COVERED IN thick wool blankets, Dean and Emerson slept like the dead, she on a plush sofa and Dean on the floor beside her. Dean felt like it had been ages since he’d slept somewhere other than a moving vehicle, but in fact it had only been three days.
The early morning clatter of the farm didn’t wake him, nor did the tromping of boots up and down stairs. The smell of bacon, however, was powerful enough to pull Dean from a quite fascinating dream starring Paulina Poritzkova and a radish.
Emerson’s carefully folded blanket lay on the sofa. Dean stumbled into a bathroom and washed his face and hair as best he could. He followed the smell of bacon and the sound of Emerson’s voice to the kitchen.
Inside the white-painted room, an older woman cleaned away the remains of breakfast while three girls kneaded large balls of dough. They wore plain gray dresses with aprons and strange white caps, a costume that reminded Dean of the shops at Williamsburg, Virginia. Dean half-expected a busload of tourists to knock on the door or peer through the windows at any moment, and became very self-conscious of his filthy jumpsuit.
Emerson and the gentleman from the previous night were sitting at a long table made of unvarnished maple.
“Good morning, Mister Cook,” said the tall man. “Your wife and I have been talking about the strange adventures you’ve had in the past few days.”
Mr. Weltall wore a white button-down shirt, black trousers, and suspenders. Emerson had changed out of her ragged wedding outfit into the same gray dress and cap as the women in the kitchen. She looked refreshed and clean, and certainly not like a girl who’d fallen out of a plane into a lake.
“Thank you for letting us stay, Mr. Weltall,” said Dean.
The tanned gentleman laughed. “I don’t know this who this Mr. Weltall is––I’m Charlie Snaps His Fingers. You can call me Chuck if you like, but all the men call me Butterfingers. Drop a hammer from the roof one time, just once, and nobody lets you forget it.”
A few neurons accidentally rubbed together in Dean’s brain, and he squinted at Charlie.
“I’ve heard that name before.”
“So have a lot of people ... too many, as it turns out. Why do you think I’m living on a farm in Kentucky?”
“Peace and quiet?”
“This place definitely has an abundance of those two qualities, and many people come here for that reason. My intentions must remain private for now, and I hope you understand. On to more pressing matters––clean clothes and breakfast will make you feel much better, as they have your pretty wife.”
“We really have to be going.”
Charlie waved his hand dismissively. “I can’t expect you to walk all the way to town. A rider has been sent to borrow a car. Please relax and enjoy my farm’s hospitality until the vehicle has arrived.”
A small girl in a gray dress handed Dean a stack of folded clothes and led him back to the washroom. He cleaned up a bit more, and changed into the same type of cotton shirt and wool trousers as Charlie.
Back at the table, he sat in front of a cup of steaming coffee and a large plate of eggs over-easy, bacon, and buttered toast. Charlie’s distinctive voice could be heard outside the house, although it sounded to Dean like he was speaking German.
Emerson sipped her mug of tea. “Mister Fingers seems like a good man.”
“I’ve heard of this character somewhere,” said Dean. “I just can’t put my finger on where that was.”
Emerson nodded. “When you are finished, can we look at the farm and the animals?”
They wandered through a greenhouse full of potted herbs, over the brown, thatched earth of a long-harvested garden, and beside pens of goats and chickens.
“There’s something very strange about this place,” said Dean. “No electricity or cars. They’re like the Amish, but Amish don’t have names like Charlie Snaps His Fingers.”
“What is Amish?”
“Farmers that don’t use electricity or cars. Also, no zippers.”
“How are American farmers so poor?”
“Most farms aren’t like this. The Amish live this way not because they have to, but because they want to.”
Emerson sighed. “This place reminds me of my small years. The uniforms everyone must wear, the smell of the animals, the growing of vegetables to eat.”
“Wasn’t your orphanage in the city?”
“Anyone can raise goats and chickens in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Also the electricity is never good, there is no car, and Russian machinery breaks down after buying from factory. Many times we lived same as these Amish.”
Dean nodded sympathetically, but his mind was on the farm workers. The men and women dressed plainly and were all pale as snow. From his skin color and the shape of his eyes, Charlie was obviously not from around here.
“I heard the girls talking about horses,” said Emerson. “Let’s find them!”
“I don’t see why not.”
They wandered through the barns and smaller buildings, but failed to discover any equine-shaped animals.
“Definitely a horsey smell around here, but I don’t see any,” said Dean.
“How about that building?”
A long white building stood apart from the rest, with square windows covered in steel mesh and a sturdy padlock that secured a pair of wooden doors. Dean rattled the handle and something whinnied.
“Definitely horses,” said Dean. “Want to sneak inside?”
“Oh no! I don’t want to be in trouble.”
Dean laughed. “They’re just horses and won’t eat you. If anyone catches us we’ll just pretend we couldn’t find the bathroom or needed some private time alone, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Never mind.”
Dean tugged at a rectangle of steel mesh covering a window and it came free. He squeezed through while Emerson kept a lookout, then helped her climb into an empty stall full of fragrant bales of hay.
Many of the stalls in the long building were empty, apart from a gray mare and a white-patched Indian pony.
Emerson rubbed the nose of the mare and giggled.
“I think he likes me.”
“She,” said Dean. “Watch your fingers, she might be hungry.”
Emerson looked at him with wide eyes. “You said horses don’t eat people!”
“Tell me the difference when it bites you.”
“Husband Dean Cook, I think your mouth is full of poop.”
“That’s not really––wait ... do you hear something?”
Voices murmured from the far end of the building.
“Hide!”
Dean and Emerson crouched on the straw-covered floor of an empty stall. The voices neither approached nor left the building, but kept speaking in a soft conversational tone.
“Can’t wait here forever,” said Dean. “Let’s go back out the window.”
They approached the stall and the empty window. Footsteps crunched outside and a man’s voice spoke in a strange language.
“No good,” Dean whispered. “Let’s find another way out.”
He held Emerson’s hand and duck-walked for part of the way down the long corridor of stalls, until his thighs started to burn with effort. He decided normal posture would be more dignified if they were caught, and straightened up.
The voices grew in volume and Dean caught words here and there. The sound came from behind a metal door with a small window in a freshly drywalled part of the building.
Emerson tugged on his arm. “There’s a door,” she whispered.
“I see it.”
“No, no, another one.”
Across from the drywalled section was a wood-slatted door. Sunlight gleamed through the gaps in the wood and a loop of rope held it shut.
“... Partridge ...”
Dean held a hand to his lips. “I recognize that voice.”
“No, let’s go,” hissed Emerson.
“Just a second.”
Dean crept to the door and careful
ly peered through the small window. What he saw would have made him drop to the floor in a dead faint, if Emerson hadn’t been there to catch him. Therefore, he only fainted.
The room inside had been painted to resemble the bridge of the U.S.S. Partridge from the old television show Space Trails, with fake instrument panels and display screens covering the walls. The navigation and weapons station at the front had been replaced by a long table. Three men sat behind the table in authentic Space Trails uniforms that were far too small, making them look like fat sausages in tiny sausage casings. From left to right, Dean recognized Nick Frost, Diedrich Bader, and a very pale Nando Phoenix, his head strangely drooping to his chest. The hands of the first two were chained behind their backs. At the center in the captain’s chair sat Sergio Martinez, wearing the immaculate and well-fitted white uniform of Dr. Winston Braintree, ship’s surgeon and psychic marriage counselor.
Nick Frost kicked a table leg and made it shake. “Listen, mate––if you call me Thg’thg’thg one more time, I’m going to bust out of these chains and explode all over you like a Trident missile. Stop asking these stupid questions. Do you know how many people are looking for me? I’ve won a British Independent Film Award, for Pete’s sake!”
Sergio shrugged, his hands full with index cards. “You keep saying that, but I still don’t see these ‘people looking for you’ or have any idea what a British Independent Film Award is. Perhaps if the corrupt snails in Hollywood had given me an award instead of sycophantic, untalented pigs like yourself, then I might have a clue.” He cleared his throat and pulled down on his uniform jacket. “Someday soon I’ll take pity on you, Thg’thg’thg, and put you out of your misery like I did Captain Sparx.”
“I swear to the gods,” said Nick, “if you shoot me twelve times and push me off a balcony into a waiting ice cream truck, then have my body professionally stuffed and made into an animatronic zombie of myself, you’ll regret it.”
“I don’t think so. I certainly don’t regret what I did to Nando Phoenix, because that self-satisfied buffoon deserved everything he got. For every successful sci-fi spinoff he shoved in my face over the years, for every Broadway show he headlined, and for every one-dimensional role as a smarmy lawyer he stole from me, I’m giving him tenfold the humiliation. The ignominious bastard can do my bidding for the rest of eternity.”
Nando’s mangy-looking head bobbed up and down and spoke in a guttural, electronic voice.
“Spleen pickle.”
“Thank you, Nando, but that was three questions ago.”
“You don’t have the guts to kill us or you’d have done it already,” said Nick.
Diedrich struggled to raise a hand. Since both were chained behind his back he had to settle for rocking back and forth.
“Guys! Can we stop fighting? It’s not moving the game along.”
“I don’t regret what I did to Nando Phoenix,” said Sergio. “I’d do the same to both of you, but we’re in Kentucky. How can I throw you off a twelve-story building when I doubt there’s one in the entire state?”
Diedrich shook his head. “Finally I’m winning and you guys won’t stop fighting.”
“Now, here’s a man with the right spirit and competitive zest,” said Sergio. “What was your name again?”
“I was in The Drew Carey Show and Napoleon Dynamite,” said Diedrich. “We’re co-stars on the radio show. Hello?”
Sergio shrugged. “Hello.”
“My name is Diedrich. Diedrich Bader.”
“For the life of me, I don’t know why I keep forgetting that name. Your face certainly rings a bell, although a very depressing, blank-faced bell. Such a dull expression would make you the perfect secret agent!” He sighed. “Sadly, when it comes to career choices, you don’t seem to make the right ones, do you?”
“Speak for yourself,” said Nick.
Sergio smiled thinly and pressed a button on the arm of his captain’s chair. Diedrich’s whole body jerked with a brief electric shock.
“Stop it,” said Nick. “I’m the one you should torture.”
“Do you mean literally or figuratively? Poor what’s-his-name doesn’t have tolerance for either type of pain.”
“No, no I don’t,” whispered Diedrich. “Whatever it was you said.”
Nick shook the table again. “Just finish this stupid game.”
“Is eating stupid? If you lose, that’s what you won’t be doing. In your case, Mr. Frost, this is not a dire circumstance. Have you considered going without pie for a few days? I’m sorry. Should I have said ‘minutes?’ ”
“Don’t make fun of my weight, and I won’t mention that pimple between your ears that you call a nose,” said Nick.
Sergio cleared his throat. “Question 342: In 1988, Sergio Martinez––that’s me––guest-starred in an episode of what BBC comedy?”
Nick lowered his forehead to the table and groaned. “God almighty, how are we supposed to know that?”
“Wrong answer!”
Sergio pressed a button, and Nick jerked with an electrified shock.
“Keeping Up Appearances,” said Diedrich.
“Quite right. An extra half-slice of bread for you.”
“I’m English, and I didn’t know that,” said Nick. “How in the name of baked beans did you?”
“1988 was a slow year,” said Diedrich. “Actually, most years have been slow. Sergio didn’t even have to kidnap me––I was just happy to be around people for once.”
“So true and yet, so sad,” murmured Sergio.
Nick thumped his forehead repeatedly on the table. “You’re the strangest bunch of idiots I’ve ever met,” he whispered.
Dean shook off the haze of his fainting spell and like a demon possessed by a man possessed by a demon, pummeled the metal door with his fists. As he was a man of less-than-average strength and the door was of higher-than-average tensile steel, it did not budge. Emerson tried to pull him back, but Dean turned the door latch and swung it open.
“You bastard,” he shouted. “You utter, utter bastard. You killed Sparx!”
All eyes in the room swiveled, even the dead yellow orbs of Nando Phoenix. Sergio jumped out of the fake captain’s chair.
“Who the devil are you?”
Dean pointed at the half-robot, waxen face of Nando. “How could you do it? Millions of people loved him! Space Questions was the top syndicated show on evening radio––we can’t go back to John Tesh!”
“I’m sorry. I don’t respond to accusations unless I’ve been properly introduced.”
“I’m Dean Cook, and I’m going to tell everyone what you did. This whole crazy setup is going to blow up right in your face!”
Sergio raised an eyebrow. “Dean Cook? I thought you’d be taller.”
“Dean, not Dane. We’re distant relatives, but that’s not important right now.”
“Can you get me tickets? Never mind. It’s not as if I’ve got any free time these days, what with covering up a murder and these kidnappings.”
Diedrich swayed back and forth in his chair. “I volunteered!”
“Shut up. It would be great to go out for a few hours. Have a breather, you know? Stress kills, as I always say. And bullets. Sharp knives. Ice cream. So many things to worry about.”
Nick rattled his handcuffs. “That’s great and everything, but now that our rescuers are here, how about letting me go?”
“Rescuers?” Sergio jabbed a hand into his uniform jacket and pulled out a banana. “I don’t think so.”
“Don’t point that at me, I’m allergic,” said Dean.
Sergio dropped the banana and took a revolver from another pocket.
“That’s better. Nobody’s going anywhere, especially not Mr. Frost. He and I have a very lucrative ransom appointment in the near future.”
“Thank Cerberus,” said Nick. “I’ve got a casting call tomorrow.”
“I didn’t say you’d be ransomed in one piece, you fawning Nando lackey!”
Sergio p
ressed a button on the captain’s chair and both Nick and Diedrich jerked with an electric shock. Emerson screamed, and the heavy hand of Charlie Snaps His Fingers clamped on Dean’s shoulder.