“Souls, perhaps,” said Eddie. “The souls of the clockwork band.”
“Their souls, Eddie? What are you saying?”
“You heard what I heard, Jack. Draw your own conclusions.”
“I heard what you heard, Eddie, but did you hear what I heard? What we heard?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Eddie.
“Oh, I think you do. The voices, Eddie. You heard the voices.”
“Of course I heard them. Now stop talking, let me think.”
“No,” said Jack. “You heard them as I did. You heard those voices.”
“I heard them,” said Eddie. “Now stop.”
“Not until you’ve said it.”
“Said what?”
“You know exactly what. Now say it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do, Eddie. Say it.”
“All right!” Eddie glared at Jack. “I know what you want me to say that I heard. And all right, I did hear it, same as you heard it. Their voices. All right, I heard them.”
“Say it,” said Jack.
“They were our voices,” said Eddie. “Yours and mine. Our voices. All right, I’ve said it – are you happy?”
“No,” said Jack. “I am not. They were our voices. What does this mean?”
“It means,” said Eddie, “that not only is there a doppelganger of me doing these murders, but there’s one of you, too.”
Jack did shudderings. “I was really hoping that you might have been able to come up with a comfier explanation than that,” he said.
“Comfier?” said Eddie.
“This is really scary stuff,” said Jack. “Doppelgangers of you and me? I don’t know about the soul-stealing business, but murdering doppelgangers is scary enough for me. Were they space aliens, do you suppose?”
Eddie shrugged as best as he was able. “I suppose so,” he said.
“But space aliens don’t go stealing souls,” said Jack.
“Oh, you know all about the habits of space aliens now, do you?”
“I know what I know,” said Jack. “There’s a blinding light and the space aliens abduct you, stick instruments up your bottom and then return you hours later with your memories erased. That’s what space aliens do.”
“You do talk twaddle, Jack.”
“Listen,” said Jack, “that’s what space aliens do, if there are space aliens. But as I don’t believe in space aliens, I don’t care whether you believe me or not.”
Eddie was now thumping his head with his paws.
“I hate it when you do that,” said Jack.
“It helps to jiggle my brainy bits about,” said Eddie. “Aids cogitation. We have all the clues, Jack, I’m sure we do. We can figure this thing out. I can figure this thing out.”
“Let’s tell Bellis what we heard here,” said Jack. “Let him and his laughing policemen lay in wait for these –”
“Doppelgangers of us?” said Eddie.
“Whatever they are.”
Eddie gave his head some further thumpings. “Something is coming,” he said.
“An idea?” asked Jack. “An answer? What?”
“Something,” said Eddie. “Something.”
“Something,” said Jack. And then he said, “Eddie?”
“What, Jack, what?”
“Eddie, something.”
And then something came upon them. It came upon them in a blinding light, which rushed at them through the windows and up through the cracks between the floorboards and around the trap door and in through the keyhole and down the chimney and even up the plughole in the sink in the kitchen. And this light was white and this light was pure and this light was fearsome.
And Eddie clung to the legs of Jack and Jack held Eddie’s head in one hand and shielded his eyes with the other. And Eddie screamed. And Jack screamed. They screamed together. Together as one. And the bright white light engulfed them, surrounded them and swallowed them up.
And was gone.
“Careful,” said Eddie. “Look where you’re driving.”
Jack swung the wheel; the car all but struck a fence. Nearly went over a cliff and into a river. Jack jammed his foot upon the brake.
“That was close,” he said.
“You dozed off,” said Eddie. “Fell asleep at the wheel.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jack. “It’s been a long night. I’m tired.”
“You were asleep.”
“I’m sorry, I said. Where are we?”
“Nearly home, I think.”
“Nearly home?”
“Nearly home.”
“But –” said Jack.
“But what?”
“But we weren’t driving home. We were –”
“We were what?”
“We were somewhere, weren’t we?”
“We were at Tinto’s Bar and now we’re driving home.”
“No,” said Jack. “We were somewhere else after Tinto’s Bar – we went somewhere else.”
“No we didn’t,” said Eddie. “We had a beer, several, in fact. Many, in fact.”
“I didn’t,” said Jack. “I’m confused.”
“See, you did have beers.”
“Did you have beer?”
“Do my kind defecate in the woodland regions?”
“Then you’re drunk.”
Eddie felt at his legs. “I’m not,” said he. “My legs are not.”
“Something happened, Eddie, something weird.”
“Jack, you’re not making sense.”
“There was a light,” said Jack. “A very bright light.”
“You are drunk.”
“I’m not,” said Jack. He looked at his watch. “Five a.m. in the morning,” he said. “The sun’s coming up.”
“Five in the morning?” said Eddie. “That’s odd. I thought it was about two.”
“There was a bright light,” said Jack. “I remember a light. And there’s something more.”
“Something more?”
“My bottom’s sore,” said Jack.
“Oh,” said Eddie. “That’s funny.”
“It’s not,” said Jack. “It hurts.”
“No, I didn’t mean that it’s funny like that. I mean it’s, funny because my bum is sore, too.”
Jack looked at Eddie.
And Eddie looked at Jack.
“Aaaaaaagh!” they both agreed.
9
“No,” said Eddie. “No, no, no.”
“Yes,” said Jack. “I think so, yes.”
It was nine of the morning clock now and they hadn’t slept, or at least they thought they hadn’t slept. They were back in Bill Winkie’s office. Eddie sat on Bill Winkie’s desk in a bowl of iced water. Jack sat in Bill’s chair upon several cushions.
And, “No,” said Eddie once again. “It can’t have happened, no.”
“I don’t get you at all,” said Jack, rootling around in desk drawers in search of a bottle of something. “You were the one saying that it was space aliens and now we’ve been abducted by space aliens and returned with our memories erased and you’re saying no, it can’t have happened. Why are you saying this, Eddie?”
“Because,” said Eddie, shifting uncomfortably upon his sore bottom. “Just because, that’s all.”
“Just because they’re my kind of space aliens.” Jack shifted uncomfortably in Bill’s chair. “That’s it, isn’t it? You wanted clockwork space aliens with tin-plate ray guns and now you’re jealous –”
“Jealous?” said Eddie.
“No,” said Jack, “jealous is not the word I mean. You’re miffed.”
“That’s nothing like jealous at all.”
“But you are miffed, because it was my space aliens. Because I was right and you were wrong.”
“Then pat yourself on the back for being right.” Eddie made a huffy face. “But pat yourself on the shoulders to avoid your punctured bum.”
“Stop. Don’t even think about that. What do you think they did to us?”
“If I don’t even think about it, then I don’t know.”
“We were abducted.” Jack now made a different face from the one he had previously been making, the one that would have turned the milk sour if there’d been any milk around, but there wasn’t any, because he and Eddie hadn’t got around to buying any, as they spent most of what money they had upon alcohol. The different face that Jack made was of that variety that one sees in those big paintings of the saints whilst they are being horribly martyred in some unspeakable fashion (which often tends to involve certain pointy things being thrust up certain tender places). It is the face of the beatified. There’s no mistaking it.