episode THIRTY-SEVEN
Punchinello.
The
fog swelled profusely in dense patches and people on the street must stop in
their tracks or risk wandering into the middle of the causeway, where they
risked collision or flattening beneath
mechanical conveyances. The vehicles required no line of sight as they
followed magnetic tracks set into the cobblestones, and thus blundered blithely
forward in the opaque atmosphere. But in the middle of the night the people
ventured out—the drunks, the villains, and the children, careening through
these soup-thick patches, and every night the bodies accumulated in the
streets, and it was a race to see who would reach these unfortunates first, the
bobbies, the night ghouls, the feeders, or the puppets. If the bobbies reached
you first, there was hope that the unfortunate victim might see medical aid, a
return to family for a funeral, or at the very least a decent burial in a
pauper’s grave. If the night ghouls reached you, you might end up beneath a
physician’s scalpel—if a Resurrectionist carried your body, you might
contribute to furthering science, by enriching the minds and experiments of
such leading thinkers as Robert Knox and Victor Frankenstein; however, if you
were lifted from the cobbles by the other kind of ghoul, your body might hang
upside-down for a while in the underground slaughterhouses, and your flesh
might appear in several upscale restaurants. If the feeders found you, pieces
of you could be consumed there, on the spot, while other portions would be taken
and hidden, as a dog buries its bones for later gnawing. But if puppets got
hold of your corpse—or your wounded and crushed body, still with a little
life—oh, but then, things could get interesting for you. Because then you might
venture into a new life, of varied entertainments.
Some
believed that a mysterious and fell genius was manipulating the fog, in the
facilitation of providing more roadkill for all those that required the stuff.
And the bodies of children brought the highest bounty. But worth more than the
crushed remains of children, was their living, breathing bodies.
Good
parents kept their children indoors and in bed during the night fogs, and many
held their children close when the fog grew thick during the days. The sad
fact, however, was that in Olde London, on the Steampunk streets, there just
did not seem to be enough good parents to go around, for thousands of small
shapes moved through the foggy nights.
Fagin’s
Bunch was the largest, a gang consisting of hundreds of children, and Fagin’s
chief rival was Gavroche’s Gang, but there were many kidsmen working the
streets, training and employing pickpockets, thieves, messengers, mules to
transport opium and loot, and much worse, darker employment.
“Can’t
someone do something about this?” Jack muttered, as Anne propelled him through
the streets. Whenever they hit an opaque patch of fog, Anne moved them safely
against a building or lamppost, until the atmosphere thinned.
“You
mean the children?” Anne whispered. “There are many here that do fight to save
the children, but unfortunately there are many more diabolicals working to do
just the opposite.”
Several
children boisterously dashed past them, laughing and catcalling, as Anne and
Jack waited against a stalled carriage. A group of men appeared from the
billows of the fog and set to work on the man lying in the street. Metal tools
clinked, and there was the sound of slicing. Jack tried not to watch, or
listen, because the men were certainly not bobbies, and there was something
decidedly wrong about their gait and bearing. They looked more like apes than
men. But at least the traffic victim was dead, that much was obvious. A steam
velocipede had nearly severed the poor man’s head.
“Just
tell yourself that it’s not real,” Anne breathed against his ear.
At
one time, yes, a lot of this would be NPC action, just programmed non-entities
strolling about in their programmed ruts, following the pre-laid tracks, just
puppets on strings. But now, when you thought about it, there was no such thing
as an NPC. One life was as important as another life—data was data, after all.
Data is data.
“But
here, it is real, isn’t it?” Jack
whispered in return. After a moment, he whispered, hating the shriveling and sinking
pit of his stomach: “Can’t we go back to High Vale?”
“Maulgraul
can reach us too easily there, and in the Looking Glass they would separate us,
Jack,” Anne breathed. “I am sorry, Jack, I shouldn’t be so selfish. But I
always am, we always end up here. And Jack, there is going to be some bad
stuff...”
“Just
keep in mind, this is my first time here, so I don’t know what’s going on, as usual,” Jack muttered, furious and frustrated.
He had barely established his bearings in High Vale, and now here he was in a
new, darker world.
“Don’t
worry, we have friends here, but it is going to be tricky to get us to a part
of the city where everyone isn’t trying to kill us. We can go to Berry, or
Doyle, even Haggard. Once we’re in a safe place, it won’t be so bad. We came
down in the wrong place, those damned Men from Mars. I think they brought us
down in East London.”
Jack
was thankful they still had their goggles, which allowed them to see—somewhat—
through the fog and darkness. He had to keep wiping the moisture off the
eyepieces. The really bad thing was that it was cold here, wet cold, and the
leather wingmen jackets just didn’t do much to keep out that cold, and its
cloying dampness. He huddled in close to Anne, enjoying the halo of warmth about
her slim body. He smoothed his hand along her waist, amazed at how silky and
supple she felt.
“Keep
your mind on the darkness, Jack,” Anne cautioned.
Right,
he told himself. Bad place. Bad people. Very bad things. Still, it was
difficult not to allow his attention to wander into focusing on Anne, and her
sleek body, as they pressed together.
Another
group of children dashed past. In his amber vision Jack thought the kids looked
no older than eight or nine years of age, with the youngest around five. He
heard them laughing about the Midnight Puppetshow. How in the world were they
running like this, as he could barely trust his feet, even with the aid of
enhanced vision. And the children were literally skipping. They sounded like
children anywhere.
“Follow
them,” Anne snapped, and steered Jack along the curb, and he felt like a blind
man wading through milk. “Whatever happens, Jack, just pretend that it is all a
game, that you are enjoying everything. That’s how the great adventurers handle
it—it’s a lark, a game. Enjoy it. Go with it. Don’t show fear. Irregardless.”
“Regardless,”
Jack supplied.
“That
too,” Anne said, and it was obvious she was smiling. Jack sighed, as it seemed
that at least Anne was not put off by his sense of humor. He knew he sometimes
grated on Stacey.
Jack
thought about it, wasn’t that the message they received at the beginning in the
Coffee Dump? Don’t be afraid. Enjoy yourself. Go with the flow. It was tough,
though, when everything loomed up large and nasty in front of you, and the
things coming up from behind were even worse.
Jack
kept his left elbow up and out before his face—he thought he must look like
Dracula—as Anne hurried him along. He pictured slamming face-first into a
telephone pole (of course, he remembered, they don’t have telephones). He had
not tripped or stumbled on any irregularities on the pavement and he wished he
could actually take a look around this place, as it was fascinating, in a
different way it was every bit as complicated, concentrated, and intricate as
High Vale.
“The
sidewalks are nice,” Jack observed.
“All
the modern conveniences,” Anne said.
As
the fog shifted, Jack discerned traffic moving in the street, carriages, some
without horses, but he had seen nothing that resembled anything like the early
automobiles, only a lot of bizarre mechanical conveyances, including a long,
metal caterpillar, which must function as a city bus, perhaps free public
transportation. The streets were wide, allowing for traffic going both ways,
and since this was a facsimile of London, of course everyone drove on the wrong
side of the street, or just headed down whichever direction they wanted to go,
possibly flipping a coin to choose, on horses, steam vehicles, as well as many
velocipedes right out in the middle of the street, which is where the
topsy-turvy vehicles seemed to prefer.
They
passed through groups of long-coated gentlemen in tall, expensive hats, and gangs
of lounging roughs that milled about descending staircases into what must be
taverns and opium dens. But Anne hurried him in and out and around so quickly
that Jack barely had a chance to pick out real details in the fog.
“Wait
a sec, get ready,” Anne said, crouching at a street corner. Before Jack could
ask what she intended, she jerked him by the arm into traffic, dodging them
about a sleek carriage that looked like a large coffin on many wheels, and
hurried him ducking under some kind of too-tall cart pulled by what looked like
a team of llamas, to the other side of the street. Jack could no longer see any
of the children, but he could hear them somewhere farther up the street,
giggling and calling to each other.
“It’s
so busy, in the middle of the night, with hardly any lights,” Jack wondered.
“The
day life is very different from the night life, although it is sometimes as
almost as dark during the day, but at least it is not quite as dangerous,” Anne
told him. “But there will be a hundred times the traffic in the day. The good
people of Olde London are locked behind their doors.”
“So
there are good people in Olde London?” Jack said, huddling next to her as they now
dashed down a dark sidewalk. All the lights were out, except for far up ahead.
“Certainly,
I think,” she said, but he thought she didn’t sound at all certain. It sounded
like wishful thinking.
Up
ahead the fog was thinning enough to discern a tall iron fence with lots of
lights beyond and lots of people. It looked like some kind of festival was going
on, and people were laughing loudly, drunkenly, and there were just too many
children out and boisterously about.
“Hopefully,
this is Hyde Park,” Anne said.
“Is
it a...good place?” Jack asked, hopefully.
“Not
necessarily, though there will certainly be bobbies out in force, so safe...enough, but we should be able to get you
some food and something warm to drink.”
“Wait
a second,” Jack said, pulling her to a halt, “Hyde Park? It doesn’t have
anything to do with Mr. Hyde, does it?”
“I
don’t think so,” Anne said, “but I don’t really know. But he might be here. If you see him, a very tall, oddly looking man
with arms too long, a jutting caveman forehead and the most terrifying leer,
just don’t make eye contact, got that, Jack?”
“I
won’t,” Jack said, swallowing hard. She did say that there would be some bad
stuff, and he had already witnessed plenty of the bad stuff, but hopefully Anne
didn’t mean that the bad stuff she was steering him into made this other bad
stuff look not so bad. Given just how bad High Vale could get, Jack feared the
worst.
They
approached the park and the milling people just outside the open gates, walking
slowly, arm in arm.
“Remember,
we are a young couple out for entertainment, we are not afraid, and we are
certainly not helpless,” Anne whispered into his ear, cuddling close.
Jack
swallowed hard. He didn’t like the way she stressed not helpless.
“Keep
a stiff upper lip, and all that,” Anne said.
Jack
reached reflexively to touch his slight moustache. Hey, it was seeming a little
more—hopeful. Not too bad. He
suddenly felt very good about himself.
“We
are definitely going to shave that thing the first chance we get,” Anne said,
smiling up into his eyes.
“Hey,
I like this moustache, and don’t all the men here have them?” Jack almost
wailed, rolling his eyes at her.
“Most
of the men here certainly do have moustaches, but this is decidedly not a moustache,” Anne said, squeezing
his arm, and shaking her head at his peach fuzz.
Jack
sighed. He thought for sure his facial hair was making some real progress.
A
gout of flame erupted thirty feet into the air, and Jack jerked about, but was
comforted to see it was just a fire eater, an entertainer, strolling about,
juggling long, glittering razor blades, the old-fashioned kind of razor, that
barbers stropped on long leather straps. And the deeper into the park they
strolled the more of this kind of thing they saw, jugglers, nut sellers calling
out their wares and prices, actors yelling at each other as groups of
pleasure-seekers gathered. Strolling animals, a bear on a chain, and comically,
a bear that seemed to be out walking his humans. There were ladies in long,
fluffy gowns, and gentlemen in finery, and Jack did a double-take, because in
nearly all the groups of gentlemen and ladies there were very simplistic
puppets standing near them—or maybe not puppets, but robots, or nondescript
automatons.
“What’s
with all the puppets?” Jack whispered, keeping his face in a smile.
“Bodyguards,
for the wealthy,” Anne replied, keeping her head down. “The very wealthy have
automatons that are practically indistinguishable from humans.”
Jack
glanced at her. She was acting funny.
“What’s
wrong?” he whispered, drawing her away from several groups of milling people.
“Is
that how you see me, Jack? As a puppet?” she said, not meeting his eyes.
“Not
at all!” he said, amazed. “Of course not. You’re a person. A beautiful woman.”
“Really?”
she said, still not looking up.
“Hey,”
he breathed, lifting her chin. “You’re my dream girl. That’s all I’ve ever
wanted: to find you!”
She
finally met his eyes, and smiled, tears forming at the corner of her eyes. And
she was about to say something, but he kissed her, warmly, and deeply. She
returned the embrace, almost desperately.
“We
found each other, Jack,” Anne breathed. “It’s been a long time.”
“Remember,
for me, it’s been a lifetime,” he said, holding her tightly, not considering
that a lifetime for him was just a little more than eighteen years of time,
most of it squandered in childhood, but for her, it was thousands of years,
sheltered from Reboots in Lady Maulgraul’s Looking Glass domain. But the
sadness in her shimmering eyes did get through. He placed his arm about her and
squeezed. They both understood, however, that all the other iterations of Jack
didn’t count for him, but only for her, and if he thought about it, he felt a
little jealous about those other guys, even if they were him.
Winding
along the path they passed many couples, standing under trees, passionately
embracing, and Jack didn’t try to notice, but many of the women were
automatons, some of them quite outlandish with too-long necks, or bosoms
swollen to monstrous proportions.
“They’re
the ladies of the Puppet Brothels,” Anne whispered.
Jack
chuckled. “Why in the world would puppets need to go to brothels?”
Anne
sighed and though Jack didn’t check he knew she was rolling her eyes.
“Jack.
Please. Think. The brothels are for the rich and...twisted,” Anne replied. “The poor stick to the regular brothels.”
He
thought about it for a few moments.
“Oh,
okay, I get it. Guys go to the brothels to—be...with
the puppets,” he said, feeling dumb.
“Yes,
Jack. Right. But women visit the brothels, as well, many of the great lords and
ladies keep these particular puppets as...butlers, and maids, and for...other jobs.”
“Got
it,” he concluded.
As
they approached a large clearing crowded with people and a conspicuous amount
of children, Jack figured they must have found the Midnight Puppetshow, and a
moment later he caught sight of several wagons unfolded into quite an elaborate
theater with stage, footlights, and red velvet curtains. Torches and lamps
encircled the grounds, and folding benches were spread everywhere, mostly
occupied by single ladies in gowns, their gentlemen standing protectively
behind them, the men chatting and smoking cigars. Jack inhaled deeply, as the
cigar smoke reminded him of Stacey.
Anne
steered him to a small empty bench just wide enough for the two of them, and
they sat on the outskirts of the crowd, off to the side so that they had a
clear view of both the silent stage and the milling crowd, and Jack sat with
his arm about Anne, watching the crowd. He spotted some recognizable figures
out on the outskirts, and he figured they must be part of the show.
“Those
guys, the ones with the stovepipe hats, and the long fake noses—child catchers, are they puppets?” Jack
whispered. “Are they part of the show? Like attendants?”
“Those
are real child catchers, and those are real noses, but I don’t know if they are
puppets, and they are not part of the show,” Anne whispered directly into his
ear.
“Come
on, that can’t be right,” Jack said, feeling a chill, staring at one of the
closer child catchers, with his handful of suckers and lollipops, The man’s
skin looked pale and slack, but the eyes above the ridiculously long nose
glittered with menace, as the creature stared feverishly at the hundreds of
children seated in the grassy open space between the stage and the first ring
of benches. He remembered well the children’s movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and the frightening Child Catcher—it had
given him nightmares, and the creepy guy was probably his very worst boogie
man, bar none, throughout his childhood.
These
knockoffs could have been brothers of the actor that played the part in the
movie, although some were tall, and some were short, but all of them were
skeletal and pale, and looked angrily, and hungrily at the children. They
sported what looked like grotesquely large butterfly nets, but Jack didn’t have
to guess what those were for. The shortest nose Jack saw had to be eight inches
in length, and the longest must be over a foot. The child catcher Jack was
observing suddenly felt Jack’s scrutiny, and the beady eyes turned upon him, and
a transformation washed over his face, and suddenly he was just a very thin man
with a very long nose, and he tipped his hat and smiled at Jack, almost kindly.
He held up a lollipop, eyebrows lifted in entreaty. Jack shook his head, and
the man bowed, deeply, and melded into the crowd.
“Creepy,”
Jack muttered.
“They
are actually part of Scotland Yard, but the rumor is that they really work for
Punchinello, providing him the material he needs for his puppets,” Anne
whispered. She was keeping an eye on the men that kept walking around behind
them, but thus far, no one had paid any particular or specific attention to the
pair from the Looking Glass.
“Punchinello?”
Jack queried, certain that he had heard that name before.
“He
is the Puppet Master,” Anne said.
As
if on cue, trumpets blared and lights blazed on behind the theater stage. Squinting,
Jack pushed his goggles up onto his skullcap. The lights were so bright they
hurt his eyes even without the goggles.
“Tesla
Lighting,” Anne whispered.
“Nikola
Tesla?” Jack said, enthused, as he was a big fan of the genius inventor.
“Yes,
that’s him,” Anne replied, “he’s having a war with Victor Frankenstein, who has
stolen all his best ideas. So officially, they are Frankenstein Lights, and
Frankenstein Energy, but everybody knows.”
“Everybody
knows the good guys lost,” Jack quoted, sadly thinking of Leonard Cohen, and
how he hadn’t heard any real music from his world in ages.
“Never,”
Anne said, squeezing his arm. “We are the good guys, Jack. And we are going to
win.”
“Tell
that to Tesla,” Jack said, shaking his head.
“Maybe
you can tell him,” Anne said, eyes twinkling.
“That
would be awesome,” Jack breathed, “to meet Tesla.”
“You’ve
already met one of your favorite authors,” she crooned.
“Really?”
Jack snapped, his head popping up out of his huddled shoulders, as he looked
about at the crowd.
She
pinched him.
“I
was kidding!” he said, quickly. “Agnes
Grey—The Tenant of Toad Hall!”
She
slapped him on the knee, hard.
“It’s
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,” she
snapped, and she gave him a hard look, and he figured he could distantly
imagine what the Men from Mars felt when she kicked their asses.
“I
know, I know!” he chortled, and was happy that she couldn’t see him blushing
furiously in the night. “I was just kidding.”
“No
you weren’t,” she said, and then sighed. “You’d be surprised how many people
make that mistake. The Tenant of Toad Hall, I should have called it that.
Nobody ever messes up the title of Jane
Eyre, or Wuthering Heights.”
“I
used to say: Jane Airhead,” Jack said, tentatively, half-expecting another
slap.
But
Anne giggled. “I like that. It would really piss off Charlotte, I can assure
you of that!”
“You
are my favorite author in all the history of the world—I promise I’ve never
clenched with another author, and I promise I never shall!”
“Ah,
you are so...romantic, my Jack,” she breathed, snuggling into his side.
He
pushed back the thick mane of hair from her forehead and sighed.
“Your
hair feels like silk,” he breathed.
“It’s
fire and mildrew resistant,” she said, pertly.
The
red velvet curtains parted on the main stage and a spotlight appeared from
somewhere as a tall, thin man with an exaggerated paunch bounced onto the
raised stage. He was dressed in what looked like flashy satin pajamas, fashioned
somewhat like a pirate, or swashbuckler, with tall yellow boots, and an absurd
hat with an even more absurd peacock feather jutting up like an antenna. His
pajamas were yellow with black stripes, or maybe they were black with yellow
stripes, but whatever, some kind of optical illusion seemed to be shining in
the stripes. Even on this first appearance, the man was hypnotic—you had to
stare at him. But Jack was distracted for a moment as he felt a twitch in the
pocket of his leather jacket.
He
slammed down his elbow on some kind of stick, and turning, he came face to face
with a grinning ragamuffin. The kid was filthy, with a round, freckled face,
and slitted jack-o’-lantern eyes, smiling, and the pudgiest mouth Jack had ever
seen, looking like a human-terrier hybrid.
“Sorry
gov, tot I saws a wasp crawlin’ on yer pocket, and din wanya to git stinged, no
gov!”
“Scram!”
Jack told the kid, elbowing him away. The good thing was that he didn’t have
anything ripe for picking in his jacket. He’d left everything back in the
Looking Glass. Still, they might try and unscrew the wings from his back, which
had compacted down into a metal case about the size of a thermos. And his
goggles, and skullcap—he suddenly felt paranoid that the thieves here might be
that good, to snatch the very clothing off his body without his noticing.
“No
worries gov!” the scrawny kid guffawed, backing away, grinning and bowing, his
mop of standing-up red hair waving like a fan.
“I
forgot to mention the pickpockets,” Anne said.
“Ladies
and Gentlemen!” the man on the stage bellowed. “We all of us here are so glad
to have you as our merry company!”
All
of this Jack had to interpret in his head, because the man’s accent was so
wacky it barely sounded like words erupting from his wide, smiling mouth.
Jack
noticed that there seemed to be a rectangle drawn about the man’s face, some
kind of inset mask, or something pasted on, but it was uncanny, because the
rectangle of flesh, tracing from the forehead down to the man’s upper lip, and
from ear to ear, looked somehow more alive than the rest of his face. Jack
blinked. How weird.
“Is
he a puppet?” Jack said, his voice raised, not taking his eyes off the man who gamboled
and danced upon the stage, doing some kind of soft-shoe tap dance.
“That
is the puppet,” Anne replied, keeping
her voice low, despite the din the children were making, laughing and clapping
and whistling. “That is Punchinello, the Puppet Master.”
The
Puppet Master leaped into the air—it was breathtaking—he jumped what must be at
least ten feet in the air, flipping end over end. Seriously, he could dunk a
basketball with his feet—who said white guys couldn’t jump? And those flips—it
was insane—a professional gymnast could never do that many flips, especially
not from a standing position, just to leap up like that, and go into a tumble,
and then come down upon his hands, to walk about, clapping his boots together,
encouraging the blast of applause.
“But
you are not here to see my cavortings,” Punchinello bellowed. “So wiffout fuvvah
ado, I give you the—puppets!”
And
the Puppet Master flew up into the sky to vanish. At least that’s what it looked
like happened. He seemed to be snatched away by wires or something. And it
really looked like he had flashed up tiny into the clouds. The crowd reacted
with awe, and then applause, as the curtains drew back to another fanfare of
trumpets.
There
on all three stages were what must be thirty wooden puppets, plain wooden
blocks—they looked like the common poseable artist mannequins, and each one had
its right hand upraised, grasping a little cross of wood that manipulated the
bright and obvious strings that extended down to their feet and hands, and they
began to dance, in perfect unison, doing high kicks in a can-can chorus line.
It looked pretty amazing. Like magic puppets that pulled their own strings.
Jack gawked.
But
Jack felt another twitch at his pocket and with exaggerated frustration turned
to confront the roly-poly redhead again, but came face to face with some other
street urchin, this one with froglike bulging eyes, who scampered away
immediately, and Jack noticed that one of the child catchers moved off
immediately after the tyke, who could only be four or five years of age. Jack
pulled the lining out on each of his pockets to show them what’s what, and not
to bother. He hoped the poor kid got away.
The
wooden mannequins on stage were still high kicking, and can-can music was
blasting away from somewhere, and the gathered mass of children in the central
clearing were clapping their hands in time with the music, smiling, and
laughing.
Then
the wooden mannequins came together in a cacophonous piling on of woodblocks,
tangling their strings, jumbling and scrambling, little wooden feet kicking,
and the audience erupted in applause. Jack glanced about and noticed many
children working at many pockets, and many child catchers moving in like
sharks.
“Hoy!
Lad! Show’s up dere!” a husky voice said near Jack, and he glanced up to see a
burly cutthroat with more than seven days of stubble suffocating his
pugnacious, angry face. The goon was pointing a filthy finger at the stage. “Doan
be watchin’ de fes-ti-val-ities!”
He
actually drew out his made-up word like that, luxuriating in his supposed
parroting of the high-class gentlemen. Festivalities,
the idiot.
Jack
looked away from the dangerous looking goon and returned his attention to the
stage, but kept a peripheral view hovering on the thug. He wished Stacey were
here to crack the guy with the business end of his shillelagh. That reminded
him, he needed to acquire some kind of defense, perhaps a sword cane, or at the
very least a good, sturdy umbrella. He and Anne really were quite defenseless,
save for Anne’s significant karate moves.
All
of this seemed like a tumbled nightmare, fever images, threatening forms
looming close—ever since they first collided with the Men from Mars over the
streets of Olde London. It had been a non-stop nightmare clash of deadly
rushing images, and Jack just didn’t want to be here, regardless of how
amazingly interesting everything seemed to be.
The
tumble of wooden puppets were drawing upward into some sculpture of sticks and
string, and Jack was immediately captivated again to see three or four puppets
forming a left leg while a similar group formed into a right leg, and there was
the body forming, and arms, and a head, and suddenly there was this shambling
monstrosity of tangled puppets, perhaps eight or nine feet of constantly moving
shapes, staggering right and left, and then coming to the very edge of the
stage where the giant conglomeration of puppets teetered, threatening to fall
like a tower upon the gathered children, who scrambled back, howling in terror,
and the audience laughed and clapped, and the shambling puppet went blundering
back, struggling through the curtains to vanish.
Then
a three-foot-high puppet came lowering down—Jack couldn’t see where the strings
originated, they seemed to extend up into the cloudy sky. This new puppet
seemed an exact replica of Punchinello, only in miniature. It was like there
was a giant up about thirty feet in the sky, manipulating the puppet. Perhaps
that was more accurate than Jack liked to think.
“Ladies
and Gentlemen!” the puppet roared, in Punchinello’s loud voice. “We are so
glad—“
But
at that moment another puppet lowered, a behemoth female puppet, a huge
monstrosity with an oversized head, and this puppet began to loudly harangue
the first puppet.
“Oy!
Oy! Hey Stupid!”
The
children roared with laughter.
“Ah,
my lovely wife, Judy!” Punchinello roared, bowing to the bloated puppet, which
must stand about four feet in height compared to his three.
“Yer
repeatin’ yerself, Oaf!” Judy roared, and there was something of the pig’s
squeal in her voice. And for some reason, it rippled Jack’s spine with
gooseflesh. The Judy puppet stepped forward and did a neat football kick—very
reminiscent of Lucy and Charlie Brown, only she connected, fully, with the
Punchinello puppet’s head, which soared offstage.
Judy
turned to the crowd.
“That
man’o mine! He’s always losing his head over me!” Judy roared, and the crowd
roared in return, and Jack felt there was some disturbing violence building in the
voices of the watchers. There wasn’t much funny about what was happening, but
all the elegant ladies and gentlemen roared, as if they were at a bullfight,
and the bull had just received its first decorative spear.
Punchinello—the
full-size Puppet Master—came dancing back onstage, holding his diminutive mini-me’s
head, which he fastened back in place, and then, bending low, he loudly
stage-whispered into the puppet’s ear.
“Are
you going to take that from her, my good man?” Punchinello bellowed.
The
little Punch glanced between his larger self and his monstrous mate, comically
sizing her up and down.
“Er,
um, I say my good fellow, but what do you suggest?” the little Punch queried,
leering at the audience. The smaller puppet had that same rectangle of face,
and Jack grimaced, because the little puppet’s face-rectangle looked just as
real as the larger version. Jack kept wanting to blame it all on
computer-generated graphics, but he knew CGI was not the villain here. There
was something much, much worse going on.
The
large Punch held up his fist, displaying it for the crowd, who cheered
enthusiastically.
“I
say, Little Me, but why not give her one, right in the kisser?”
The
crowd roared, and some of the ladies and gentlemen actually began a chant of: “Hit
her! Hit her! Hit her!” The children raucously picked up the chant.
The
big Punch displayed the proper form, taking a boxer’s stance, right fist up at
his chin, left hand extended, although Jack noticed it was all in the Marquis
of Queensbury fashion, with fists inverted, elbows down, dukes up, thumbs aimed
backward. Punch threw a punch or two, and the crowd roared with anticipation.
“Yer
all think it’s a good idea, do ye?” Little Punch called to the audience.
“Hit
her! Hit her! Hit her!”
“What
a bunch of misogynists,” Jack muttered.
“Wait
till you meet the real Judy,” Anne said, and she was as solemn-faced as Jack.
The
little Punch comically put up his dukes like his larger self, and began dancing
around, shadowboxing, taking awful swings at the air, and the crowd roared its
approval. The weirdest thing was that the little man actually looked like a
little man—perfectly proportioned, and completely normal, other than the
rectangle set in the face. Finally, the little Punch looked back up to his
larger self for final approval.
“Right
in the kisser!” Punchinello commanded, standing straight and tall, at military
attention, encouraging his smaller self with a comically over-wrought military
salute, palm turned outward, fingertips at eyebrow.
Little
Punch drew back close to his taller self, so as to take a good running charge
at his mate, who stood with hands on hips, daring him to try. Little Punch
wound up for a titanic blow, with exaggeration, winding his arm in large
circles, finally ending with his fist held low to the ground, one leg up like a
pitcher about to deliver a fastball, and then he rocketed the arm forward, but
unfortunately his fist came up and planted itself with a crash of cymbals,
right in the middle of the larger Punch’s legs, where it caught fast, planted
solidly in Punch’s groin.
Punchinello
turned with slow sincerity to the audience, and quietly suffered, his face
going bright green, actually glowing with light, and then changing hue to go
bright red, and finally it went deepest blue as his eyes pinwheeled like
fireworks in his head. The audience roared with laughter and stamped its
collective feet. Little Punch staggered about, his fist firmly planted in the
groin of his master.
“Nuts!”
bellowed Punch, in what sounded like a high, helium-induced squeak. Jack
thought he sounded just like the Chipmunks.
The
audience roared with the laughter of approval, the men and women and children
rocking forward and backward, overcome with mirth, fully satisfied with the
shenanigans.
“I
said the KISSER!” Punch whined in that same mosquito-high voice, “not the
KISSEE!”
And
Jack was surprised that the whole audience seemed to recite the lines along
with the Puppet Master, almost like a religious chant: “I said the kisser! Not
the kissee!” It must be the highlight of the show. It was like the shouted CHARGE at a professional baseball game.
Punch
bent double, apparently not fully acknowledging the pain until just now, right
about...now experiencing the full
delayed reaction (little Punch staggered back, finally released, and stood with
his hands comically clapped to the sides of his face, fearing punishment), and Punchinello
groaned, steam tooting out of his ears, and it was at this moment that little
Judy (if you could ever call her little, even at four feet of height) came
charging forward, trampling poor little Punch, and then did a flying martial
arts kick, savagely snapping up her leg as she reached large Punch. She
connected, fully, with big Punch’s head, which disengaged and flew up a full
fifteen feet in the air, to come down hard, slapping wetly upon the stage,
where it glowered and looked about, its eyes comically large, peering at the
children and at the audience, and for a brief instant Jack was certain that
Punchinello looked directly at them, but more precisely, he looked at Anne.
The
Judy lifted her skirts and sat down upon Punchinello’s head, using it as a
stool, and the crowd roared with delight as the severed head looked up with
horror as the horror above him descended.
“Let’s
go,” Jack snapped at Anne, easily drawing her up from the bench, and she
hurried at his side, but the thug stepped in close, one hand suggestively in
his pocket.
“Oy!
Boy! Shows not over,” he growled, slapping a hand on Jack’s chest.
Jack
growled, and before he knew what he was doing, he rocketed up a punch—a BOOM,
forget the bam, for the moment—right into the guy’s swinging gut. The air
whooshed out of the goon’s face as he doubled over and before he had time to
think Jack slammed down a chopping left hand, quick and to the point, an honest
bam, which caught the gasping thug right across the jaw, and wonder of wonder,
the burly thug collapsed, and immediately the crowd backed away from them. Wow,
you really did learn by observation, as Jack had seen Stacey deliver that very punch
several times.
“Come
on, Jack!” Anne snapped, jerking him by the arm, and they kept it to a quick
walk as they threaded through the crowd, which continuously backed away from
them, as if they were the dangerous blokes on the premises.
“Sorry
about that,” Jack said, feeling more shocked and a little embarrassed at his
sudden burst of violence. “I’m just so sick of all the leering faces. This is
like a nightmare.”
Other
fights were breaking out behind them, and soon bobby whistles were tooting.
“Boy
oh boy, did I just start all that?” Jack said, glancing back to the sounds of
mayhem and brutality.
“Don’t
worry about it, that’s the way the puppet shows always go, except the children
usually start the fights,” Anne replied.
Several
bobbies came trotting toward them, their truncheons out, whistles protruding
from their mouths, tooting as they trotted. Jack and Anne stepped neatly out of
their path and watched as they passed.
“We
look just like a boy and a girl,” Anne said, grinning, “not at all like a
couple of roughs that turned a perfectly nice puppet show into a drunken brawl.”
“I
haven’t even had a drink,” Jack said, proudly.
“Oh,
I’m sorry Jack, I should have gotten you something to eat, maybe some fish and
chips, but that slips my mind as I don’t eat.”
“That’s
okay, I’ll be fine for a while—do we even have any money? Can we buy stuff?”
“Oh
yeah, don’t worry, Jacky my love, I’m loaded,” she said, patting her pocket
“You
sure you weren’t pickpocketed in there? Two different kids tried to pickpocket
me,” Jack said.
“Oh
there were about five that made the attempt, you just noticed two of them,”
Anne replied, nicely, “they can’t sneak up on me that easily, plus I have a few
special pockets built into my jacket. I’ll show you, you have them too,
emergency money. Plus there is a set of brass knuckles, in case you wanted to
beef up that punch a little.”
“Hey,
I thought that was a perfectly good couple of punches,” Jack said. “I only had
a couple of lessons from Stacey. But the guy went down, didn’t he?”
“Oh,
but he’ll be up again, and you don’t want to run into Bill Sikes again. If you
do, either run, or get him down again and kick him a few times, leave him with
something permanent to remember you by, either break a few of his ribs, or his
fingers—as it is, you’ve just insulted what passes for his honor.”
“You’re
not kidding, are you?” Jack said, not liking this world, not at all.
“No
Jack, I’m very serious, you are going to have to stop being so nice all the
time.”
They
made it to the gates and slipped through just before two bobbies rumbled the
gates shut from either side.
“They’ll
round up the usual suspects,” Anne said, “and then the Midnight Puppetshow will
continue, for at least another couple of hours.”
Outside
the gates a few bobbies were sipping mugs of tea, leaning against two stout
paddy wagons.
“Come
on,” Anne said, drawing Jack along the fence. “I think if we follow the
outskirts of the park for a while I can figure out where we are in the city.”
Jack
paused her near the iron fence. “We better get out those brass knuckles, just
in case.”
Anne
sighed and turned to face him. She felt inside his jacket.
“Right
here, it’s built into some of the padding to protect you from falls. On this
side, your knuckles, on the other side is your pocket knife, which doesn’t make
a very good weapon, so just leave that be for now.”
She
produced the knuckles and held them under his nose.
“How
do you use these?” Jack said, slipping on his goggles to examine the oddly
heavy ringwork. It snapped apart, providing knuckles for both hands.
“Just
slip them on, like rings, and then just throw your punch, like usual, you just
want to be sure to catch your guy right here with this ledge, wicked mean,” she
said. “It’s not actually brass, shhhh, don’t tell anyone that, they love brass
here. This is a flex metal, so it won’t hurt your hand, and they’re actually
quite comfortable. They move easily from the inside, so you can be comfortable
and keep them on, but any impact from the outside and they go very rigid.”
“Shouldn’t
you put yours on as well?” he said, flexing his fists, admiring his new set of
weapons.
“Nah,
they just don’t seem fair, I mean, it’s not exactly fair when I fight anyone,
as it is, but then again I never start the fight,” she said, sounding quite
competent, and a little touch...proud?
“How
come you didn’t tell me about these earlier?” he queried, feeling so much better
now that they had this slim protection.
“In
all the excitement, who in the world has time to think about emergency weapons?”
Anne said, grinning, and then taking him by the arm, led him on what now felt
like a leisurely stroll.
Jack
was just about to tell her, and show her, just how much he enjoyed being with
her, just being together, when he noticed the figure that seemed to be waiting
for them, just ahead.
“Danger,
Will Robinson,” Jack muttered.
“No,”
Anne said, “that would be...Punchinello.”
“Ah
yes, the young lovers,” the man crooned, only ten feet away as Jack and Anne
halted in their tracks. He was now dressed in a long, black coat, and a
wide-brimmed hat, and the overall effect, Jack had to admit, was pretty cool.
Jack reminded himself, distantly, that this guy could leap ten feet in the air,
and had a removable head. Those were some tough obstacles to get beyond.
“We
are on our way, Punchinello,” Anne said, sounding perfectly calm. “Nice turnout
tonight. Lovely show.”
Jack
felt trembles moving throughout his body, like the aftershocks of an earthquake—or
moonquake, whatever. He was thankful he wore both sets of brass knuckles.
“No
trouble, Beautiful Lady,” Punchinello said, in a calm, purring voice. He had
the voice of a radio announcer, all deep bass and perfect inflection, deep
resonance. There was none of the comical accent from earlier, in the puppet
show. “I just wanted to have a look at you, if the young gentleman does not
mind?”
Jack
didn’t answer, but he tensed, ready for action. But this guy, laughable
earlier, now seemed dangerous and powerful. Jack doubted he could handle this
man as he had the thug just minutes before, even in a suit of armor, with a
bazooka.
Punchinello
held up a lantern. It was some kind of odd, steaming light, hissing vapors—it
sounded like there was a little throbbing steam engine inside the hand-held
device, but Jack, squinting, could see what looked like a Tesla coil inside,
pulsing with energy, providing a steady beam of blue-tinted light. Jack
supposed here in Olde London they called it a Frankenstein Coil.
“Hmmm,
lovely, lovely work,” he purred. At the moment, he sounded utterly friendly. “Decidedly
not one of mine. But beautiful. Magnificent. Might I have a closer look?”
“You
may look, but please do not touch,” Anne said, and she was grinning. Jack
sensed no fear in her. Perhaps this was not as dire a situation as he was
assuming.
Jack
watched as Punchinello pried loose and easily removed the rectangle of flesh
from his face. He held this toward Anne, holding it alongside the steam light.
Jack grimaced distastefully as he watched the eyes examining Anne. The
rectangle of face was fully animated, fully alive, and the bulging eyes
greedily examined Anne, roaming right and left, up and down. Then the horrible
eyes glanced over at Jack, and one of them winked. It was a truly nasty effect.
Jack
glanced away from the eyes and with a start, he caught a momentary glimpse of
the empty rectangle on Punchinello’s face, and into that opening—oh, but
goodness, it was some kind of glass or crystal skull inside, with fat slugs or
caterpillars slithering through goo. He wished he hadn’t seen that. But the
eyes in the rectangle had noticed where Jack was looking, and the hand quickly
returned the rectangle of face into the hole, and the eyes stared at Jack.
“The
way you are looking at me, young man,” Punchinello purred, smoothly, “why, it is
almost as if you do not like me. Is that true?”
“I
don’t know you,” Jack said, being as honest as he could be, under these
circumstances.
“No,
I do not believe that you do,” Punchinello said, smiling, but the eyes in the
rectangle were not touched by the upturned lips.
Jack
remembered what Anne had impressed upon him earlier, and he relaxed his body,
and smiled easily at Punchinello.
“I
loved your show, it was amazing,” Jack said.
Punchinello
started, and he lifted a hand toward his face, patting at the rectangle,
smoothing the corners into place.
“Why
thank you, young man, thank you very much, I am pleased to hear that,” Punchinello
purred.
Jack
felt that there was a chance this could turn out well, as Punchinello seemed
inordinately fascinated by Anne, and he bet if they could get the right angle,
they could outrun the Puppet Master, as they both were very fast.
But
then there was the sound of clodding feet approaching and when Jack glanced
back, his stomach fell, and he almost laughed, because the goon from earlier
came stomping forward, flanked by several more goons cut from the same cloth.
“Oi!
Here he be! Here he be! My young friend, we never got to finish our words, did
we?” Bill Sikes chuckled, bending at the waist, bracing his hands on his knees
to cough and wheeze. Well, he was obviously a heavy smoker, so that would count
in Jack’s favor, wouldn’t it?
“It
appears that the good Mr. Sikes has some matter he wishes to discuss with you.
You do not mind, do you, if your lady friend and I were to have a private
discussion?”
Jack
felt Anne at his back, crouching in her karate stance, and he geared himself
up, girded his loins, so to speak, and lifted his hands like Stacey showed him.
He had not reckoned on getting the chance to try out these brass knuckles, not
this soon.
“Remember
Jack,” Anne said from behind him, utterly calm, “do not be so nice.”
Boy
oh boy, but this was going to hurt.
© Copyright 2016 Douglas Christian Larsen. Vestigial Surreality. All Rights Reserved by the Author, Douglas Christian Larsen. No part of this serial fiction may be reproduced (except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews) or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the publisher, Wolftales UNlimited, but please feel free to share the story with anyone, only not for sale or resale. This work is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental (wink, wink).
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