He knew what was going to happen. He’d seen it on the video cassette, with Bobby Boy playing him and being led through the secret door down into the boiler room to meet the thing. He was asking for more time. Could that be the means to travel back in time? Russell couldn’t remember precisely how the words went, but if he mucked up the script a bit and got a few words wrong, would it actually matter?
“This calls for a bit of method acting,” said Russell to himself and he knocked upon the door.
After what seemed an age, but was probably less than a minute, the door creaked open a crack and Viktor Schauberger, alias Ernest Fudgepacker, looked out at Russell.
He hadn’t changed a bit. He was still the same old clapped-out wizened wreck of a man he’d been back in the nineties. But just a little bit more so.
As he swung wide the door and waved Russell in, Russell noticed the way that he moved, stiffly, like an automaton. Russell smiled and said, “Hello.”
The ancient man inclined his turtle neck. “So it’s that day already, is it?” he asked, his voice a death-rattle cough. “I did look at the calendar, but one day is much like another and this year like the last.”
“Are you well?” Russell asked.
The magnified eyes stared at Russell. They were the eyes of a corpse.
“The old place looks the same,” Russell said and he glanced about the vestibule. But the old place didn’t look the same, the walls were charred, the glossy floor tiles dull and cracked. Above, blackened roof timbers gave access to the sky.
“No customers now,” coughed Mr Fudgepacker. “No-one. Just me and Him.”
“You know that I’ve come to see Him?”
“I don’t allow Him visitors. I’ve never allowed Him visitors. But you are special, Russell, you gave Him to me.”
I’m losing this, thought Russell. But just play along.
“Is He well?” Russell asked.
“He doesn’t change. He can never change.”
“That’s nice for Him.”
“What?” Mr Fudgepacker’s eyes took life. “Nothing is nice for Him. I see to that.”
Lost it completely, thought Russell. Him and me both, by the sound of it.
“Come with me.” Mr Fudgepacker took Russell by the arm. His fingers were hard, wooden, they dug into Russell’s flesh.
As they walked slowly along the aisle, Russell looked around at the stock. It was all going to pieces. The stuffed beasts worm-eaten and green with growing mould. Precious things that Russell had cared for on lunch-times long ago were now corroded, worthless junk. It broke Russell’s heart to see them so. One of the catwalks had collapsed, smashing sarcophagi and ancient urns. A rank smell filled the air. The perfume of decay.
Russell recalled some of the words that Bobby Boy had spoken. “How long? How long has He been with you?”
“For all these years. I am His guardian. All this, all this in the Emporium. His doing. You can’t capture time, Russell. It won’t be caught. Try and hold it in your hands and it runs through your fingers, like sand.” The old man cackled. “Like the sands of time, eh, Russell?”
Russell nodded helplessly. None of that was right, surely? That wasn’t what Peter Cushing had said on the video.
They reached the small Gothic door at the end of the aisle. Russell pressed it open and the two men passed through the narrow opening, down an ill-lit flight of steps and into the boiler room.
“This way.” Mr Fudgepacker led Russell between piles of ancient luggage, old portmanteaus, Gladstone bags, towards a curtained-off corner of the room.
Russell knew what lay in wait behind that curtain. He had seen the horror, he knew what to expect.
But it didn’t help. It didn’t help to know. Russell hesitated. It was very strong that thing. Could it be reasoned with? Russell felt that it could not. He would have to offer something. The stone that promised magic? The Judas kiss? He would have to lie, he’d come prepared to lie. But how convincing would he be? And how much did it know?
Russell felt afraid. His knees began to sag, yet at the same time prepared themselves to run.
“Part the curtain,” said Mr Fudgepacker. “But avert your gaze.”
Russell reached out to the curtain. There was still time to run. Still time to escape. He didn’t have to do this.
But he would. He knew that he would.
Russell took the curtain, it was cold and damp, it clung to his fingers. Russell pulled at the curtain and it fell away like shredded sodden tissue.
Russell turned down his eyes. But his hand came up to cover his nose. The smell was appalling. Sickening. Russell gagged into his hand and dared a glance.
And then he started back and stared with eyes quite round.
It sat upon the throne-like chair. All twisted to one side. A leg tucked up beneath itself, the other dangling down, the foot the wrong way round. The hands were shrunken claws with long yellow nails. The face. Russell stared at the face.
The face was that of Adolf Hitler.
Hitler’s head lolled onto his left shoulder. The eyes were open, but unfocused, crossed. Lines of congealed slime ran from the nose and open mouth, caked the chest, hung in stalactites depending to a crust upon the floor.
“Hitler,” Russell gasped. “He’s dead.”
“He is not.” Ernest set up another high cackle. “He just smells dead. The filthy fucker, he’s shat himself again.”
Russell took a step forward, but the stench forced him back. The once proud Reich Führer was now a shrivelled mummy, festering in his own filth. Paralyzed and helpless.
“What happened to him?” Russell asked. “How did he get this way?”
“Your doing, Russell. All your doing.”
“My doing? No.”
“It’s better than he deserves. The irony of it, Russell. The man who wanted the whole world for his own, now has this for his whole world. I must get a new curtain, it’s months since I’ve been down here, the old one’s all rotted away.”
“Months?” Russell asked. “Don’t you feed him? Wash him?”
“He doesn’t need feeding. I spray him with insecticide once in a while. Bluebottles lay their eggs in him. The maggots eat out through the skin. See, his left ear’s gone and some of the back of his head.”
Russell felt vomit rising in his throat. “This is inhuman,” he gasped. “Why? Tell me why?”
“You know why. He took my wife, my beautiful wife. Left me to grow old alone. But I’m converted now. Good for another four hundred years at least. And I’ll spend them with him. He’ll have time to muse upon his evil.”
Russell turned his face away. No man deserved such a terrible fate, not even one so vile as Hitler.
“Go upstairs,” said Russell. “Go upstairs now.”
“You can poke him with my pointy stick if you want. But don’t trouble yourself to have a go at his ball. I had that off years ago. I’ve got it upstairs in a jar.”
“Go,” said Russell. “As quick as you can now.”
Mr Fudgepacker spat towards the cripple in the chair, then slowly turned and hobbled from the room.
Russell listened to the shuffling footsteps on the stairs and then the creaking of the floorboards overhead.
With a pounding heart and popping ears, Russell sought a means towards an end. He selected a length of iron pipe that lay against the wall and tested its weight on his palm. And then he walked back over to the figure in the chair.
Russell looked into the unfocused eyes. He saw there the flicker of life. He saw the slime-caked lips begin to part and the dry tongue move within. And Russell knew the words that would come.
“Help me. Help me.”
Russell spoke a prayer and asked forgiveness. Then he swung the heavy pipe and put Adolf Hitler out of his misery.
Upstairs in the vestibule, Ernest Fudgepacker stood, nodding his head stiffly to a rhythm only he heard. Russell’s knees were almost giving out, but he forced himself to walk as naturally as he could.
“Did you give him a bit of a poke?” asked Ernest.
“A bit of a poke. Yes.”
“Will you come back again?”
“I don’t think so. Goodbye.”