“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 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.”