Early Riser_ The new standalone - Jasper Fforde Page 0,63
Explore the recesses of Don Hector’s mind.’
I looked around. The only thing in sight other than the oak tree and the picnic and the car was the Morpheleum, sitting on the horizon.
‘There’s a temple to Morpheus. About half a mile away.’
‘Good. Try and get there. Using the Buick offers the best chance, we’ve learned.’
‘You’ve tried it?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
I looked at the empty space between myself and the car. It was barely ten paces away, but as I watched, a hand surfaced momentarily between myself and the Buick, then sank out of sight.
‘I can’t,’ I said.
‘The hands?’
‘Yes, the hands. They’ll get me.’
‘They’ll always get you, Charlie. Trying to drive to the temple, not being able to. Anything to stop you finding the cylinder, stop you reaching the Morpheleum. But the cylinder is in there somewhere. The temple is a good start. The clock is running – I suggest you start driving, and fast.’
I elected to do as she said, but then noticed with a feeling of dread that the hands were not simply severed hands, but small hand-like creatures, the wrist domed over with skin like a healed stump, and not looking like part of a human at all. I put my own hand in my pocket, pulled out a rabbit’s-foot key ring and made a dash for the Buick.
I couldn’t run as fast as I wanted. I was weak, and my feet felt draggy. Within a few paces I could sense the hands grasp the hem of my trousers, and from here they started to climb my legs, making me heavier, impeding my progress. I made it to the car and tried to get in but the weight and volume of the hands made it impossible to move, let alone drive. I kicked and pushed and tore at the hands but even if I dislodged one, two more would stream out of the earth to take their place. I heaved myself into the driver’s seat and slipped the key into the ignition. The oil and generator lights flicked on and the car’s engine burst into life. Without a foot to work the clutch, I simply pushed the gear lever into first. The gearbox clunked, the car lurched and the engine stalled. I shouted as a wave of hands erupted from the soil, flowed into the car in a flood and covered my face and then dragged me outside. I had a fleeting glimpse of the shimmery Mrs Nesbit before I was pulled beneath the ground, the taste of soil in my mouth, the earth above me pressing heavily on my chest and a sense of enveloping darkness. I tried to yell but my mouth was full of dry soil and—
— a voice. But not Mrs Nesbit’s.
‘What are you still doing here?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I’ll rephrase that: what in all that’s cold and dead and putrid are you still doing here?’
Jonesy
* * *
‘… Skill erosion due to hibernational mortality could be disastrous to complex manufacturing, infrastructure and management systems, so almost every job was devised with SkillZero protocols in mind. Anyone who achieved an 82% pass or higher in General Skills could run anything from a fast food joint to a Graphite Reactor …’
– Handbook of Winterology, 6th edition, Hodder & Stoughton
I didn’t recognise the voice, but figured it was a Deputy sent by Chief Logan to make sure I didn’t lapse into full hibernation, always a risk with first-time Winterers. I was grateful to be back in Cardiff. Spending my first assignment in Sector something-or-rather at the Sarah Whatsit Dormitorium hadn’t sounded like a huge barrel of fun, although I couldn’t as yet remember how I’d managed to get back.
On the Railplane, I expect.
‘You with me, Worthing?’
‘I’m with you,’ I croaked, my throat dry, my vocal cords stiff with disuse.
‘Truly?’
‘No.’
I felt myself groan. My head felt like mud, my eyes were gummed tight shut and I really only had one thought in my head: that I desperately, urgently, painfully wanted to go back to sleep.
‘There was a striped towel,’ I said, as memories started to return, firing randomly around inside my mind like lottery balls, ‘and a beach ball. A child, a girl, laughing. A woman in a swimsuit, a wrecked liner – the Argentinian Queen.’
‘It’s called Arousal Confusion,’ came the woman’s voice from the darkness. ‘You won’t know shit for a couple of minutes and you’ll talk utter bollocks.’
‘She took a Polaroid,’ I said, ‘and the orange-and-red parasol was of spectacular size and splendour.’