When the machine stopped humming Pratt got up and looked closely at it, wondering what it could all mean. Before his astonished eyes, the dead wood-lice began to move. As he was no great fan of wood-lice, he ran to one of the workbenches and picked up a hammer he’d seen and used it to squash them all flat.
He couldn’t quite believe what had happened.
He rushed upstairs and went outside where he noticed a removal van on the road. The removal men were busy hefting items of furniture into the house next door, number forty-three. He ignored it and opened the grey bin. The mouse was where he’d left it, caught in the trap, its face contorted in a rictus of death. The plastic bag was nearby.
He picked up the bag and got the mouse and trap into it, inadvertently brushing his hand over the mouse and a mouldy sausage that was lying nearby. He grimaced.
As he went back up his drive, bag in hand, a man walked down the drive to meet him. The man was of average height and build, and was startlingly bald. He looked as if he might have been in his sixties. He extended his hand.
“’Ello,” he said. “I’m your new neighbour. My name’s Richard Hoyle. Pleased to meet yer.”
Who the fuck is this and why is he talking in that fucking weird way? Thought Pratt.
The last thing he wanted was to be interrupted in his mission, but he felt compelled to be polite.
“I’m Wally Pratt, and I’m pleased to meet you,” he said, transferring the bag to his left hand so that he could shake Richard’s hand with his right.
When the handshake ended, Richard felt as if he had a layer of slime on his fingers. He resisted the temptation to wipe his hand clean on his pants.
“I’ve just moved into forty-three next door,” he said. “Me and me partner, that is. We bought it off Mrs. Thompson. I expect yer knew her.”
“No, I didn’t. As a matter of fact, I’ve only just moved here myself.”
“Mrs. Thompson moved out because of t’murders.”
“Murders?”
“Oh, I ’ope I ’aven’t put me bloody big size eleven foot in it. I’ve got a habit of doing that. There were some murders in that house of yours. ’Orrible murders by t’sounds of things, and Mrs Thompson found all t’bodies, or what wore left of t’bodies. She never recovered from t’shock, like.”
“Well, there’s no sign of anything amiss now. I suppose the solicitors or police or someone got some cleaners in to sort out the mess.”
“It will ’ave been a mess, a right bloody mess by all accounts.”
“I hope you don’t mind me mentioning it, but you’re not from around here, are you?”
“No, I’m from ’uddersfield. It’s up north.”
“Very interesting, I thought you must come from somewhere of the sort. Anyway, I’m afraid I must dash.”
“We ought to ’ave coffee some time, being as we’re neighbours.”
“Yes, I’ll call round when you’re settled in, shall I?”
Richard looked closely at his new neighbour, who was five feet four inches tall, with downy whiskers, a face so riddled with acne that it resembled the surface of the moon, and a strange militaristic tattoo on the side of his neck which said: “ENGLAND 18 4 EVA.”
Beneath that, in a column, was a series of words:
“INAZ
ZINA
AZIN”
The remaining words in the series, if there were any, were hidden by the collar of his shirt.
“Yer, good idea, do that by all means,” said Richard, wondering, on reflection, whether it was a good idea.
As soon as Pratt had turned his back, Richard wiped his hand on his pants and rushed indoors to wash it clean.
Pratt returned to the cellar.
He put the mouse on the metal plate bolted to the side of the machine and carefully released the spring-loaded killing arm of the trap, making sure that his hand was protected from contact with the mouse by the plastic bag.
He went to the side of the room and operated the computerised controls. The machine began to hum again.
CHAPTER 18
Next door in number forty-three, Richard was enjoying a mug of tea with his partner Darren while the removal men were bustling around them carrying chests and furniture, and boxes full of crockery and knick-knacks.
Richard looked up at the strip-light, which had suddenly begun flickering.
“What’s going on?” He asked.
“It’s probably just the light that needs replacing,” said Darren, in the posh London accent he had acquired through being brought up in the capital by Anglo-Indian parents. “Everything in here needs replacing.”
CHAPTER 19
Back in the cellar at number forty-one, the metal plate was sliding into the innards of the machine with the mouse on it. An eerie blue light bathed the cellar for a minute or two, the metal plate slid out again, and the machine fell silent.
Pratt stared at the mouse. It was still and lifeless. He went to a workbench and rummaged around amongst the tools until he found a screwdriver. He returned to the machine and prodded it a few times. Nothing. It didn’t react at all.
I should have known better, he thought. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to think it might work.
He’d hardly finished forming the words in his head when he noticed something. The mouse seemed to be breathing.
And in close proximity to the mouse, the squashed bodies of the dead woodlice were beginning to twitch.
He gasped and stepped back.
The mouse got unsteadily to its feet, its head bent at a most unnatural angle, and its face maintaining the rictus expression of death it had assumed in the trap. It began to move slowly around, its whiskers twitching horribly. It was deformed and disabled and hideous beyond all description, and yet it lived. Pratt watched it for a moment or two then he picked up the hammer he’d left nearby.
SPLAT!
The mouse’s head was instantly converted into a bloody smear on the metal plate.
SPLAT!
SPLAT!
SPLAT!
SPLAT!
SPLAT!
The woodlice were flattened to such an extent that any hope of further life or re-animation was out of the question.
So it does work, thought Pratt. I don’t know how, but this machine is going to make me very important, and probably very rich, too. I just have to think it through and make sure I make the most of it.
He went upstairs, made a mug of tea, and watched some television while he thought things over and daydreamed of greatness. He emerged from his reveries and looked at the clock that hung on the wall over the fireplace. It was seven o’ clock. He realised with a start that it was time for him to go to his meeting. He rushed outside and jumped into his rusty old car. I won’t be driving this heap of junk for much longer, he told himself before he set off.
He pulled up outside a nondescript brick house on London Road, Croydon, and rushed from his car.
He pressed the doorbell. The door opened, and he was allowed entry to the front room, which was full of his colleagues, who had already arrived.
Pratt was dwarfed by them. They were hulking men for the most part, with a few hulking women amongst them, and they all had tattoos similar to those of Pratt. A flag bearing the cross of St. George was draped across one wall. It had the word ‘National’ in the top-left quadrant and the word ‘socialism’ in the top right quadrant; and the number 1 in the bottom left quadrant and number 8 in the bottom right quadrant. The other walls were covered in pictures of rallies and demonstrations, some of which looked as if they’d been held in pre-war Germany, and more recent ones which could have been held in London, Bradford, or any number of other English cities.