The Fandom of the Operator

  ‘Oooh,’ I went, and ‘Ow,’ and ‘Eeeek!’ And I clutched at myself and writhed from the ghastly pain.

  ‘That’s the look,’ I heard Mother Demdike say. ‘That’s the look I wanted to see. But I can’t stay to see more, I’ll get stuck. Goodbye, Gary. Enjoy eternity. If you can.’ And she laughed. And I saw her rise up before me and float off into the sky. Then my eyes crossed with all the terrible pain and I blacked out and tumbled once more down into that whirling pit of oblivion so often tumbled into by Mr Lazlo Woodbine.

  And then I woke up. I opened my eyes and stared up. At what? Surely that was my kitchen ceiling. And I could feel something. I felt cold, very cold. And wet. And horrible all over, really.

  Then I heard this voice. And it was a voice I knew.

  And this voice was joined by another voice that I also knew. And both these voices shouted a single word.

  ‘Surprise!’

  I turned my head and I stared through foggy, bleary eyes. And, yes, it was Dave. And, yes, it was Sandra. And they both shouted, ‘Surprise,’ once more.

  And Sandra blew one of those plastic whistle things. And Dave popped a party popper.

  ‘What?’ I went. And I spat out something, lots of something. Dirt. Dirt. Dirt?

  ‘Surprise,’ said Dave. ‘We’ve brought you back from the dead.’

  25

  It must have been a horrible scream, and a dreadfully loud one too. I’ll bet it rattled the chimneypots. And, had it continued, it would probably have awakened the neighbours from their beds. But it didn’t continue, because Dave rammed his hands across my mouth.

  ‘Shut up!’ he said. ‘You’ll wake the dead. Hey, wake the dead! Eh, that’s a good’n, isn’t it, Sandra?’

  ‘That good’n, Dave.’

  I fought to disengage Dave, but I didn’t have much strength in me. No muscle tone, what with my heart not pumping and no blood reaching my muscles and everything.

  ‘Easy boy,’ said Dave. ‘I know this must have come as a bit of a surprise. But just compose yourself. You can thank Sandra later.’

  ‘Thank Sandra,’ said Sandra.

  Dave lifted a hand from my mouth.

  ‘Thank Sandra?’ I said slowly, spitting out a bit more dirt.

  ‘Her idea,’ said Dave. ‘Her idea to nick your body from the prison, bury it in Mr Doveston’s grave, then re-animate you using that book you borrowed from the library all those years ago. The one you used to re-animate Sandra. She was returning the favour.’

  ‘Gary belong to Sandra now,’ said Sandra. ‘Gary call Sandra “Mistress Sandra”.’

  ‘I’ll do no such thing,’ I mumbled. Then I felt the pain and remembered just how the spell worked. Whoever re-animates a dead person has control over that dead person. As I’d had control over Sandra. And abused that control. ‘All right,’ I mumbled and spat this time as I mumbled. ‘I know how it works. But it wasn’t my fault, Sandra. You were at my trial. You know it wasn’t me who did those awful things.’

  ‘Gary belong to Sandra now,’ said Sandra once more.

  ‘No need to repeat yourself, you silly cow.’

  ‘Sandra punish Gary if Gary cuss Sandra.’

  ‘Tell her, Dave,’ I said to Dave, as I dragged myself painfully into the vertical plane. Because it did hurt, I can tell you, every bit of it hurt. ‘Tell her not to mess about with me. Not to order me to do things. Come on, Dave, mate, bestest friend.’

  Dave shrugged and smiled. Rather stupidly, I thought.

  ‘I’m not her boss,’ he said. ‘Her masser. She’s her own woman now.’

  ‘But, Dave––’

  ‘Gary, kneel,’ said Sandra. ‘Kiss Mistress Sandra’s shoe.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No.’ But I did it. I had to do it. I was compelled to do it. I was helpless to resist. And I felt desperate, wretched, doomed and lost. All at one and the same time. Eternity had been snatched from me. The beauty, the wonder, the magic.

  ‘Silence,’ said Sandra.

  And I shut right up.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Dave to Sandra. ‘That’s a bit harsh. I’d quite like to hear about this flying around the universe business. And I’m sure your shoe is clean by now.’

  ‘Not underneath,’ said Sandra. ‘Sandra step in dog poo earlier.’

  ‘That’s gross,’ said Dave. ‘Don’t make him lick dog poo. Please, Sandra. I’ll tickle your back later and pick the maggots out.’

  ‘Slave can talk again,’ said Sandra. ‘Stop licking now. Finish licking when I tell you.’

  I looked up at Sandra and I don’t think I had love in my eyes. And then I looked across at Dave.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ said Dave. ‘Being looked at like that by a dead bloke is quite unsettling.’

  ‘You want kick Gary’s arse, Dave?’ asked Sandra.

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ said Dave. ‘Let’s give him a nice cup of tea, or something.’

  ‘A nice cup of tea?’ I collapsed onto the floor. It was still the same lino and still in need of a sweep. I collapsed and I wept. Once more. Like a child. Like a baby. It was undignified but I was very miserable. ‘Dave, reverse the spell, please. Send me back to my grave. Don’t do this to me. We were bestest friends.’

  ‘We’re still bestest friends,’ said Dave. ‘But we need you. That’s why I’ve brought you back.’

  ‘I don’t want to be needed. Please do away with me.’

  ‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ said Dave.

  ‘Pleased to be a zombie? Who would be pleased to be a zombie?’ I glanced at Sandra and Sandra wasn’t smiling. ‘Quite so,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, Sandra. But it really wasn’t me who did that to you.’

  ‘No matter who,’ said Sandra. ‘Gary back now. Gary get Sandra new body. This one not good any more.’

  ‘It is getting somewhat manky,’ said Dave. ‘I’ve got her all wrapped up in clingfilm under her clothes. She does need a new body.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I said, shaking my head violently. ‘I’m not doing that. I’m not killing anyone. I don’t do that any more.’

  ‘Gary do what Gary told to do,’ said Sandra.

  ‘No, please,’ I said. ‘I spent half my life being told what to do, without even knowing it. I do know it now. Please don’t do this to me.’

  ‘Need new body,’ said Sandra. ‘Dave not want to play with this one any more.’

  ‘Then, let Dave get you a new body.’

  ‘No way,’ said Dave. ‘I’m a thief, not a murderer.’

  ‘Yes, but you don’t have to be a thief, Dave. You could fight the alien who controls your thoughts.’

  ‘Oh, him,’ said Dave. ‘You mean old Barundi Fandango the Jovian Cracksman. He’s out of the picture now.’

  ‘What?’ I sat on the floor and stared up at Dave. ‘Your thoughts are entirely your own? Are you sure of this?’

  ‘Sure as sure,’ said Dave, helping me up to my feet. ‘I sorted it.’

  ‘But how?’ I was very wobbly; my knees went knock, knock, knock.

  ‘When you walked into that trap at Mornington Crescent. That door marked WHITE COAT AND LIGHT BULB STORE. I thought you were dead, so I legged it. But I didn’t leg it far. All sorts of alarms went off and I hid and I saw them haul you out. You looked as if you were drunk or drugged or something. Some kind of nerve gas, I don’t know. But I watched and I listened and I saw Mr Boothy and his dogs and he did one of those routines that the supervillains always do when they have the hero captured.’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ I said.

  ‘No, he said that you wouldn’t. But he told you the lot and I overheard it. You heard some of it at your trial, but not all. A few important details were missing.’

  ‘Go on,’ I said, trying to remain upright.

  ‘He thought you were a saboteur. You see, there are people, human beings, with no aliens controlling their actions, who know about FLATLINE, who’ve infiltrated it.’

  ‘The ones with no True Names,’ I said. ‘Eric the barlord, he knew about
them. He told me about them. It got a passing mention at my trial.’

  ‘Eric was a referee,’ said Dave. ‘Of this particular quadrant. The aliens have Earth divided up amongst themselves, so they can play out their games. They’re not omnipotent: they don’t know everything. Most of them don’t know who’s who, whether a human is being controlled or not. It keeps it all sporting. They fight their wars here, Gary. They do it by controlling some of us. Those who can be controlled. Those of us who have basic flaws in our character. Those of us who are weak. Who don’t really know who they are. People like you and me. They play with us. They make us kill one another. The people you killed, you “randomly” killed: there was nothing random about it. The being who controlled you knew who controlled them. Every killing had a purpose. It was all part of their game, their sport.’

  ‘But they don’t die. When they kill one of us, the being that is controlling the person who gets killed, that being doesn’t die, right?’

  ‘Right,’ said Dave. ‘Because they can’t die.’

  ‘They’re immortal?’

  ‘No, Gary. They’re already dead.’

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘I don’t understand this at all.’

  ‘All the aliens,’ said Dave, ‘the whole lot of them, they’re all dead. They blasted one another out of existence. Earth is now the last inhabited planet in the universe. When Operation Orpheus opened up communications with the dead it wasn’t to just the human dead. Sometime in the late nineteen fifties, all the alien dead all over the universe tuned into Earth. Because the scientists discovered the radio frequency of the dead. But not just the human brain frequency: it’s a universal frequency of all the dead, human or not. And once they’d turned on their tuned-in apparatus, it was a great big radio beacon and all the alien dead from all over the galaxies tuned right into it. And they found us. And they found that they could beam their thoughts directly into our brains. They didn’t waste a lot of time doing it.’

  ‘This is doing my head in,’ I said. ‘This is all too much.’

  ‘Think of it as devil possession,’ said Dave. ‘Except that there aren’t any devils. The devils are dead aliens messing about with living humans. It’s about as feasible as anything else. The aliens may be dead, but they still hate one another. Alien racists are still fighting wars beyond the grave. They wouldn’t be able to do it to us if we hadn’t given them the opportunity.’

  ‘So it can be stopped?’ I asked.

  ‘I thought you’d never ask,’ said Dave.

  ‘Well, can it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Dave. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think I want to go back to the graveyard. In fact, I know I want to go back to the graveyard. I belong dead.’

  ‘Don’t be a quitter,’ said Dave. ‘This is a chance for you to redeem yourself. You don’t want to be remembered as a murdering scumbag, do you? Wouldn’t you rather be remembered as the man who freed humankind from the menace of the dead aliens?’

  ‘And you seriously think that any newspaper would print that?’

  ‘The Weekly World News definitely would,’ said Dave. ‘And I think it would be a noble cause.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘You think. You said that you’d sorted the alien who manipulated you. How did you do that?’

  ‘Easy,’ said Dave. ‘I told him to sling his hook. I knew his name: Eric had told me. I knew he was in my head. I knew that from listening to Mr Boothy talking to you. So I said, “Out of my head, mate. I know you’re in there. Go and screw up someone else.” ’

  ‘And it was as easy as that?’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Dave. ‘There was a bit of a fuss. I found myself thinking that I should give myself up to Mr Boothy, and lots of other dodgy things. I almost caved in, almost went mad. But I hung on.’

  ‘Because Sandra save him,’ said Sandra. ‘Sandra know ‘cos Sandra dead. Sandra stop Dave, save Dave.’

  ‘Sandra thinks you should atone for all your bad behaviour,’ said Dave. ‘Even if it wasn’t exactly your fault. Which is why she is going to despatch you to Mornington Crescent to destroy the receiving station.’

  ‘The receiving station?’ I said. ‘This is new. What is the receiving station?’

  ‘It’s the line of communication between the dead aliens and us. You know about FLATLINE — it required technology. You can’t just talk to the dead.’

  ‘You’re doing it now,’ I said.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ said Dave. ‘To a soul, if you like. I overheard Mr Boothy. The alien dead communicate to the living humans, control them, through the receiving station at Mornington Crescent. The one built for Operation Orpheus. Blow that up and you cut the line of communication.’

  ‘So you do it,’ I said. ‘You’re sneaky; you could do it.’

  ‘It’s dangerous in there,’ said Dave. ‘I might get killed.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ I said, because I did. ‘You’ve brought me back from the dead so I can get Sandra a new body and then go and risk, what? nothing, because I’m already dead, by blowing up Mornington Crescent and destroying the communications station that allows the dead aliens to control living human beings?’

  ‘Nicely put,’ said Dave. ‘It’s all so simple when you put it that way.’

  I punched Dave right in the face. Which probably hurt me more than it hurt him. Which made me aware of just how much pain Sandra must go through, being a zombie. Yes, it was a lot of pain that I felt then. And also afterwards, when Sandra made me do certain things to atone for hitting Dave, which were so humiliating and degrading that I have no intention of mentioning them here.

  ‘So you’re up for the challenge, then?’ said Dave. ‘When you’ve finished doing that, which, frankly, I don’t want to watch any more because it makes me feel sick.’

  I just nodded my head to Dave.

  Because Sandra had told me to nod it.

  And because it’s rude to speak with your mouth full.

  26

  OK I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that this is all really far-fetched. You’re probably thinking that it’s ludicrous and foolish and that I’m just making it up as I go along. Well, frankly, I don’t blame you. If anyone had ever told me a tale like this, I wouldn’t have believed them. I would probably have punched them.

  In fact, I might well have killed them.

  But that was then, whenever then was, and this was now. And in this now, here was I, victim of cosmic circumstance, dragged back from an eternity of bliss and rattling along in the back of a knackered transit van in the company of a very great deal of explosive.

  It was quite clear to me that a considerable degree of forward planning had gone into this operation. A lot of work had been done on the part of Dave and Sandra, before they brought me back from the dead.

  I confess that I was slightly baffled. I’d never had Dave down as anything but dodgy. The thought of him caring a jam tiddly about mankind and wanting to play a part in ‘saving the world’ didn’t seem to fit.

  But then, love can do strange things to a man. And it seemed obvious to me that Dave was in love with my Sandra. I don’t know what it was about that woman that men found so attractive.

  Well, actually, I do because I had fallen under her spell. She was a very pretty girl, or had been while alive. And when it came to impersonating ponies, she was definitely in a class of her own. And I think that, even given everything; her infidelities with Count Otto and probably others; she was a good person.

  But, like I say, here I was, rattling along in the back of another stolen van, en route for Mornington Crescent, thinking to myself that I’d rather be anywhere else but here. In fact, everywhere else but here. At which point the extremely obvious hit me right in the face. And a plan of my own entered my poor dead head.

  And, as it was an absolute blinder of a plan, it made me smile very much and feel rather happy inside.

  A kind of blissful glow.

  Which, of course, due to the nature of things, could not b
e allowed to continue for long.

  ‘Stop van, Dave,’ said Sandra. ‘She do.’

  ‘She?’ said Dave, stopping the van.

  ‘Sandra want body,’ said Sandra. ‘That body.’ And she pointed out of the window. ‘She do for body.’

  ‘Oh no, please,’ I said, cowering down in the back of the van. ‘Please don’t make me. Please.’

  ‘Gary, fetch body now,’ said Sandra. ‘Now!’

  I will spare you the details and the horror. And as the horror is always in the details, these two are one and the same.

  ‘Happy now?’ I said, ten minutes later, as I wiped the blood from my hands.

  Dave drove on and he cast an approving eye over the latest Sandra. ‘It’s a very nice body,’ he said. ‘It really suits you, Sandra.’

  ‘Sandra know what Dave like,’ said Sandra.

  I sat and stewed in the back. My wife and my bestest friend. I now really hated both of them.

  ‘You all right in the back there, Gary?’ called Dave.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I said. ‘Never better.’

  ‘Good lad.’

  ‘You’ll get yours,’ I whispered. And I meant it.

  When we finally reached Mornington Crescent it was around midnight. The good old witching hour. I sat in the back of that van, picking loose bits from my fingers and thinking that my life would have been oh so different if I’d been born someone else entirely. Someone destined to be rich and famous, perhaps. Rather than poor and notorious. But Casey Rah Serah, or whoever it is, whatever will be will probably be.

  ‘We’re going down the secret tunnel,’ said Dave.

  ‘Oh, good-oh,’ said I.

  And down the secret tunnel we went.

  After a prolonged period of secret-tunnel travelling, Dave brought the transit to a halt, got out, came around and opened up the rear doors.

  ‘We’re here,’ he said. ‘Time for you to do your stuff.’

  ‘And my stuff would be what, exactly?’ I climbed out of the van.