I don’t like the sound of ‘including you’. Something about it sets me climbing the walls, searching behind the hangings for some kind of window to jump out of.
“Yes, we are pure,” says Elder Paul in her increasingly high-pitched voice. “As were you – to bear the mark of the crown of thorns. But do not fear. You can be again.”
“I’ve never been pure!” I scream. “This isn’t stigmata. It’s a great, big spot brought on by drug use and adrenal stress!”
“Let he who is without sin,” answers Novice Peter with his truly horrible grin. “The straight and narrow path may prove difficult to see at first, but turn it to the side and you will find it to be the broad, shining blade of the Stanley knife.”
“But I’m really bad! I’m pure hate!”
“Then it’s a good job we found you.”
I tear at the Jesi (is that the plural?), ripping down the images, searching desperately for the deity that disguises the door.
“Ah! The Devil is once more within him,” observes Elder Adam. “See! See how he desecrates our home; our faith! Seize him gently, brethren, and scourge him til he sees the Bright and Shining Light.”
Now call me old-fashioned, but I don’t fancy being scourged. Fair play, it was nice of them to lend me the Jesus y-fronts, but I don’t intend being razored to within an inch of my life for the privilege. It’s just not cricket, kids.
What are my options? Well, I don’t stop to consider them. I see Elder Adam’s huge, serrated knife waving about and I decide I’m taking it off him and sticking it into the first freak who comes near me. It doesn’t matter that it’s still imbedded in his forearm.
So I dive forward and the next moment’s like something out of The Sword in the Stone, only with an old man replacing the chunk of rock. And I’ve got my foot on his shoulder. And I’m yanking the knife handle, and he’s screaming at me. And there’s this almighty ripping sound, a fountain of arterial spray and…
Well, Elder Adam may love God, but I doubt the Good Lord returns the sentiment with the same degree of intensity. Because I extract the knife, but not without removing one of his ears in the process. I slip and slice the thing clean off. It arcs through the air and lands in Novice Peter’s lap with a big, wet plop.
“My God!” Peter cries.
“Sweet Jesus!” croaks Elder Adam, spewing blood like a fire hydrant. “His knife work is outstanding! Though the Devil may be upon him, it is clear he was sent here to set us on the Lord’s path! Mutilate us, brother Hugo! Maim us for Jesus! Kill us, good Christian and send us back to our God! Truly(!) we’re all going home in an ambulance tonight!”
My stomach gives out. Everywhere.
“Debase us, Knifeman Hugo!” bawls an orgiastic Novice Peter. “Vomit upon us! Defile us so that we may be humble before God!”
I clamp my hand over my mouth. It doesn’t stop the retching, just redirects it sideways.
“Cut my head off and throw up down the stump!” pleads Under Elder Eve.
Now I’m not used to being taken so literally. So when they ask me to kill them, I tell them no, if they really want to die and, I mean really, then they’re going to have to do it themselves… Well, you can say I’m surprised when they take me at face value. Suddenly I’m standing in a pool of guts.
I’m in the street. I’ve escaped. Crowds again. Everywhere. I guess the human race must’ve reached the top of the evolutionary arc and slid down the other side. I mean, how many thousands of years have we been in existence and we still haven’t worked out how to walk round each other? But I tell you one thing: everyone moves out the way for the man in the Jesus Christ underpants.
“I thought you’d defected,” Calamari growls.
“We lost ’im on the bridge, Sir,” Elton interrupts.
“You lost him on the bridge? How can you lose someone on a bridge? A bridge is three parts: a beginning, a middle and an end, and each one of those parts is clearly visible from any two of the others.”
“An’ then there’s the bits that go upwards, Sir: the supports. Well, these bits that go up… ’e went up ’em. We don’t understand what ’appened next. We fink…”
“I don’t care what you think. I suspect you don’t think at all. I’ll find out myself. You, Jupiter, standing there in your blasphemous knickers! What happened to you?”
“I fell, Sir. Then I was held captive by religious maniacs. They disembowelled themselves and I escaped.”
“At least somebody’s showing some bloody initiative!” Calamari snaps.
We’re behind schedule. There isn’t time for full recriminations so he herds us straight onto the bus. I risk his wrath and ask a question.
“Mr Calamari?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! What?!”
“How did you find me, Sir?”
“I’ve had unpleasant devices implanted under your skin. Whilst you slept.”
We offload Elton. The next stop is Cobleigh On The Wold and a grand, gala fundraising ball. Funds for what, I don’t know.
So, how best to describe Cobleigh? Well, half’s a beautiful, bucolic paradise of gently rolling hills, wildflower meadows and tiny, tucked away cottages you can barely see from the road. Then there’s Hangman’s Wood, which is every bit as horrible as it sounds. And then there’s Battencross Manor. Which is worse.
I don’t know what it is with rich lunatics and architecture. Imagine the Houses of Parliament eaten and then passed out as a stool by some colossal camel. Add turrets and Alzheimer’s for the full effect. When dusk falls, its crooked spires cast brutal, serrated shadows the breadth of the village. Mention its name and the locals go white and mutter about full moons and missing children. They speak of a beast. They speak of many things, but little makes sense.
If the Stemset Building is the entrance to Hell then Battencross Manor is its exit.
But it’s not the architecture that bothers me, or the coterie of freaks that stalk its hallways. It’s the memory of what we did there that haunts me to this day.
So picture the scene: black night; our great whale of a tour bus winding along a narrow, twisted road – little more than a dirt track gouged through a Brothers-Grimm forest of gnarled, acid-bitten trees. There’s no light save for our dim headlamps and the flickers of marsh gas. We’ve bogland to our left and collapsing rockface to our right. We dodge quicksand, falling rocks and something large and fast-moving that I’m sure should be extinct. It leaves its claw-marks along the length of the bus.
“Battencross Manor survived the Civil War,” a big goon tells me, ashen-faced, “because no one dared go near it.” And I shiver.
We exit the woods past the cemetery, where flame-torches up-light ungodly stone angels and Death watches us with empty eye sockets from his perch above the gatehouse. And I swear he moves. Just a little.
The Manor rises up to meet us, a dark arachnid abortion wreathed in fog. The floodlights would guide our way up the winding gravel driveway, but the floodlights appear to be exploding. A smartly attired man with a waxed moustache and smoking jacket is smashing them with a log. He salutes as we pass.
An upstairs window flashes cyan blue as an unknown individual attempts to reanimate pig carcasses with an electric generator. I can’t help thinking he’d have more success with animals that still have heads. Furious-faced, he hefts their lifeless, decapitated torsos to the window and launches them into thin air. He adopts a joyless smile as they hurtle downward, exploding on impact with the patio furniture on the Italian terrace. An old woman shields herself with an umbrella. She has meat in her hair. I look left and see a man beating his wife with a stuffed dog. This is not as weird as it gets by any stretch of the imagination. There’s more. There’s always more.