The One Who Is Two (Book 1 of White Rabbit)

Despite the afternoon sun, he now walked in darkness, following the road up a steep hill. The houses were larger here and stood back from the road, shielded by sheer walls of laurel and yew, guarded by silent sentries of beech and sycamore. Clutches of expensive cars, fluorescing affluence, were clustered together on sweeping driveways of freshly washed gravel. Each house was a fortress of wealth and power, arrogant and dangerously jealous of any intrusion. Unarmed and defenceless, Loofah hurried onwards through the dark corridor between the tall hedges and overhanging trees, as luxury cars glided up and down the hill, watchful and threatening, patrolling their territory.

  As he hurried past a towering cliff of yew a dark face peered out from the shadows, glaring fury from its little eyes. Miss Leggett had been right – he was an alien here, an outsider, he had no business being here at all. A car slowed as it passed him, then accelerated up the hill, while a massive beech eyed him suspiciously from the opposite side of the road. Why had he ever left the bright safety of the Office? he wondered to himself, and just when he was beginning to master the idiosyncrasies of the computer system and win favour with his appointed line manager.

  The hill went on forever, the fortresses getting more massive and dangerous the higher he climbed. No, he should never have come to this lethal place, he should have ignored the mischievous fax and stayed at his desk, getting on with his work while the Under Manager sorted out the little mix-up about the unpleasant things he was supposed to have done. Loofah halted suddenly, cowering under the malevolent gaze of a mock-Jacobean mansion as a cold fluid pooled in his belly. A misunderstanding, that's all it was, a case of mistaken identity, because he hadn't done anything unpleasant, nothing at all, he was certain of that. Just at the moment, however, he caught a glimpsed reflection in the dark tinted side-window of a passing BMW, the same image of utter depravity he had seen in Mrs Frimpton's hall mirror. A pair of sycamores loomed down out of the darkness and the road swayed under his quaking feet. With a little whimper, he cringed down into his jacket and hurried on.

  He reached a turning off to the right which seemed to lead into woodland and away from the dark realm of the fortresses. But as he was pondering whether to take this escape route, he noticed the little cubicle of glass and painted metal on a curve in the road ahead. Loofah hesitated, staring blankly into the middle distance. Then, with a last longing glance at the sunlit woods, he crossed the side road and continued reluctantly up the ominous hill.

  The call-box door was made of some super-dense form of translucent lead and it was only by bracing his feet against the pavement that he somehow managed to haul it open. It swung closed behind him with inexorable force, sealing him into the sarcophagus of the cubicle. The telephone waited expectantly: a box of moulded grey plastic with metal push-buttons and its receiver hanging at the side, joined to it by an umbilical cord of shining metal rings.

  Suddenly a four-by-four, a behemoth of arrogant aggression and shining paint-work, came thundering towards him in a blaze of fury and mechanised loathing. Instinctively Loofah cowered, but as the terrible machine tore past its roar of hatred was muffled to an impotent whisper and its malevolence thudded to nothing against the three-inch walls of his transparent tank. Watching it disappear around the corner, he felt himself smile with relief; for the dark danger of the hill was outside and inside the phone box he realised that he was far beyond its baleful reach. Relaxing against a side wall, he folded his arms and casually surveyed the scene outside, now no more threatening than a truculent kitten. The sun's warmth glowed from a red tiled roof on the other side of the road and a towering copper beech shimmered like melting plastic in the hazy brilliance. On reflection perhaps becoming a unit of corporate human resource was not for him, perhaps he had been right to obey the fax after all. It was then that he remembered why he had been looking for a call-box in the first place.

  Of course the fax hadn't provided a number to call or even the name of the person he was to speak to. However, after checking the call-box in vain for a directory, he decided to telephone operator services; they were so helpful these days and he felt sure they would be able to point him in the right direction. But as he went to reach for the receiver he stopped abruptly, leaving his hand hanging in the air – for there was a low pitched hiss coming from the handset and the sides of the telephone were moving slowly in and out as if it were breathing. A shadow closed over the tight glass walls and there was another hiss, sharp and savage. Loofah jerked his hand back as the receiver reared into the air above the box and, balancing on its coiling ringed cable, twisted round to face him.

  For a few moments it hovered in front of him, swaying slightly on its writhing cable neck with a continuous low hiss from the ear-piece as of a steam boiler about to blow. Then suddenly it darted forward at his face. An involuntary convulsion of his muscles hurled him to the side and it missed, instantly pulling back like a recoiling spring.

  Again it hovered, poised to attack. The dangerous bulb of the ear-piece faced him, hissing menacingly, and the hand section curved away like the arched carapace of some alien predator, with the mouth-piece glowering dangerously underneath. A strange dizziness fluttered inside Loofah's skull and his legs trembled like a pair of jean-clad blancmanges.

  'Actually, I've changed my mind,' he said, 'I think I'll send an e-mail instead.'

  Not daring to take his eyes off the receiver, he felt for the edge of the door behind his back and pushed. Nothing. He braced himself and pushed again, but the door did not shift.

  The hissing stopped. In a split second of deadly silence the receiver edged back slightly, tensing its spring, and then struck, an arrow loosed at his face. Again he dodged, but this time it nearly had him, brushing against his cheek. Choking back a cry, he heaved his whole weight back against the door, but to no avail. The receiver pulled back and hovered, swivelling to follow his every movement with its ear-piece.

  It struck again, but off centre, going to his left. He dodged easily, but this time it recoiled and attacked immediately, driving him into the corner. Unable to move right or left, he went down, collapsing onto his knees as it breezed past his temple.

  He was trapped now, with the receiver veering above him, poised for the kill. With final desperation, he heaved at the door but still without success. His skin was cold seaweed and a steam piston thundered against his ribcage. Unbalanced and cornered, he knew he was a nanosecond from death. But though his skull was filled with a whirlwind of screaming banshees, at the epicentre of the storm was a pool of ice-cold calm. Countless millions of years of Darwinian evolution did not fail him; the primal instinct to survive came to the fore and, quelling his panic, took control. Not taking his eyes off the receiver, he braced himself against the glass walls, his muscles becoming steel springs tensed for action.

  The hissing stopped; there was a moment of absolute stillness then the strike as the plastic missile hurtled towards him. Loofah threw himself sideways and upwards into the opposite corner of the cubicle, but at the same time swung round with his right arm, grabbing for the receiver. It saw his intention and tried to pull back, but too late; his grip closed around the curved plastic of the handle.

  Instantly it was in a frenzy, thrashing from side to side and smashing itself against the glass walls to crush his hand. But he held on, desperately struggling to keep his balance. It darted forward suddenly, and he stopped it three inches from his face; for seconds it loomed massively above him, hissing furious venom into his eyes.

  Soon it seemed to tire and, squaring his balance, he lunged forward with his left hand and seized the receiver in a double-handed grip. It fought him again, the force of its thrashing threatening to wrench his arms from their sockets. Then it slowed, exhausted, and with a sudden pulse of strength, he jerked the receiver backwards, smashing the ear-piece on the top edge of the box with a crack of splintering plastic. It was stunned and lost power; he smashed it down again – the receiver split with a hiss of pain – and then
again – plastic shards showered across the box and wriggling coloured wires spewed from the shattered ear-piece.

  As the immediate danger passed, fear was swamped by an upsurge of white hot fury. With a savage curse Loofah wrenched the receiver downwards and the cable mounting ripped away from the side of the box, pulling lengths of squirming yellow and red wires after it. Then, holding the receiver at arm's length as the amputated cable lashed around in its death throes, he seized the top of the box with his free hand and with a whole-body wrench hauled it backwards. With a sickening squeal the holding bolts tore through their mountings and the box came free, hurtling into Loofah, who lost his balance and staggered backwards into the once-immovable door which now swung open, catapulting him into space.

  Floating gently through a languorous blur of green and black, and the blue of bright sky with little dapplings of sunlight. Floating and falling, then a violent wave of shuddering hardness with jolts of electric pain that scrambled everything to nothing.

  A plane of rough warm hardness, gouts of throbbing pain, and blackness: there was nothing else in all creation. Then, like water filling a pond, thought flooded back into his shaken brain. Loofah opened his eyes and an undulating sheet of sun-dappled tarmac stretched into infinity from under his face. As he struggled painfully to his feet he heard someone call out and through the glass walls of the ruined call-box he saw, not more than fifty yards distant, two middle-aged men hurrying up the hill towards him.

  'It's alright,' Loofah called, 'I'm OK – nothing more than a few bruises.'

  'You won't be OK for long!' shouted one of the men, his face contorted with indignant anger.

  'You bloody vandal!' chimed in the other, waving a clenched fist in the air.

  Loofah looked from the shattered telephone on the floor of the call-box to the rapidly approaching outraged citizens – and ran.