The Monster Trilogy. Brian Aldiss
a chill part of Canada. Now the clouds rolled back like peeling skin and heat roared like breath. In the fairer climate of seventy million years past, what would be water and ice and drifting floes was all land, bush-speckled savannah or forest. The kneedeep grasses were rich to the teeth of great blundering herbivores – hadrosaurs that grazed by slow-winding rivers, brontosaurs that blundered into the marsh by the rivers.
These and other ornithischians were herded into pens and thorncages by the Fleet Ones, who arrived on wing and foot. They drove their captives, fat with blood and blubber, into the makeshift fields, from which they would be culled.
The savannah fills with their numbers. The beasts lumber and cry. The ground heaves.
The bed heaves. Bodenland cries aloud.
Larry was in an absolute rage. He shook with it. The mortician had said, ‘I don’t think you should take your mother’s death like that, sir. We must show respect for the dead,’ and Larry had brushed the little man aside.
He ran out of the parlour to the sidewalk, cursing and gesticulating. Kylie followed reluctantly, her pretty face pale and drawn.
In the cheerful morning sunlight, the main street of Enterprise was choked with traffic, mainly rubberneckers come to see what was going on at Old John, lured by the news that mankind’s history had been overturned. The cars moved so slowly that both drivers and passengers had plenty of time to watch this man performing on the sidewalk, under the mortician’s sign. Many called insults, thinking they knew a drunk when they saw one.
‘Stop it, Larry, will you?’ Kylie seized his arm. ‘Come on, I’ll drive you back to the motel.’
‘What have I done, Kylie? What have I done? I’m going to hang one on in the nearest bar, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.’
‘No, please … It would be better to pray. Prayer gives you more strength than whisky.’
He appeared not to have heard her.
‘That was my momma lying in there, all white and withered. Stuck in that freezer …’ Tears rolled down his face. ‘Like some little pressed flower she was, her colour all faded …’
‘Larry, darling, I know, I know. It’s terrible. Poor Mina. But getting drunk won’t help it one bit …’
Cajoling, crying herself, Kylie managed to persuade her husband back to the convertible. Wiping her tears, she managed the slow drive to the Moonlite Motel. The management had been insensitive enough to offer them Mina’s old room. No other was available, owing to the unexpected influx of sightseers. They took it. In the hastily cleared room, Kylie found in the waste can a crumpled sheet of notepaper. On it her late mother-in-law had begun a letter. ‘Joe you bastard —’
‘What I fail to understand,’ said Larry, heading straight for the mini-bar, ‘is what this “Premature Ageing” bit means. I don’t trust the Utah doctors – probably bribed by the motel. Hon, go down the corridor and get some ice, will you?’
She stood before him. ‘I love you, Larry, and I need your support. Don’t you see I’m still trembling? But you are like a greedy child. Your parents neglected you, yes, I know, I’ve heard it a million times. So you keep on grabbing, grabbing, just like a baby. You grabbed. Okay, so you want to keep me, so you must stop being a baby and grabbing for these other things.’
‘You ever hear of a baby drinking the old Wild Turkey, hon? I’m never going to get over the death of my mom, because I should have taken better care of her. She loved me. She loved me, Kylie. Something my father never did.’
‘Larry!’ She screamed his name. ‘Please forget about yourself! Worry about what happened to Mina. What the hell are we going to do? All human love has its failings, okay, but Joe does love you, best he knows how. But he’s missing —’
‘I’ll go and get the ice myself, don’t you worry.’ He stood up. ‘You always take Joe’s side. I’m used to that by now, and I’m going to get a drink while you yack, if you must.’
She went over to her suitcase, which lay on the bed. She had opened it without unpacking it. They had checked in only an hour ago and gone straight from the motel to the funeral parlour.
‘I’m yacking no more, husband of mine. I just can’t get through to you. I’ve had enough. I’m off. You quit on me in Hawaii. Now I’m quitting on you in Enterprise, Utah.’
She snapped the suitcase shut. As she made for the door, Larry ran in front of her. Kylie swung the suitcase hard and hit him in the stomach.
Gasping, he made way for her.
When she had gone, Larry walked doubled up to the sofa, making what he could of the pain. After sufficient gasping, he picked up the quart bottle of Wild Turkey he had brought with him in his case. Lifting it high until it gleamed in the light from the window Kylie had opened, he saluted it.
‘Only you and me now, old friend,’ he said.
Later, he staggered out and got himself a hamburger from the Chock Full O’ Nuts next to the Moonlite. Later still, he pulled down the blind at the window to keep out the glare of the sun. Later still, he placed the empty whisky bottle on the window sill and fell into a heavy slumber, snoring with practised ease.
Evening set in. The neon sign blinked outside, registering the minutes. Cars came and went in the parking lot. Larry slept on, uneasy in dream.
It seemed his mother visited him, to stand before him bloodlessly, with red eyes. She cried to him for comfort. She bent over him, her movements, gradual, so as not to startle.
Oh, she whispered, Larry was her dear son – so dear. Now she needed him more than ever.
The evening breeze blew the blind. It flapped inward, striking the empty whisky bottle. It tapped intermittently. The bottle fell to the floor, clattering.
Larry woke in a fright. He sat up, groaning, clutching his head, and looked round the darkened room. ‘Mother?’
He was alone.
The glorious summer’s day bathed the facade of Bram Stoker’s residence. A row of newly planted copper beeches shielding the house from the lane gleamed in the early morning sunshine as if they were copper indeed, newly polished by the housemaid.
The carriage, with its two chestnut horses, stood in the drive before the front door. Stoker emerged, resplendent in top hat, chatting happily. He was followed by Joe Bodenland, walking slowly and saying nothing. His face was lifeless and ashen. Stoker helped him into the carriage.
Mrs Stoker was standing by the herbaceous border, talking to Spinks, the young gardener. She too was dressed in all her finery and, after a minute, came over to the carriage and was assisted aboard by James, the driver.
‘Spinks is worried about the blackspot on the roses,’ she said. ‘And so am I.’
The wheels of the carriage crackled over the gravel as they drove off.
‘The blue flowers in the border are pretty, dear. What are they?’
‘Yes, they’re doing better this year. Lobelia syphilitica. Such a funny name.’
When they turned out of the drive and headed down the hill, the spires and towers of London became visible. The great occasion made both Stoker and his wife nervous. They spent the journey primping each other, brushing away imaginary dust from one another’s clothes, and adjusting their hair. They worried about what they would do while the investiture was taking place. Bodenland sat in his place, somewhat shrunken, speaking only when addressed.
The carriage took them to the splendid rail terminal of Paddington Station, built by one of the Queen’s more ingenious subjects, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The station master came forward and installed Stoker’s party in a first class carriage.
Stoker sat back, tilted his topper at a rakish angle, and lit a large cigar.
At Windsor, bunting decorated the station and