Rick stumbled into the confines of his room and stared in shock. His bed was back where he had left it, in the corner of his room against the wall that connected it to Neil's quarters. There was no sign that the floor had recently collapsed - or of its impossible flipping across the house.
Confused, Rick turned and stepped out into the landing.
And grew pale.
Filling up most of the space was a dusty, armored, anti-tank gun. It was positioned in such a way it blocked access to both flights of stairs and the bathroom. Vyvyan was adjusting some controls out of view, a crazed look in his eye as he adjusted another handle.
'Vyvyan!' Rick shouted, fighting to keep the panic out of his voice. 'Where did you get that howitzer?!' he demanded, preying that this topic of conversation would give him a chance to escape.
'Found it,' Vyvyan offered with an evasive shrug.
'Well, you can just about bloomin' well put it back this instant, young man!' Rick retorted.
'I will, I will,' Vyvyan promised viciously. 'Just as soon as I've blown you to pieces!'
Rick swallowed. He was a tough customer but not even he could stand up to an anti-tank gun blast! And Vyvyan, who was usually one to maim rather than kill, was struggling to aim the barrel at him. Vyvyan was trying to kill him! Rick realized at that moment that just because the outward symptoms of Vyvyan's hangover were gone didn't mean the chemicals were still out of his system. He would have to play this very carefully - the bastard could do anything. He could ---
Rick realized that Vyvyan had fired and dived for the cover of the doorway to the punk's bedroom.
The blast scraped past him, swallowing up the landing window and vanishing into the swirling dark mist beyond. Rick struck the floor gasping for breath, and heard a clanking noise as the barrel was re-aligned. The self-styled anarchist looked up to see Vyvyan re-loading the howitzer.
There was no trace of sanity in those dilated pupils.
# # #
It could have been anywhere. The sky was thick with coiling grey-black clouds, the land below diffused in a pale blue twilight. Mist and fog curled over the long, reedy grass that was occasionally interrupted by gnarled, skeletal trees moist with condensation but boasting no foliage.
Three emaciated figures were sitting on a fallen tree, their simple clothes in shades of brown from countless stains, skins grubby and unwashed. One of them, larger and hairier than the others, looked around him, bored as he always was on a Sunday. The mist meant that he could only see a few feet in any direction, but still inspiration struck.
A misplaced look of cunning formed on his vacant face and the peasant turned to his fellow. 'I bet,' he grunted smugly, 'in one second... both of my legs will fall off!'
It took a full three seconds for the others to react. The scrawniest and hungriest-looking of the pair leant forward and growled, 'All right! You're on!'
The remaining farmer nodded and pointed at the large man's leg, encased in yellowing tights. 'One!' he counted, eyes narrow with suspicion.
The peasant leant back, lifting his legs from the moist ground. He kicked out both of them and waited for the splash as the useless limbs crashed into swampy surface beneath him.
But they didn't.
The other two laughed loudly and held out their dirty, callused hands for payment.
'That's the third sack of potatoes I've already lost today!' the loser complained miserably, on the verge of tears as he slammed down the meager currency into the waiting hands of his companions.
Suddenly, there was the heavy sound of hoof beats squelching in mud. The trio turned to face the banks of mist directly behind them. A dark shape swirled into view, finally piercing the fog to reveal the horse carrying Sir Boring Old Fart, the local knight. He slowed to a halt beside the peasants, allowing them to see two slender shapes - one predominately grey, the other blue - draped over the back of Sir Boring Old Fart's saddle. The long hair of both figures showed them to be female.
'Hey, everyone!' called the knight cheerfully, 'there's a 20th Century pad back there, and they're giving away free damsels! Here, have one,' he said generously, and flapped out with his right hand behind him. The grey shape was flipped off the horse and plummeted into a bare patch of earth. A patch which seemed to be nothing but muddy water as the "damsel" sunk up to its elbows in the muck.
With a wave, Sir Boring Old Fart rode off into the mist and in moments was gone.
The peasants turned to look at the muddy shape struggling to sit up.
The hippie knight had definitely kept the looker.
# # #
Neil was jolted back from the opening theme of Dallas by a sudden wave of ice-cold mud that instantly enveloped his body. Twisting around, he cracked open his eyes to see nothing but grey mists. What had happened? Where was he? As ever, he felt a sinking depression as the answers came back.
The hippie knight - hah! Breadhead knight more like! - had kidnapped him and Rick's pretend girlfriend, rode out of the house and then thrown him in the mud. Neil ripped himself out of the bog and found himself in a mist-strewn field, facing three small grubby men looking at him in a mixture of disgust and disappointment.
'Excuse me,' Neil croaked as he focussed on the trio, 'but can you tell me what happened to the rest of the street?' he asked hopefully.
They stared at him, not understanding a word.
Neil scraped most of the mud out of his hair and ears, wincing as he heard a shrill, building howl just on the edge of his senses. Was it tinitus? Had he finally been hit once to often?
The noise got louder and Neil had the briefest impression of something hurtling through the fog towards the silent trio moment before the explosion hurled him back into the mud. The blast of heat seemed to dry out the mud into crumbly sand that slid off him, and he looked up to see a small heap of burning charcoal where once had been three people.
The explosion had also cleared some of the mist.
Oh, how Neil wish it hadn't.
# # #
Rick pressed himself into the corner of the far wall, but Vyvyan had re-positioned and re-aimed the howitzer. He had no way out this time. Rick licked his lips, feeling suddenly very cold. It was time to cut his losses - virginity or not, he wasn't prepared to get blown to pieces for anyone. With the possible exception of Felicity Kendall, obviously. 'Oh, no!' he gasped, suddenly realized the anti-tank gun was now fully loaded.
'Vyvyan!' he screamed. 'No!'
Vyvyan grinned and hissed, moving to pull the firing lever.
'Please!' Rick howled. 'You were right and I was wrong! I am a virgin!' At that moment, he would have said anything if it would stop Vyvyan from pulling the trigger and ending his life.
'Not for long, matey,' Vyvyan growled demonically.
He pulled the trigger.
The shattering blast took out the rest of the window and also a chunk of the wall. More mist blew into the landing under pressure and, cursing, Vyvyan moved to reload the howitzer for one, final blast. He cast a glance at the huddled shape on the floor, wracked with deep, loud sobs.
And laughed.
# # #
Peasants, men and women and all equally unhygienic, were rushing out of a round, clay-built hut sitting in the corner of the field, surrounded by a small patch of cultivated land and firewood. The peasants, upon seeing the burnt remnants of their three companions and a long-haired stranger nearby, had leapt to the wrong conclusion and were immediately arming themselves with whatever they could lay their hands on - pitch forks, scythes, stick and, in one cash, a bright white cartoonish bone.
Neil began to back away, praying for the mists to return and cover his retreat. This was just typical! Rick or Vyvyan never got kidnapped by hypocritical knights and sold to peasants who promptly just exploded for no reason and left the blame pointing at them! And where was he? What had happened to the town - it had been there when he'd been rudely awoken this morning...
Neil realized that the leader was shouting at him as they approached. 'Look, sorry about your relatives...'
'He's a sorcerer!' shouted one of the peasants, and others joined in. Was it his imagination, or could he hear that whistling noise again?
'No, I was just wondering where the bus stop had gone!' Neil protested.
The peasants slowed their advance and exchanged a few cautious glances. Neil suspected that they had no idea what a bus stop actually was, so Neil helpfully added, 'The one that was where that hut is...'
He pointed to the hut, and the peasants turned to follow his lead. As their gaze rested on their dwelling place, said dwelling place was suddenly ripped apart by a blinding red-yellow explosion that instantly consumed the hut and everything around it, creating a plume of smoke that filled any gaps in the fog.
The peasants turned to look at Neil, then back at the burning remains of their home.
Neil turned and ran for his life.
After a few moments of blinding stumbling through the mists, he saw the familiar silhouette of his house sitting incongruously in the next field, surrounded on all sides by leafless black trees. Sulphurous light spilled from the windows and ruined doorway.
Any hope Neil had gained from the sight disappeared as he realized the peasants were right behind him.
# # #
Rick and Vyvyan trudged down the stairs onto the first landing, the former sniffling and trying to casually dry his red-rimmed eyes. His final breakdown into tears had prompted enough amusement from Vyvyan to put aside the howitzer and Rick had used all his formidable powers of diplomacy and persuasion.
He peered down at all the loose change in his hand and made a final calculation. 'There you go, Vyvyan,' he said, voice tight and dry after his recent shouts and sobs. 'There's the 59 pence compensation for disagreeing with you,' he said, emptying the shrapnel into the punk's outstretched hand.
Rick looked down at the sign he was now wearing - a piece of cardboard on threadbare string that hung around his neck. Scratched onto it in felt-tip, in large, easy-to-read letters were the words I AM A VIRGIN. 'Yes, I'll have the T-shirt printed first thing tomorrow morning,' Rick promised meekly, inwardly consoling himself that at least he was alive.
Then he staggered and nearly fell as Vyvyan's hammer connected with the base of his skull.
Rick turned and saw it wasn't a hammer but in fact some kind of medieval mace. How had he got hold of that thing? Still, he refused to get into more trouble - although Vyvyan seemed sober, there was definitely no telling what he could do.
Biting back the curse, Rick turned and looked around. The place was in even more of a wreck than before - the inner door was now lying at his feet, a large crack in the central window pane, muddy footprints were everywhere and what was that he could smell? Horsepoo? What had Neil been eating? Come to think of it, where was Neil? Both he and Helen were missing, and Mike was peering anxiously through the curtains.
The answer came as a silhouette ran out of the grey fog into the hallway. It was Neil - and he looked worse than ever. Mud was spattered across most of his body, and he stank of horse business and gunpowder. 'Guys! Guys!' he moaned, turning to pick up the inner door and throw it against the gap in the wall. 'Barricade the doors! Lock all the windows! Pretend to be invisible!' he wailed, placing the rickety chair against the door to improve his pathetic barrier. 'I've just committed a bit of a... faux-pas.'
Already, angry noises and shouts could be heard from all sides of the house.
'Neil, have you upset the neighbors?' demanded Mike.
'No, no, Mike,' Neil replied absently, rushing over to the windows to see how best to fortify them. 'I've blown them up.'
Clearly Vyvyan's blasts had found a target, Rick considered, feeling suddenly giddy as he remembered that, yet again, he had almost been killed today. 'Blimey,' he exclaimed weakly, 'who said Sunday was a day of rest?'
Vyvyan looked up from the sofa into which he had slumped. 'God did,' he supplied, pointing to Rick.
Rick nodded, snapping his fingers and pointing back at Vyvyan. 'That's right! I knew it was someone Tory.'
'I knew I shouldn't have touched that magpie,' Neil grimaced, gnawing at his fingertips.
Rick rolled his eyes. 'Oh, God, Neil,' he complained, 'you're so superstitious. Anyone would think we were living in the Middle Ages!'
Mike look up from the window again. 'I don't want to worry anyone - but we are.'
'What?' exclaimed Vyvyan and Rick as one, and they joined Mike and Neil beside the television and peered out through the curtains. There was no denying it - something very strange had happened. Hillocks and skeletal trees, enshrouded in the thick grey fog had replaced the suburban streets and town. Short, manic little silhouettes were raging through the mists towards them.
'Oh no,' growled Vyvyan as he stared at the vista. 'It seems as though, mysteriously, the whole house has gone through some sort of time-warp.' He rolled his eyes in despair, as if this situation was most boring, predictable and cliched disaster imaginable.
Rick peered between the shoulders of the punk and hippie, clapping his hands in delight. 'God, isn't it all simply enchanting,' he crowed happily. 'It's like one of those wonderful drawings by Brughel with lots of working-class people thrashing about the place with pitch-forks!' he observed, miming such a pitch-fork-thrashing movement with his empty hands.
'Yeah, they look really angry, don't they?' Neil observed gloomily.
Rick, carried along by what was probably delayed shock, turned away from the window, the shouts and the sounds of breaking glass and wandered over to the kitchen. 'Oh, just think!' he enthused. 'No nuclear power, no pollution, no electrical cables ruining the landscape...'
Rick trailed off.
A thought had occurred.
He turned to face the others. The thought had occurred to them as well.
'...no telly,' they gasped in unison.
'Oh, no,' Neil wailed in torment. 'I'll die if I miss Scooby-Doo!'
Vyvyan nodded, aghast. 'Too bloody right, Neil. Everybody panic!' he ordered at a shout.
They panicked. ..... 'When you said "panic",' Neil said miserably, 'I didn't think you meant, "hang me"!'
His criticism summed up the situation. While he had begun to fret on the spot, Mike, Rick and Vyvyan had leapt into what seemed to be an extremely well rehearsed plan of attack. Mike, for his part, had crossed to the sofa, picked up the pillow that earlier that day Helen had tried to smother him with, and tucked it into the corner of the couch. He then sat down comfortably, positioning himself in front of the television.
Vyvyan had scooped up a coil of rope and thrown it up into the air. One end had looped around an exposed beam, revealed during the chaos of the day, and tied one end around his right hand.
Rick had snatched the rickety chair from holding up the front door and placed it directly beneath the swinging end of the rope, which Neil recognized as a hangman's noose moments before they'd turned on him. 'Neil, stick your head through here,' he was told by Vyvyan. 'Right, stand on this,' Rick ordered.
Now, Neil was standing on the wobbling chair, the noose tied tight around his neck, his own long coarse hair scratching against the thin skin of his neck. Vyvyan was sitting on the opposite side of the sofa to Mike, holding the noose taunt while Rick stood beside the TV. 'Test the TV, Rick,' Vyvyan ordered.
'Right,' Rick agreed enthusiastically, pointing to the punk as if to emphasize his point. Rick snapped down the switch and dived onto the couch in the space between Vyvyan and Mike. The ghostly reflection of the house melted away as the set warmed up. Immediately, a set of plummy, Liverpudlian tones began to boom out from the speaker as shapes sharpened out of the illuminating screen.
Exactly why or how the television was working none of them knew. Perhaps, somehow, the house was still connected to the mains and supplies in the far future and thus it was working normally. Perhaps television as an industry had been around a lot longer than anyone had really admitted. Perhaps it was all a freakily convenient coincidence. But the lads had long ago learnt to ignore such paradoxes.
The screen showed a bald, rotund man in a leather jacket, shot from the (very large) waist up. He was clearly part of the widespread Balowski family, but his articulate voice and apparent sanity suggested he was one of the more distant, lucid members. Behind him was a black background, on which was painted in arty, italic print the words DID YE SEE?
'...hotting up in the battle between TV stations for higher ratings,' the man was saying.
'You're very lucky, Neil,' Vyvyan grunted. It was part of the house charter that, in the lack of other entertainment, it was perfectly acceptable to murder a member of the household whose last name began with 'P' in order to stave off boredom. They had not told Neil this in order to keep the atmosphere relaxed.
Neil opened his mouth to reply when suddenly Vyvyan flicked his wrist and kicked out with his foot. The rickety chair toppled over and the hippie plummeted to the floor. However, the noose was no longer held tight, and so Neil escaped with only a few bruises, but his impact blotted out what the bald man was saying, something about ITV's lineup.
'...because the BBC came up with Strip Sex Snooker Darts on Ice, with Torvill and Dean. Of course, ITV came back with Roland the Rat's TV AM Public Executions.' Behind the man, the DID YE SEE? background began to rise up out of sight. '"Yeah, cut his head off, yeah!"' the man said in a drawn-out Roland the Rat impression. 'But now,' he said with sudden urgency, pointing dramatically out of the screen, 'we have--'
Suddenly, the screen was filled by a beautiful buxom wench wearing a pale pink dress and one of those curious hats that sprouted from her ears and hair, curling around the back. She was French, or perhaps German, at the very least foreign, and English was her second language. 'Jester Balowski's Medieval Torture Hour!' she shouted joyfully.
The image cut to that of the studio audience. As Neil righted himself he could see it was a typical 20th century BBC studio, the sort of thing Dicky & Deano would appear in. The audience too appeared surprisingly average - men, women, all adults, most Caucasian and wearing synthetic clothing. They were all cheering and applauding as Jester Balowski ran down the steps between aisles and towards the stage. He was identical to the man who had just introduced the program, almost a clone except he was dressed as a court jester, the dark blues and bright oranges of his pointed headdress given an authentic medieval layer of grime, a feral grin of yellowing, crooked teeth. 'Yeah!' the Balowski shouted. 'Medieval torture!'
Jester ran onto the set, which had a painted backdrop of dusk settling on a cemetery, in front of which stood plastic molded arches of stone dungeons. Between curious decorations comprising of three human skulls and peacock feathers were whips, chains, and racks. The foreign 'princess' stood demurely to one side. Jester leapt onto the stage, spinning around to face the audience and the camera. 'And our first victim tonight is - Gwendolyn?!' He had left such a short pause in between words, for a split second the lads wondered if the princess herself was about to be put to the rack.
Similar thoughts had occurred to the princess herself; she was looking pale and worried. 'Our first victim tonight,' Gwendolyn said quickly, struggling to pronounce each word correctly, 'is Spasspecker the Dull!'
The audience, barely calmed from Jester's entrance, went wild once more. Another man was charging towards the stage like Jester before him, and was waving his arms around him in a mixture of delight and attention seeking. He was dirty, grubby and wearing earth-coloured robes, and his wide, pale blue eyes spoke greatly of natural stupidity. Unlike the audience (or, indeed, the entire program), Spasspecker the Dull was right out the barren wastelands outside the house in the Dark Ages.
'Come on down! Spasspecker, come here! Whoo hoo!' Jester Balowski enthused as the peasant finally reached him and the applause began to die down. Effortlessly, he gently twisted the awestruck Spasspecker into position to face the camera, his voice immediately thickening into a twisted, patronizing tone. 'First in for medieval torture?' he asked in a common-sounding accent.
Spasspecker, still apparently dazzled by the lights and cameras, nodded mutely.
'First question,' Jester said brightly. 'Are you nervous, Spasspecker?'
The peasant thought about it for a while, his ruddy face suddenly grave. 'A little, Jester, yes,' he drawled.
The host gave a machine-gun burst of cheerful laughter. 'And apparently, apparently, you're married with one lovely daughter?' he asked, lacing his words with a kind of approval.
'That's right, Jester,' Spasspecker agreed, relieved that the questions were playing to his strengths - general knowledge about his own immediate household. 'Gwenneth.'
'Gwenneth,' Jester repeated playfully. 'That's right. But unfortunately, she can't be with us tonight, can she?'
'No,' Spasspecker agreed, shaking his head, but Jester Balowski's 'No' was far louder and drowned out his voice. 'No, because she's not very lovely at the moment? No,' he continued, blotting out the peasant's confirmation. 'No, because she's got the plague at the moment, doesn't she?'
'Yes,' Spasspecker said with a weak chuckle.
'And her face is one enormous bag of pus!' The Jester was now screaming at the audience, taking a sadistic pleasure in every badly pronounced syllable.
'That's right, Jester,' Spasspecker announced, sounding more confident. 'As a matter of fact, there is quite a funny story attached to that. Because she wanted to come along tonight,' he sniggered, the punch line obviously too good for him to keep a straight face, 'but her arms fell off!'
There was laughter and applause, some of it from Jester Balowski, but it didn't reach his eyes. 'I hope you're ready,' he cut in, 'so, actually, pay attention, because we'll be right back after this break.'
Spasspecker nodded sagely and stared at the camera, and thus was taken totally by surprise as the Jester snatched his right arm and wrenched it down onto his raised knee. There was a sickening crack of such intensity that even Vyvyan winced. Spasspecker's eyes bulged out of his skull and his mouth swung open and closed, making a pained gasping noise.
Jester Balowski roughly drew the peasant closer to him in what would have been a comradely embrace if it weren't for the pained grunts Spasspecker made, and bruises forming under the Jester's fingers. 'Now, would you like to be tortured?' Jester asked happily.
Despite the increasing pain, the peasant managed to croak out the affirmative. Twice.
'Would you like some live scampi in your britches?' Jester offered.
'That'd be nice,' Spasspecker wheezed, triggering cheers from the audience.
'Or would you like to have your eyes sucked out by a goat and replaced with some hot toffee apples?' Balowski suggested, making scooping motions with his free, meaty hand. The audience cheered even louder and the Jester snapped, all bohemia gone: 'Well, it's completely bloody irrelevant anyway!' he snarled. 'Tell us, Spasspecker,' he asked, suddenly curious, 'exactly what was your crime?'
Spasspecker swallowed before answering. 'Whistling on a Tuesday, Jester,' he admitted quietly.
There was a moment of total silence.
The audience began to boo. 'You bastard,' the Jester spat, revolted, before returning to business. 'We've got for you, later on, Pro-Celebrity Torture!'
The picture changed to the part of the set to the right of Jester and Spasspecker. Flanked by two gorgeous handmaidens in similar princess outfits to Gwendolyn was an enormous figure holding a black card. With silver patterns coiling around the edges, in delicate white letters were the words TOBY GRUNTSPLATTER. The man's face was completely hidden by a black leather hood, revealing only his eyes and mouth, his muscular body almost contained by a black leather jacket, freeing his huge arms before they disappeared into matching fingerless gloves. The audience sheered at his sheer presence, because he did not move or react to anything around him, let alone his beautiful female companions.
'In which, today,' Jester continued, 'Toby Gruntsplatter, pain-giver for the court of King Edward the
Optical Illusion will be torturing a team comprised of Dennis Waterman's Show Business Eleven!'
The audience cheered and the image changed to the opposite side of the studio. An old, bearded man in a black robe, hood pulled up over his balding head, clutched excitedly at a similar sign to Gruntsplatter, but this one was marked DENNIS WATERMAN'S SHOWBIZ XI. He was also flanked by two figures, who the lads instantly identified.
'Including Sir Geoffrey Chaucer,' Jester continued.
The old man let go of the sign with one hand and waved the free appendage at the audience. A cheer.
'Sir Boring Old Fart...'
The self-styled hippie knight leant against the set and raised a gloved hand with the karma sign. Another cheer was heard, but Sir did not react.
'...and Helen, the completely mad murderess!' Jester concluding, pronouncing 'completely' in such a way that it rhymed with 'slightly'. Rick's pretend girlfriend was busy brushing her hair, face blank and clearly not in the least concerned she was about to be tortured to death live on national television.
Rick's heart went out for her, and then he stopped and frowned. "Murderess?" Helen was the nutter they'd been hearing about? He felt a sudden surge of hope. She was a nutcase - her word meant nothing! If Rick said that he'd scored with her, she couldn't prove otherwise. And she was a psychotic murderer! Well, the Friends of Stalin society were going to get an earful of this when he got back. If he got b---
There was the sound of breaking glass and a strange sensation ran through the top of Rick's scalp and suddenly a slim yellow arrow thudded into the control panel in the side of the television. Helen's blank features vanished from the TV screen as the device was suddenly and violently switched off. Rick looked around, hands creeping to his head to find his hair had been roughly parted down the middle...
That arrow had just missed skewering his skull!
With the TV now off, he could hear the angry shouts, the banging and thudding and breaking glass. ''Oh, no!' he exclaimed, rising to see shadowy figures at every door and window. 'The whole house has been surrounded by angry medieval peasants!' he wailed.
Mike swallowed, realizing it was time to face the music. 'They think we're witches, and they're going to burn us!' he explained for Rick and Vyvyan's benefit - it hadn't taken much to work out, after all.
'We're completely trapped,' Vyvyan summarized practically. 'The outlook is bleak!'
Neil was on the verge of hyperventilating. 'What're we going to do?' he moaned.
Vyvyan looked around him as the inner door and back door finally gave way.
He sighed. 'Oh, who cares?' he groaned and slumped back down on the sofa.
'Yeah,' Mike agreed dismissively and pulled a pack of playing cards from his pocket. Fighting off the peasants would be a long, uncomfortable chore and they'd probably lose. At least this way he could legitimately claim to be "a cool person" as they were dragged to the bonfire.
Following Mike's lead, Rick and Neil also sat down and they began to play a game of Fish.
The medieval, maggot-ridden peasants swarmed through the house...
Rick stumbled into the confines of his room and stared in shock. His bed was back where he had left it, in the corner of his room against the wall that connected it to Neil's quarters. There was no sign that the floor had recently collapsed - or of its impossible flipping across the house.
Confused, Rick turned and stepped out into the landing.
And grew pale.
Filling up most of the space was a dusty, armored, anti-tank gun. It was positioned in such a way it blocked access to both flights of stairs and the bathroom. Vyvyan was adjusting some controls out of view, a crazed look in his eye as he adjusted another handle.
'Vyvyan!' Rick shouted, fighting to keep the panic out of his voice. 'Where did you get that howitzer?!' he demanded, preying that this topic of conversation would give him a chance to escape.
'Found it,' Vyvyan offered with an evasive shrug.
'Well, you can just about bloomin' well put it back this instant, young man!' Rick retorted.
'I will, I will,' Vyvyan promised viciously. 'Just as soon as I've blown you to pieces!'
Rick swallowed. He was a tough customer but not even he could stand up to an anti-tank gun blast! And Vyvyan, who was usually one to maim rather than kill, was struggling to aim the barrel at him. Vyvyan was trying to kill him! Rick realized at that moment that just because the outward symptoms of Vyvyan's hangover were gone didn't mean the chemicals were still out of his system. He would have to play this very carefully - the bastard could do anything. He could ---
Rick realized that Vyvyan had fired and dived for the cover of the doorway to the punk's bedroom.
The blast scraped past him, swallowing up the landing window and vanishing into the swirling dark mist beyond. Rick struck the floor gasping for breath, and heard a clanking noise as the barrel was re-aligned. The self-styled anarchist looked up to see Vyvyan re-loading the howitzer.
There was no trace of sanity in those dilated pupils.
# # #
It could have been anywhere. The sky was thick with coiling grey-black clouds, the land below diffused in a pale blue twilight. Mist and fog curled over the long, reedy grass that was occasionally interrupted by gnarled, skeletal trees moist with condensation but boasting no foliage.
Three emaciated figures were sitting on a fallen tree, their simple clothes in shades of brown from countless stains, skins grubby and unwashed. One of them, larger and hairier than the others, looked around him, bored as he always was on a Sunday. The mist meant that he could only see a few feet in any direction, but still inspiration struck.
A misplaced look of cunning formed on his vacant face and the peasant turned to his fellow. 'I bet,' he grunted smugly, 'in one second... both of my legs will fall off!'
It took a full three seconds for the others to react. The scrawniest and hungriest-looking of the pair leant forward and growled, 'All right! You're on!'
The remaining farmer nodded and pointed at the large man's leg, encased in yellowing tights. 'One!' he counted, eyes narrow with suspicion.
The peasant leant back, lifting his legs from the moist ground. He kicked out both of them and waited for the splash as the useless limbs crashed into swampy surface beneath him.
But they didn't.
The other two laughed loudly and held out their dirty, callused hands for payment.
'That's the third sack of potatoes I've already lost today!' the loser complained miserably, on the verge of tears as he slammed down the meager currency into the waiting hands of his companions.
Suddenly, there was the heavy sound of hoof beats squelching in mud. The trio turned to face the banks of mist directly behind them. A dark shape swirled into view, finally piercing the fog to reveal the horse carrying Sir Boring Old Fart, the local knight. He slowed to a halt beside the peasants, allowing them to see two slender shapes - one predominately grey, the other blue - draped over the back of Sir Boring Old Fart's saddle. The long hair of both figures showed them to be female.
'Hey, everyone!' called the knight cheerfully, 'there's a 20th Century pad back there, and they're giving away free damsels! Here, have one,' he said generously, and flapped out with his right hand behind him. The grey shape was flipped off the horse and plummeted into a bare patch of earth. A patch which seemed to be nothing but muddy water as the "damsel" sunk up to its elbows in the muck.
With a wave, Sir Boring Old Fart rode off into the mist and in moments was gone.
The peasants turned to look at the muddy shape struggling to sit up.
The hippie knight had definitely kept the looker.
# # #
Neil was jolted back from the opening theme of Dallas by a sudden wave of ice-cold mud that instantly enveloped his body. Twisting around, he cracked open his eyes to see nothing but grey mists. What had happened? Where was he? As ever, he felt a sinking depression as the answers came back.
The hippie knight - hah! Breadhead knight more like! - had kidnapped him and Rick's pretend girlfriend, rode out of the house and then thrown him in the mud. Neil ripped himself out of the bog and found himself in a mist-strewn field, facing three small grubby men looking at him in a mixture of disgust and disappointment.
'Excuse me,' Neil croaked as he focussed on the trio, 'but can you tell me what happened to the rest of the street?' he asked hopefully.
They stared at him, not understanding a word.
Neil scraped most of the mud out of his hair and ears, wincing as he heard a shrill, building howl just on the edge of his senses. Was it tinitus? Had he finally been hit once to often?
The noise got louder and Neil had the briefest impression of something hurtling through the fog towards the silent trio moment before the explosion hurled him back into the mud. The blast of heat seemed to dry out the mud into crumbly sand that slid off him, and he looked up to see a small heap of burning charcoal where once had been three people.
The explosion had also cleared some of the mist.
Oh, how Neil wish it hadn't.
# # #
Rick pressed himself into the corner of the far wall, but Vyvyan had re-positioned and re-aimed the howitzer. He had no way out this time. Rick licked his lips, feeling suddenly very cold. It was time to cut his losses - virginity or not, he wasn't prepared to get blown to pieces for anyone. With the possible exception of Felicity Kendall, obviously. 'Oh, no!' he gasped, suddenly realized the anti-tank gun was now fully loaded.
'Vyvyan!' he screamed. 'No!'
Vyvyan grinned and hissed, moving to pull the firing lever.
'Please!' Rick howled. 'You were right and I was wrong! I am a virgin!' At that moment, he would have said anything if it would stop Vyvyan from pulling the trigger and ending his life.
'Not for long, matey,' Vyvyan growled demonically.
He pulled the trigger.
The shattering blast took out the rest of the window and also a chunk of the wall. More mist blew into the landing under pressure and, cursing, Vyvyan moved to reload the howitzer for one, final blast. He cast a glance at the huddled shape on the floor, wracked with deep, loud sobs.
And laughed.
# # #
Peasants, men and women and all equally unhygienic, were rushing out of a round, clay-built hut sitting in the corner of the field, surrounded by a small patch of cultivated land and firewood. The peasants, upon seeing the burnt remnants of their three companions and a long-haired stranger nearby, had leapt to the wrong conclusion and were immediately arming themselves with whatever they could lay their hands on - pitch forks, scythes, stick and, in one cash, a bright white cartoonish bone.
Neil began to back away, praying for the mists to return and cover his retreat. This was just typical! Rick or Vyvyan never got kidnapped by hypocritical knights and sold to peasants who promptly just exploded for no reason and left the blame pointing at them! And where was he? What had happened to the town - it had been there when he'd been rudely awoken this morning...
Neil realized that the leader was shouting at him as they approached. 'Look, sorry about your relatives...'
'He's a sorcerer!' shouted one of the peasants, and others joined in. Was it his imagination, or could he hear that whistling noise again?
'No, I was just wondering where the bus stop had gone!' Neil protested.
The peasants slowed their advance and exchanged a few cautious glances. Neil suspected that they had no idea what a bus stop actually was, so Neil helpfully added, 'The one that was where that hut is...'
He pointed to the hut, and the peasants turned to follow his lead. As their gaze rested on their dwelling place, said dwelling place was suddenly ripped apart by a blinding red-yellow explosion that instantly consumed the hut and everything around it, creating a plume of smoke that filled any gaps in the fog.
The peasants turned to look at Neil, then back at the burning remains of their home.
Neil turned and ran for his life.
After a few moments of blinding stumbling through the mists, he saw the familiar silhouette of his house sitting incongruously in the next field, surrounded on all sides by leafless black trees. Sulphurous light spilled from the windows and ruined doorway.
Any hope Neil had gained from the sight disappeared as he realized the peasants were right behind him.
# # #
Rick and Vyvyan trudged down the stairs onto the first landing, the former sniffling and trying to casually dry his red-rimmed eyes. His final breakdown into tears had prompted enough amusement from Vyvyan to put aside the howitzer and Rick had used all his formidable powers of diplomacy and persuasion.
He peered down at all the loose change in his hand and made a final calculation. 'There you go, Vyvyan,' he said, voice tight and dry after his recent shouts and sobs. 'There's the 59 pence compensation for disagreeing with you,' he said, emptying the shrapnel into the punk's outstretched hand.
Rick looked down at the sign he was now wearing - a piece of cardboard on threadbare string that hung around his neck. Scratched onto it in felt-tip, in large, easy-to-read letters were the words I AM A VIRGIN. 'Yes, I'll have the T-shirt printed first thing tomorrow morning,' Rick promised meekly, inwardly consoling himself that at least he was alive.
Then he staggered and nearly fell as Vyvyan's hammer connected with the base of his skull.
Rick turned and saw it wasn't a hammer but in fact some kind of medieval mace. How had he got hold of that thing? Still, he refused to get into more trouble - although Vyvyan seemed sober, there was definitely no telling what he could do.
Biting back the curse, Rick turned and looked around. The place was in even more of a wreck than before - the inner door was now lying at his feet, a large crack in the central window pane, muddy footprints were everywhere and what was that he could smell? Horsepoo? What had Neil been eating? Come to think of it, where was Neil? Both he and Helen were missing, and Mike was peering anxiously through the curtains.
The answer came as a silhouette ran out of the grey fog into the hallway. It was Neil - and he looked worse than ever. Mud was spattered across most of his body, and he stank of horse business and gunpowder. 'Guys! Guys!' he moaned, turning to pick up the inner door and throw it against the gap in the wall. 'Barricade the doors! Lock all the windows! Pretend to be invisible!' he wailed, placing the rickety chair against the door to improve his pathetic barrier. 'I've just committed a bit of a... faux-pas.'
Already, angry noises and shouts could be heard from all sides of the house.
'Neil, have you upset the neighbors?' demanded Mike.
'No, no, Mike,' Neil replied absently, rushing over to the windows to see how best to fortify them. 'I've blown them up.'
Clearly Vyvyan's blasts had found a target, Rick considered, feeling suddenly giddy as he remembered that, yet again, he had almost been killed today. 'Blimey,' he exclaimed weakly, 'who said Sunday was a day of rest?'
Vyvyan looked up from the sofa into which he had slumped. 'God did,' he supplied, pointing to Rick.
Rick nodded, snapping his fingers and pointing back at Vyvyan. 'That's right! I knew it was someone Tory.'
'I knew I shouldn't have touched that magpie,' Neil grimaced, gnawing at his fingertips.
Rick rolled his eyes. 'Oh, God, Neil,' he complained, 'you're so superstitious. Anyone would think we were living in the Middle Ages!'
Mike look up from the window again. 'I don't want to worry anyone - but we are.'
'What?' exclaimed Vyvyan and Rick as one, and they joined Mike and Neil beside the television and peered out through the curtains. There was no denying it - something very strange had happened. Hillocks and skeletal trees, enshrouded in the thick grey fog had replaced the suburban streets and town. Short, manic little silhouettes were raging through the mists towards them.
'Oh no,' growled Vyvyan as he stared at the vista. 'It seems as though, mysteriously, the whole house has gone through some sort of time-warp.' He rolled his eyes in despair, as if this situation was most boring, predictable and cliched disaster imaginable.
Rick peered between the shoulders of the punk and hippie, clapping his hands in delight. 'God, isn't it all simply enchanting,' he crowed happily. 'It's like one of those wonderful drawings by Brughel with lots of working-class people thrashing about the place with pitch-forks!' he observed, miming such a pitch-fork-thrashing movement with his empty hands.
'Yeah, they look really angry, don't they?' Neil observed gloomily.
Rick, carried along by what was probably delayed shock, turned away from the window, the shouts and the sounds of breaking glass and wandered over to the kitchen. 'Oh, just think!' he enthused. 'No nuclear power, no pollution, no electrical cables ruining the landscape...'
Rick trailed off.
A thought had occurred.
He turned to face the others. The thought had occurred to them as well.
'...no telly,' they gasped in unison.
'Oh, no,' Neil wailed in torment. 'I'll die if I miss Scooby-Doo!'
Vyvyan nodded, aghast. 'Too bloody right, Neil. Everybody panic!' he ordered at a shout.
They panicked.
Confused, Rick turned and stepped out into the landing.
And grew pale.
Filling up most of the space was a dusty, armored, anti-tank gun. It was positioned in such a way it blocked access to both flights of stairs and the bathroom. Vyvyan was adjusting some controls out of view, a crazed look in his eye as he adjusted another handle.
'Vyvyan!' Rick shouted, fighting to keep the panic out of his voice. 'Where did you get that howitzer?!' he demanded, preying that this topic of conversation would give him a chance to escape.
'Found it,' Vyvyan offered with an evasive shrug.
'Well, you can just about bloomin' well put it back this instant, young man!' Rick retorted.
'I will, I will,' Vyvyan promised viciously. 'Just as soon as I've blown you to pieces!'
Rick swallowed. He was a tough customer but not even he could stand up to an anti-tank gun blast! And Vyvyan, who was usually one to maim rather than kill, was struggling to aim the barrel at him. Vyvyan was trying to kill him! Rick realized at that moment that just because the outward symptoms of Vyvyan's hangover were gone didn't mean the chemicals were still out of his system. He would have to play this very carefully - the bastard could do anything. He could ---
Rick realized that Vyvyan had fired and dived for the cover of the doorway to the punk's bedroom.
The blast scraped past him, swallowing up the landing window and vanishing into the swirling dark mist beyond. Rick struck the floor gasping for breath, and heard a clanking noise as the barrel was re-aligned. The self-styled anarchist looked up to see Vyvyan re-loading the howitzer.
There was no trace of sanity in those dilated pupils.
# # #
It could have been anywhere. The sky was thick with coiling grey-black clouds, the land below diffused in a pale blue twilight. Mist and fog curled over the long, reedy grass that was occasionally interrupted by gnarled, skeletal trees moist with condensation but boasting no foliage.
Three emaciated figures were sitting on a fallen tree, their simple clothes in shades of brown from countless stains, skins grubby and unwashed. One of them, larger and hairier than the others, looked around him, bored as he always was on a Sunday. The mist meant that he could only see a few feet in any direction, but still inspiration struck.
A misplaced look of cunning formed on his vacant face and the peasant turned to his fellow. 'I bet,' he grunted smugly, 'in one second... both of my legs will fall off!'
It took a full three seconds for the others to react. The scrawniest and hungriest-looking of the pair leant forward and growled, 'All right! You're on!'
The remaining farmer nodded and pointed at the large man's leg, encased in yellowing tights. 'One!' he counted, eyes narrow with suspicion.
The peasant leant back, lifting his legs from the moist ground. He kicked out both of them and waited for the splash as the useless limbs crashed into swampy surface beneath him.
But they didn't.
The other two laughed loudly and held out their dirty, callused hands for payment.
'That's the third sack of potatoes I've already lost today!' the loser complained miserably, on the verge of tears as he slammed down the meager currency into the waiting hands of his companions.
Suddenly, there was the heavy sound of hoof beats squelching in mud. The trio turned to face the banks of mist directly behind them. A dark shape swirled into view, finally piercing the fog to reveal the horse carrying Sir Boring Old Fart, the local knight. He slowed to a halt beside the peasants, allowing them to see two slender shapes - one predominately grey, the other blue - draped over the back of Sir Boring Old Fart's saddle. The long hair of both figures showed them to be female.
'Hey, everyone!' called the knight cheerfully, 'there's a 20th Century pad back there, and they're giving away free damsels! Here, have one,' he said generously, and flapped out with his right hand behind him. The grey shape was flipped off the horse and plummeted into a bare patch of earth. A patch which seemed to be nothing but muddy water as the "damsel" sunk up to its elbows in the muck.
With a wave, Sir Boring Old Fart rode off into the mist and in moments was gone.
The peasants turned to look at the muddy shape struggling to sit up.
The hippie knight had definitely kept the looker.
# # #
Neil was jolted back from the opening theme of Dallas by a sudden wave of ice-cold mud that instantly enveloped his body. Twisting around, he cracked open his eyes to see nothing but grey mists. What had happened? Where was he? As ever, he felt a sinking depression as the answers came back.
The hippie knight - hah! Breadhead knight more like! - had kidnapped him and Rick's pretend girlfriend, rode out of the house and then thrown him in the mud. Neil ripped himself out of the bog and found himself in a mist-strewn field, facing three small grubby men looking at him in a mixture of disgust and disappointment.
'Excuse me,' Neil croaked as he focussed on the trio, 'but can you tell me what happened to the rest of the street?' he asked hopefully.
They stared at him, not understanding a word.
Neil scraped most of the mud out of his hair and ears, wincing as he heard a shrill, building howl just on the edge of his senses. Was it tinitus? Had he finally been hit once to often?
The noise got louder and Neil had the briefest impression of something hurtling through the fog towards the silent trio moment before the explosion hurled him back into the mud. The blast of heat seemed to dry out the mud into crumbly sand that slid off him, and he looked up to see a small heap of burning charcoal where once had been three people.
The explosion had also cleared some of the mist.
Oh, how Neil wish it hadn't.
# # #
Rick pressed himself into the corner of the far wall, but Vyvyan had re-positioned and re-aimed the howitzer. He had no way out this time. Rick licked his lips, feeling suddenly very cold. It was time to cut his losses - virginity or not, he wasn't prepared to get blown to pieces for anyone. With the possible exception of Felicity Kendall, obviously. 'Oh, no!' he gasped, suddenly realized the anti-tank gun was now fully loaded.
'Vyvyan!' he screamed. 'No!'
Vyvyan grinned and hissed, moving to pull the firing lever.
'Please!' Rick howled. 'You were right and I was wrong! I am a virgin!' At that moment, he would have said anything if it would stop Vyvyan from pulling the trigger and ending his life.
'Not for long, matey,' Vyvyan growled demonically.
He pulled the trigger.
The shattering blast took out the rest of the window and also a chunk of the wall. More mist blew into the landing under pressure and, cursing, Vyvyan moved to reload the howitzer for one, final blast. He cast a glance at the huddled shape on the floor, wracked with deep, loud sobs.
And laughed.
# # #
Peasants, men and women and all equally unhygienic, were rushing out of a round, clay-built hut sitting in the corner of the field, surrounded by a small patch of cultivated land and firewood. The peasants, upon seeing the burnt remnants of their three companions and a long-haired stranger nearby, had leapt to the wrong conclusion and were immediately arming themselves with whatever they could lay their hands on - pitch forks, scythes, stick and, in one cash, a bright white cartoonish bone.
Neil began to back away, praying for the mists to return and cover his retreat. This was just typical! Rick or Vyvyan never got kidnapped by hypocritical knights and sold to peasants who promptly just exploded for no reason and left the blame pointing at them! And where was he? What had happened to the town - it had been there when he'd been rudely awoken this morning...
Neil realized that the leader was shouting at him as they approached. 'Look, sorry about your relatives...'
'He's a sorcerer!' shouted one of the peasants, and others joined in. Was it his imagination, or could he hear that whistling noise again?
'No, I was just wondering where the bus stop had gone!' Neil protested.
The peasants slowed their advance and exchanged a few cautious glances. Neil suspected that they had no idea what a bus stop actually was, so Neil helpfully added, 'The one that was where that hut is...'
He pointed to the hut, and the peasants turned to follow his lead. As their gaze rested on their dwelling place, said dwelling place was suddenly ripped apart by a blinding red-yellow explosion that instantly consumed the hut and everything around it, creating a plume of smoke that filled any gaps in the fog.
The peasants turned to look at Neil, then back at the burning remains of their home.
Neil turned and ran for his life.
After a few moments of blinding stumbling through the mists, he saw the familiar silhouette of his house sitting incongruously in the next field, surrounded on all sides by leafless black trees. Sulphurous light spilled from the windows and ruined doorway.
Any hope Neil had gained from the sight disappeared as he realized the peasants were right behind him.
# # #
Rick and Vyvyan trudged down the stairs onto the first landing, the former sniffling and trying to casually dry his red-rimmed eyes. His final breakdown into tears had prompted enough amusement from Vyvyan to put aside the howitzer and Rick had used all his formidable powers of diplomacy and persuasion.
He peered down at all the loose change in his hand and made a final calculation. 'There you go, Vyvyan,' he said, voice tight and dry after his recent shouts and sobs. 'There's the 59 pence compensation for disagreeing with you,' he said, emptying the shrapnel into the punk's outstretched hand.
Rick looked down at the sign he was now wearing - a piece of cardboard on threadbare string that hung around his neck. Scratched onto it in felt-tip, in large, easy-to-read letters were the words I AM A VIRGIN. 'Yes, I'll have the T-shirt printed first thing tomorrow morning,' Rick promised meekly, inwardly consoling himself that at least he was alive.
Then he staggered and nearly fell as Vyvyan's hammer connected with the base of his skull.
Rick turned and saw it wasn't a hammer but in fact some kind of medieval mace. How had he got hold of that thing? Still, he refused to get into more trouble - although Vyvyan seemed sober, there was definitely no telling what he could do.
Biting back the curse, Rick turned and looked around. The place was in even more of a wreck than before - the inner door was now lying at his feet, a large crack in the central window pane, muddy footprints were everywhere and what was that he could smell? Horsepoo? What had Neil been eating? Come to think of it, where was Neil? Both he and Helen were missing, and Mike was peering anxiously through the curtains.
The answer came as a silhouette ran out of the grey fog into the hallway. It was Neil - and he looked worse than ever. Mud was spattered across most of his body, and he stank of horse business and gunpowder. 'Guys! Guys!' he moaned, turning to pick up the inner door and throw it against the gap in the wall. 'Barricade the doors! Lock all the windows! Pretend to be invisible!' he wailed, placing the rickety chair against the door to improve his pathetic barrier. 'I've just committed a bit of a... faux-pas.'
Already, angry noises and shouts could be heard from all sides of the house.
'Neil, have you upset the neighbors?' demanded Mike.
'No, no, Mike,' Neil replied absently, rushing over to the windows to see how best to fortify them. 'I've blown them up.'
Clearly Vyvyan's blasts had found a target, Rick considered, feeling suddenly giddy as he remembered that, yet again, he had almost been killed today. 'Blimey,' he exclaimed weakly, 'who said Sunday was a day of rest?'
Vyvyan looked up from the sofa into which he had slumped. 'God did,' he supplied, pointing to Rick.
Rick nodded, snapping his fingers and pointing back at Vyvyan. 'That's right! I knew it was someone Tory.'
'I knew I shouldn't have touched that magpie,' Neil grimaced, gnawing at his fingertips.
Rick rolled his eyes. 'Oh, God, Neil,' he complained, 'you're so superstitious. Anyone would think we were living in the Middle Ages!'
Mike look up from the window again. 'I don't want to worry anyone - but we are.'
'What?' exclaimed Vyvyan and Rick as one, and they joined Mike and Neil beside the television and peered out through the curtains. There was no denying it - something very strange had happened. Hillocks and skeletal trees, enshrouded in the thick grey fog had replaced the suburban streets and town. Short, manic little silhouettes were raging through the mists towards them.
'Oh no,' growled Vyvyan as he stared at the vista. 'It seems as though, mysteriously, the whole house has gone through some sort of time-warp.' He rolled his eyes in despair, as if this situation was most boring, predictable and cliched disaster imaginable.
Rick peered between the shoulders of the punk and hippie, clapping his hands in delight. 'God, isn't it all simply enchanting,' he crowed happily. 'It's like one of those wonderful drawings by Brughel with lots of working-class people thrashing about the place with pitch-forks!' he observed, miming such a pitch-fork-thrashing movement with his empty hands.
'Yeah, they look really angry, don't they?' Neil observed gloomily.
Rick, carried along by what was probably delayed shock, turned away from the window, the shouts and the sounds of breaking glass and wandered over to the kitchen. 'Oh, just think!' he enthused. 'No nuclear power, no pollution, no electrical cables ruining the landscape...'
Rick trailed off.
A thought had occurred.
He turned to face the others. The thought had occurred to them as well.
'...no telly,' they gasped in unison.
'Oh, no,' Neil wailed in torment. 'I'll die if I miss Scooby-Doo!'
Vyvyan nodded, aghast. 'Too bloody right, Neil. Everybody panic!' he ordered at a shout.
They panicked.
.....
'When you said "panic",' Neil said miserably, 'I didn't think you meant, "hang me"!'
His criticism summed up the situation. While he had begun to fret on the spot, Mike, Rick and Vyvyan had leapt into what seemed to be an extremely well rehearsed plan of attack. Mike, for his part, had crossed to the sofa, picked up the pillow that earlier that day Helen had tried to smother him with, and tucked it into the corner of the couch. He then sat down comfortably, positioning himself in front of the television.
Vyvyan had scooped up a coil of rope and thrown it up into the air. One end had looped around an exposed beam, revealed during the chaos of the day, and tied one end around his right hand.
Rick had snatched the rickety chair from holding up the front door and placed it directly beneath the swinging end of the rope, which Neil recognized as a hangman's noose moments before they'd turned on him. 'Neil, stick your head through here,' he was told by Vyvyan. 'Right, stand on this,' Rick ordered.
Now, Neil was standing on the wobbling chair, the noose tied tight around his neck, his own long coarse hair scratching against the thin skin of his neck. Vyvyan was sitting on the opposite side of the sofa to Mike, holding the noose taunt while Rick stood beside the TV. 'Test the TV, Rick,' Vyvyan ordered.
'Right,' Rick agreed enthusiastically, pointing to the punk as if to emphasize his point. Rick snapped down the switch and dived onto the couch in the space between Vyvyan and Mike. The ghostly reflection of the house melted away as the set warmed up. Immediately, a set of plummy, Liverpudlian tones began to boom out from the speaker as shapes sharpened out of the illuminating screen.
Exactly why or how the television was working none of them knew. Perhaps, somehow, the house was still connected to the mains and supplies in the far future and thus it was working normally. Perhaps television as an industry had been around a lot longer than anyone had really admitted. Perhaps it was all a freakily convenient coincidence. But the lads had long ago learnt to ignore such paradoxes.
The screen showed a bald, rotund man in a leather jacket, shot from the (very large) waist up. He was clearly part of the widespread Balowski family, but his articulate voice and apparent sanity suggested he was one of the more distant, lucid members. Behind him was a black background, on which was painted in arty, italic print the words DID YE SEE?
'...hotting up in the battle between TV stations for higher ratings,' the man was saying.
'You're very lucky, Neil,' Vyvyan grunted. It was part of the house charter that, in the lack of other entertainment, it was perfectly acceptable to murder a member of the household whose last name began with 'P' in order to stave off boredom. They had not told Neil this in order to keep the atmosphere relaxed.
Neil opened his mouth to reply when suddenly Vyvyan flicked his wrist and kicked out with his foot. The rickety chair toppled over and the hippie plummeted to the floor. However, the noose was no longer held tight, and so Neil escaped with only a few bruises, but his impact blotted out what the bald man was saying, something about ITV's lineup.
'...because the BBC came up with Strip Sex Snooker Darts on Ice, with Torvill and Dean. Of course, ITV came back with Roland the Rat's TV AM Public Executions.' Behind the man, the DID YE SEE? background began to rise up out of sight. '"Yeah, cut his head off, yeah!"' the man said in a drawn-out Roland the Rat impression. 'But now,' he said with sudden urgency, pointing dramatically out of the screen, 'we have--'
Suddenly, the screen was filled by a beautiful buxom wench wearing a pale pink dress and one of those curious hats that sprouted from her ears and hair, curling around the back. She was French, or perhaps German, at the very least foreign, and English was her second language. 'Jester Balowski's Medieval Torture Hour!' she shouted joyfully.
The image cut to that of the studio audience. As Neil righted himself he could see it was a typical 20th century BBC studio, the sort of thing Dicky & Deano would appear in. The audience too appeared surprisingly average - men, women, all adults, most Caucasian and wearing synthetic clothing. They were all cheering and applauding as Jester Balowski ran down the steps between aisles and towards the stage. He was identical to the man who had just introduced the program, almost a clone except he was dressed as a court jester, the dark blues and bright oranges of his pointed headdress given an authentic medieval layer of grime, a feral grin of yellowing, crooked teeth. 'Yeah!' the Balowski shouted. 'Medieval torture!'
Jester ran onto the set, which had a painted backdrop of dusk settling on a cemetery, in front of which stood plastic molded arches of stone dungeons. Between curious decorations comprising of three human skulls and peacock feathers were whips, chains, and racks. The foreign 'princess' stood demurely to one side. Jester leapt onto the stage, spinning around to face the audience and the camera. 'And our first victim tonight is - Gwendolyn?!' He had left such a short pause in between words, for a split second the lads wondered if the princess herself was about to be put to the rack.
Similar thoughts had occurred to the princess herself; she was looking pale and worried. 'Our first victim tonight,' Gwendolyn said quickly, struggling to pronounce each word correctly, 'is Spasspecker the Dull!'
The audience, barely calmed from Jester's entrance, went wild once more. Another man was charging towards the stage like Jester before him, and was waving his arms around him in a mixture of delight and attention seeking. He was dirty, grubby and wearing earth-coloured robes, and his wide, pale blue eyes spoke greatly of natural stupidity. Unlike the audience (or, indeed, the entire program), Spasspecker the Dull was right out the barren wastelands outside the house in the Dark Ages.
'Come on down! Spasspecker, come here! Whoo hoo!' Jester Balowski enthused as the peasant finally reached him and the applause began to die down. Effortlessly, he gently twisted the awestruck Spasspecker into position to face the camera, his voice immediately thickening into a twisted, patronizing tone. 'First in for medieval torture?' he asked in a common-sounding accent.
Spasspecker, still apparently dazzled by the lights and cameras, nodded mutely.
'First question,' Jester said brightly. 'Are you nervous, Spasspecker?'
The peasant thought about it for a while, his ruddy face suddenly grave. 'A little, Jester, yes,' he drawled.
The host gave a machine-gun burst of cheerful laughter. 'And apparently, apparently, you're married with one lovely daughter?' he asked, lacing his words with a kind of approval.
'That's right, Jester,' Spasspecker agreed, relieved that the questions were playing to his strengths - general knowledge about his own immediate household. 'Gwenneth.'
'Gwenneth,' Jester repeated playfully. 'That's right. But unfortunately, she can't be with us tonight, can she?'
'No,' Spasspecker agreed, shaking his head, but Jester Balowski's 'No' was far louder and drowned out his voice. 'No, because she's not very lovely at the moment? No,' he continued, blotting out the peasant's confirmation. 'No, because she's got the plague at the moment, doesn't she?'
'Yes,' Spasspecker said with a weak chuckle.
'And her face is one enormous bag of pus!' The Jester was now screaming at the audience, taking a sadistic pleasure in every badly pronounced syllable.
'That's right, Jester,' Spasspecker announced, sounding more confident. 'As a matter of fact, there is quite a funny story attached to that. Because she wanted to come along tonight,' he sniggered, the punch line obviously too good for him to keep a straight face, 'but her arms fell off!'
There was laughter and applause, some of it from Jester Balowski, but it didn't reach his eyes. 'I hope you're ready,' he cut in, 'so, actually, pay attention, because we'll be right back after this break.'
Spasspecker nodded sagely and stared at the camera, and thus was taken totally by surprise as the Jester snatched his right arm and wrenched it down onto his raised knee. There was a sickening crack of such intensity that even Vyvyan winced. Spasspecker's eyes bulged out of his skull and his mouth swung open and closed, making a pained gasping noise.
Jester Balowski roughly drew the peasant closer to him in what would have been a comradely embrace if it weren't for the pained grunts Spasspecker made, and bruises forming under the Jester's fingers. 'Now, would you like to be tortured?' Jester asked happily.
Despite the increasing pain, the peasant managed to croak out the affirmative. Twice.
'Would you like some live scampi in your britches?' Jester offered.
'That'd be nice,' Spasspecker wheezed, triggering cheers from the audience.
'Or would you like to have your eyes sucked out by a goat and replaced with some hot toffee apples?' Balowski suggested, making scooping motions with his free, meaty hand. The audience cheered even louder and the Jester snapped, all bohemia gone: 'Well, it's completely bloody irrelevant anyway!' he snarled. 'Tell us, Spasspecker,' he asked, suddenly curious, 'exactly what was your crime?'
Spasspecker swallowed before answering. 'Whistling on a Tuesday, Jester,' he admitted quietly.
There was a moment of total silence.
The audience began to boo. 'You bastard,' the Jester spat, revolted, before returning to business. 'We've got for you, later on, Pro-Celebrity Torture!'
The picture changed to the part of the set to the right of Jester and Spasspecker. Flanked by two gorgeous handmaidens in similar princess outfits to Gwendolyn was an enormous figure holding a black card. With silver patterns coiling around the edges, in delicate white letters were the words TOBY GRUNTSPLATTER. The man's face was completely hidden by a black leather hood, revealing only his eyes and mouth, his muscular body almost contained by a black leather jacket, freeing his huge arms before they disappeared into matching fingerless gloves. The audience sheered at his sheer presence, because he did not move or react to anything around him, let alone his beautiful female companions.
'In which, today,' Jester continued, 'Toby Gruntsplatter, pain-giver for the court of King Edward the
Optical Illusion will be torturing a team comprised of Dennis Waterman's Show Business Eleven!'
The audience cheered and the image changed to the opposite side of the studio. An old, bearded man in a black robe, hood pulled up over his balding head, clutched excitedly at a similar sign to Gruntsplatter, but this one was marked DENNIS WATERMAN'S SHOWBIZ XI. He was also flanked by two figures, who the lads instantly identified.
'Including Sir Geoffrey Chaucer,' Jester continued.
The old man let go of the sign with one hand and waved the free appendage at the audience. A cheer.
'Sir Boring Old Fart...'
The self-styled hippie knight leant against the set and raised a gloved hand with the karma sign. Another cheer was heard, but Sir did not react.
'...and Helen, the completely mad murderess!' Jester concluding, pronouncing 'completely' in such a way that it rhymed with 'slightly'. Rick's pretend girlfriend was busy brushing her hair, face blank and clearly not in the least concerned she was about to be tortured to death live on national television.
Rick's heart went out for her, and then he stopped and frowned. "Murderess?" Helen was the nutter they'd been hearing about? He felt a sudden surge of hope. She was a nutcase - her word meant nothing! If Rick said that he'd scored with her, she couldn't prove otherwise. And she was a psychotic murderer! Well, the Friends of Stalin society were going to get an earful of this when he got back. If he got b---
There was the sound of breaking glass and a strange sensation ran through the top of Rick's scalp and suddenly a slim yellow arrow thudded into the control panel in the side of the television. Helen's blank features vanished from the TV screen as the device was suddenly and violently switched off. Rick looked around, hands creeping to his head to find his hair had been roughly parted down the middle...
That arrow had just missed skewering his skull!
With the TV now off, he could hear the angry shouts, the banging and thudding and breaking glass. ''Oh, no!' he exclaimed, rising to see shadowy figures at every door and window. 'The whole house has been surrounded by angry medieval peasants!' he wailed.
Mike swallowed, realizing it was time to face the music. 'They think we're witches, and they're going to burn us!' he explained for Rick and Vyvyan's benefit - it hadn't taken much to work out, after all.
'We're completely trapped,' Vyvyan summarized practically. 'The outlook is bleak!'
Neil was on the verge of hyperventilating. 'What're we going to do?' he moaned.
Vyvyan looked around him as the inner door and back door finally gave way.
He sighed. 'Oh, who cares?' he groaned and slumped back down on the sofa.
'Yeah,' Mike agreed dismissively and pulled a pack of playing cards from his pocket. Fighting off the peasants would be a long, uncomfortable chore and they'd probably lose. At least this way he could legitimately claim to be "a cool person" as they were dragged to the bonfire.
Following Mike's lead, Rick and Neil also sat down and they began to play a game of Fish.
The medieval, maggot-ridden peasants swarmed through the house...
His criticism summed up the situation. While he had begun to fret on the spot, Mike, Rick and Vyvyan had leapt into what seemed to be an extremely well rehearsed plan of attack. Mike, for his part, had crossed to the sofa, picked up the pillow that earlier that day Helen had tried to smother him with, and tucked it into the corner of the couch. He then sat down comfortably, positioning himself in front of the television.
Vyvyan had scooped up a coil of rope and thrown it up into the air. One end had looped around an exposed beam, revealed during the chaos of the day, and tied one end around his right hand.
Rick had snatched the rickety chair from holding up the front door and placed it directly beneath the swinging end of the rope, which Neil recognized as a hangman's noose moments before they'd turned on him. 'Neil, stick your head through here,' he was told by Vyvyan. 'Right, stand on this,' Rick ordered.
Now, Neil was standing on the wobbling chair, the noose tied tight around his neck, his own long coarse hair scratching against the thin skin of his neck. Vyvyan was sitting on the opposite side of the sofa to Mike, holding the noose taunt while Rick stood beside the TV. 'Test the TV, Rick,' Vyvyan ordered.
'Right,' Rick agreed enthusiastically, pointing to the punk as if to emphasize his point. Rick snapped down the switch and dived onto the couch in the space between Vyvyan and Mike. The ghostly reflection of the house melted away as the set warmed up. Immediately, a set of plummy, Liverpudlian tones began to boom out from the speaker as shapes sharpened out of the illuminating screen.
Exactly why or how the television was working none of them knew. Perhaps, somehow, the house was still connected to the mains and supplies in the far future and thus it was working normally. Perhaps television as an industry had been around a lot longer than anyone had really admitted. Perhaps it was all a freakily convenient coincidence. But the lads had long ago learnt to ignore such paradoxes.
The screen showed a bald, rotund man in a leather jacket, shot from the (very large) waist up. He was clearly part of the widespread Balowski family, but his articulate voice and apparent sanity suggested he was one of the more distant, lucid members. Behind him was a black background, on which was painted in arty, italic print the words DID YE SEE?
'...hotting up in the battle between TV stations for higher ratings,' the man was saying.
'You're very lucky, Neil,' Vyvyan grunted. It was part of the house charter that, in the lack of other entertainment, it was perfectly acceptable to murder a member of the household whose last name began with 'P' in order to stave off boredom. They had not told Neil this in order to keep the atmosphere relaxed.
Neil opened his mouth to reply when suddenly Vyvyan flicked his wrist and kicked out with his foot. The rickety chair toppled over and the hippie plummeted to the floor. However, the noose was no longer held tight, and so Neil escaped with only a few bruises, but his impact blotted out what the bald man was saying, something about ITV's lineup.
'...because the BBC came up with Strip Sex Snooker Darts on Ice, with Torvill and Dean. Of course, ITV came back with Roland the Rat's TV AM Public Executions.' Behind the man, the DID YE SEE? background began to rise up out of sight. '"Yeah, cut his head off, yeah!"' the man said in a drawn-out Roland the Rat impression. 'But now,' he said with sudden urgency, pointing dramatically out of the screen, 'we have--'
Suddenly, the screen was filled by a beautiful buxom wench wearing a pale pink dress and one of those curious hats that sprouted from her ears and hair, curling around the back. She was French, or perhaps German, at the very least foreign, and English was her second language. 'Jester Balowski's Medieval Torture Hour!' she shouted joyfully.
The image cut to that of the studio audience. As Neil righted himself he could see it was a typical 20th century BBC studio, the sort of thing Dicky & Deano would appear in. The audience too appeared surprisingly average - men, women, all adults, most Caucasian and wearing synthetic clothing. They were all cheering and applauding as Jester Balowski ran down the steps between aisles and towards the stage. He was identical to the man who had just introduced the program, almost a clone except he was dressed as a court jester, the dark blues and bright oranges of his pointed headdress given an authentic medieval layer of grime, a feral grin of yellowing, crooked teeth. 'Yeah!' the Balowski shouted. 'Medieval torture!'
Jester ran onto the set, which had a painted backdrop of dusk settling on a cemetery, in front of which stood plastic molded arches of stone dungeons. Between curious decorations comprising of three human skulls and peacock feathers were whips, chains, and racks. The foreign 'princess' stood demurely to one side. Jester leapt onto the stage, spinning around to face the audience and the camera. 'And our first victim tonight is - Gwendolyn?!' He had left such a short pause in between words, for a split second the lads wondered if the princess herself was about to be put to the rack.
Similar thoughts had occurred to the princess herself; she was looking pale and worried. 'Our first victim tonight,' Gwendolyn said quickly, struggling to pronounce each word correctly, 'is Spasspecker the Dull!'
The audience, barely calmed from Jester's entrance, went wild once more. Another man was charging towards the stage like Jester before him, and was waving his arms around him in a mixture of delight and attention seeking. He was dirty, grubby and wearing earth-coloured robes, and his wide, pale blue eyes spoke greatly of natural stupidity. Unlike the audience (or, indeed, the entire program), Spasspecker the Dull was right out the barren wastelands outside the house in the Dark Ages.
'Come on down! Spasspecker, come here! Whoo hoo!' Jester Balowski enthused as the peasant finally reached him and the applause began to die down. Effortlessly, he gently twisted the awestruck Spasspecker into position to face the camera, his voice immediately thickening into a twisted, patronizing tone. 'First in for medieval torture?' he asked in a common-sounding accent.
Spasspecker, still apparently dazzled by the lights and cameras, nodded mutely.
'First question,' Jester said brightly. 'Are you nervous, Spasspecker?'
The peasant thought about it for a while, his ruddy face suddenly grave. 'A little, Jester, yes,' he drawled.
The host gave a machine-gun burst of cheerful laughter. 'And apparently, apparently, you're married with one lovely daughter?' he asked, lacing his words with a kind of approval.
'That's right, Jester,' Spasspecker agreed, relieved that the questions were playing to his strengths - general knowledge about his own immediate household. 'Gwenneth.'
'Gwenneth,' Jester repeated playfully. 'That's right. But unfortunately, she can't be with us tonight, can she?'
'No,' Spasspecker agreed, shaking his head, but Jester Balowski's 'No' was far louder and drowned out his voice. 'No, because she's not very lovely at the moment? No,' he continued, blotting out the peasant's confirmation. 'No, because she's got the plague at the moment, doesn't she?'
'Yes,' Spasspecker said with a weak chuckle.
'And her face is one enormous bag of pus!' The Jester was now screaming at the audience, taking a sadistic pleasure in every badly pronounced syllable.
'That's right, Jester,' Spasspecker announced, sounding more confident. 'As a matter of fact, there is quite a funny story attached to that. Because she wanted to come along tonight,' he sniggered, the punch line obviously too good for him to keep a straight face, 'but her arms fell off!'
There was laughter and applause, some of it from Jester Balowski, but it didn't reach his eyes. 'I hope you're ready,' he cut in, 'so, actually, pay attention, because we'll be right back after this break.'
Spasspecker nodded sagely and stared at the camera, and thus was taken totally by surprise as the Jester snatched his right arm and wrenched it down onto his raised knee. There was a sickening crack of such intensity that even Vyvyan winced. Spasspecker's eyes bulged out of his skull and his mouth swung open and closed, making a pained gasping noise.
Jester Balowski roughly drew the peasant closer to him in what would have been a comradely embrace if it weren't for the pained grunts Spasspecker made, and bruises forming under the Jester's fingers. 'Now, would you like to be tortured?' Jester asked happily.
Despite the increasing pain, the peasant managed to croak out the affirmative. Twice.
'Would you like some live scampi in your britches?' Jester offered.
'That'd be nice,' Spasspecker wheezed, triggering cheers from the audience.
'Or would you like to have your eyes sucked out by a goat and replaced with some hot toffee apples?' Balowski suggested, making scooping motions with his free, meaty hand. The audience cheered even louder and the Jester snapped, all bohemia gone: 'Well, it's completely bloody irrelevant anyway!' he snarled. 'Tell us, Spasspecker,' he asked, suddenly curious, 'exactly what was your crime?'
Spasspecker swallowed before answering. 'Whistling on a Tuesday, Jester,' he admitted quietly.
There was a moment of total silence.
The audience began to boo. 'You bastard,' the Jester spat, revolted, before returning to business. 'We've got for you, later on, Pro-Celebrity Torture!'
The picture changed to the part of the set to the right of Jester and Spasspecker. Flanked by two gorgeous handmaidens in similar princess outfits to Gwendolyn was an enormous figure holding a black card. With silver patterns coiling around the edges, in delicate white letters were the words TOBY GRUNTSPLATTER. The man's face was completely hidden by a black leather hood, revealing only his eyes and mouth, his muscular body almost contained by a black leather jacket, freeing his huge arms before they disappeared into matching fingerless gloves. The audience sheered at his sheer presence, because he did not move or react to anything around him, let alone his beautiful female companions.
'In which, today,' Jester continued, 'Toby Gruntsplatter, pain-giver for the court of King Edward the
Optical Illusion will be torturing a team comprised of Dennis Waterman's Show Business Eleven!'
The audience cheered and the image changed to the opposite side of the studio. An old, bearded man in a black robe, hood pulled up over his balding head, clutched excitedly at a similar sign to Gruntsplatter, but this one was marked DENNIS WATERMAN'S SHOWBIZ XI. He was also flanked by two figures, who the lads instantly identified.
'Including Sir Geoffrey Chaucer,' Jester continued.
The old man let go of the sign with one hand and waved the free appendage at the audience. A cheer.
'Sir Boring Old Fart...'
The self-styled hippie knight leant against the set and raised a gloved hand with the karma sign. Another cheer was heard, but Sir did not react.
'...and Helen, the completely mad murderess!' Jester concluding, pronouncing 'completely' in such a way that it rhymed with 'slightly'. Rick's pretend girlfriend was busy brushing her hair, face blank and clearly not in the least concerned she was about to be tortured to death live on national television.
Rick's heart went out for her, and then he stopped and frowned. "Murderess?" Helen was the nutter they'd been hearing about? He felt a sudden surge of hope. She was a nutcase - her word meant nothing! If Rick said that he'd scored with her, she couldn't prove otherwise. And she was a psychotic murderer! Well, the Friends of Stalin society were going to get an earful of this when he got back. If he got b---
There was the sound of breaking glass and a strange sensation ran through the top of Rick's scalp and suddenly a slim yellow arrow thudded into the control panel in the side of the television. Helen's blank features vanished from the TV screen as the device was suddenly and violently switched off. Rick looked around, hands creeping to his head to find his hair had been roughly parted down the middle...
That arrow had just missed skewering his skull!
With the TV now off, he could hear the angry shouts, the banging and thudding and breaking glass. ''Oh, no!' he exclaimed, rising to see shadowy figures at every door and window. 'The whole house has been surrounded by angry medieval peasants!' he wailed.
Mike swallowed, realizing it was time to face the music. 'They think we're witches, and they're going to burn us!' he explained for Rick and Vyvyan's benefit - it hadn't taken much to work out, after all.
'We're completely trapped,' Vyvyan summarized practically. 'The outlook is bleak!'
Neil was on the verge of hyperventilating. 'What're we going to do?' he moaned.
Vyvyan looked around him as the inner door and back door finally gave way.
He sighed. 'Oh, who cares?' he groaned and slumped back down on the sofa.
'Yeah,' Mike agreed dismissively and pulled a pack of playing cards from his pocket. Fighting off the peasants would be a long, uncomfortable chore and they'd probably lose. At least this way he could legitimately claim to be "a cool person" as they were dragged to the bonfire.
Following Mike's lead, Rick and Neil also sat down and they began to play a game of Fish.
The medieval, maggot-ridden peasants swarmed through the house...
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