. “Somefing’s runnin’ in it. I’ll make the decision what to do when we get to the end.”

Both men were shocked at what they found at the end of the tunnel. The sound was frightening. The whole effect felt like standing in an underground railway tunnel with a train passing close by. The horrifying sound was constant and seemed to reverberate through the very walls of the passage. The tunnel ended at a double metal door, large enough to drive a truck through.

One of the huge doors opened easily and beyond lay a wonderland of surprises. They found a room 20 by 20 metres and in the centre was a machine of great complexity. It looked a little like some form of farm feeding bin, upside down. There were transparent tubes and small lights. The top of the mechanism passed through the ceiling of the rock cave.

Terry walked around the thing in thoughtful silence. He was looking for what he thought may be its most delicate and vulnerable area. After a while he began unloading the explosives. Carefully he unwrapped each cake and began pushing them into an orifice in the side of the giant thing. Hiram watched. He didn’t speak as communication was difficult owing to the noise made by the horrifying machine.

After some ten minutes Terry took a small black plastic digital clock from his pocket and placed it into the explosives. He stood up and tapped Hiram’s shoulder then indicated the exit. Together they walked out of the room and Terry closed the door. Talking became easier once the doors were closed.

“We got twenty minutes,” Terry shouted.

“Then what?”

“Bloody bang, bloody bang, cock, that’s what. Let’s go.”

Together they began running back the way they had entered. Halfway back Terry stopped.

“What now?” Hiram asked.

“That bloody pipe, cock.” Terry walked over to the pipeline and removed another slab of explosives from his pocket. Carefully he packed it on the pipe near a joint and then placed one of the small clocks into it and set the time. “Let’s get the ‘ell art of ‘ere,” he said and began running again.

Breathlessly they reached the bottom of the pit shaft.

“Now what?” Hiram asked.

Terry looked at his watch. “I reckon the first one’s going off in abart four minutes. I fink we should be art of ‘ere when it goes.”

“Why?”

“Cos that shock wave’s goin’ to come down ‘ere like an express train, up that shaft. It’s goin’ to lift the ‘ole bloody pit ‘ead up like a powder puff. Then it’s goin’ to drop the ‘ole bloody lot around guess ‘oo’s arse?”

“How do you know all this stuff, shorty?”

Hardwick smiled. “I was a demo man in the Royal Engineers, cock. They teach you how to do this sort of fing.”