The Man From U.N.D.E.A.D.'s Christmas Carol (2 page)

“
Nothing like going Dutch,
”
I muttered.

“
Well you know what they say; a problem shared is half the blame got rid of,
”
he gave me an amused grin and I was back to looking at a lion
’
s head on a door knocker with absolutely no glowing
aura
of any kind.

“
Maybe I should have given the cheese tray a miss,
”
I said to nobody in particular, but I was certain that this was no dream. For one thing, it was far too strange a thing for my limited imagination to have come up with and for another if I was going to daydream then I
’
d daydream about Veronika in a bikini on a beach in Hawaii, not my ex-boss wearing a door-knocker for a face.
“
Lions and directors and spirits, oh my.
”

I opened the door and went inside, taking down my coat from the rack and my standard issue non-lethal sidearm from the locked cabinet
alongside it. As
I entered the kitchen,
Veronika was singing along to a CD of Chris
tmas songs with familiar tunes.
At least I assumed they were still Christmas songs.
The lyrics
were
in Brazilian and so
the songs
could have been about the joys of c
ement mixers for all I knew.
Veronika’s
beauty exte
nded beyond her face and body to encompass
her singing voice
as well
, which seemed an unfair distribution of gifts if ever there was one.
Since she was my girlfriend, I wasn
’
t
about to complain
though.

“
What has happened?
”
she asked, seeing the coat over my arm.

“
I have to go into the office,
”
I told her apologetically.

“
Really?
”
she complained.
“
Why?
”

“
You wouldn
’
t believe me if I told you,
”
I promised her. Since I could still barely believe it myself that was a fair bet.

“
But it
’
s Christmas Eve,
”
she reminded me, as if I needed any reminding after the constant stream of festive adverts and seasonal songs I had been bombarded with on the radio.

“
Unfortunately, Evil
’
s advent calendar comes with more than a small chocolate
behind each door
,
”
I
told her, adding with a mischie
vous smile.
“
Don
’
t
worry,
I
’
ll be back in time for you to open that large present under the tree.
”

“
If you
’
re quick enough I
’
ll let you open the present that is wrapped in this apron,
”
she said with
a similarly mischie
vous smile.

“
As if I ever needed more motivation,
”
I kissed her lightly and quit the relative warmth of the kitchen. Shrugging my coat on, I slipped the sidearm into one of the pockets and stepped out of the front
door ...

...and directly into the school hall.

The sense of spatial dislocation and deja vu was strong enough that I nearly tripped over my own feet, which would have been embarrassing in front of all the parents
that were milling around
. I knew precisely where I was and precisely what the d
ate was and neither of them was
the same as
on
the other side of the doorway I had just passed through.

The place was Greenfortress Furze Secondary School main hall and gym. I recognised it instantly and all the hours of torture that I had faced in that place (labelled
innocuously
on the weekly timetable as
‘
PE
’
) came flooding back to me. The climbing racks were
currently
folded away against the walls. The beams suspended on wires were
neatly raised to just below
roof
level
. I had n
ever quite figured out what those beams
were for because they had never been lowered down
to our level
by Mr Graham, the dreaded PE teacher. To be fair, the man had prob
ably only been doing his best to
get
a bunch of uninterested and not very physical kids a bit fitter and healthier, but he had been the terror that kept some of us awake at night. I
’
d found much better things to be terrified of since
leaving
this place, but those
childhood emotions
still lingered
in the dark recesses of
what passed for
my soul
. The hall was filled with plastic seats that had been set out to face the
small
stage at one end. One of the metal shutters on the right hand side of the room had been opened to allow the kitchen
on the other side
to be used for the selling of refreshments to parents who had already shelled out for tickets to the school
’
s Nativity Play and then paid again for cheap
ly
photocopied programmes.

Somewhere in South London
that night (
this
night)
the Aintree gang were about to be
famously
captured whilst roasting Charlie Clarkson
’
s chestnuts over an open fire trying to get him to reveal what had happened to the loot from the Heathrow job. A top international footballer was about to be revealed as having a penchant for dressing up as an elf and hiring women
of a professional manner
to play Santa
’
s Little Helpers. The government had just played down the figures that showed how its education policy was failing a generation whilst not commenting on exactly how many ministers sent their children to private schools. It was the night of the school Nativity Play and I was twelve years old.

I was also reluctantly playing the third shepherd. There were seven shepherds in total, so it wasn
’
t quite as minor a part as it sounds, but I was upset because I had wanted to be put in charge of special effects. The Arts teacher, Miss Pestorn, had quite rightly pointed out that there wasn
’
t a big call for pyrotechnic explosions in the traditional Nativity story and my ideas for spicing it up a bit hadn
’
t been taken too seriously.
Angels, I had been sternly informed, did not abseil in from hovering helicopters and the animals in the stable did not suddenly go on a rabid, blood-soaked rampage.

Even so, t
his was an important night for me, a night that had changed my life forever. This w
as the night that I decided
I was going to be an agent of U.N.D.E.A.D. one day.

It was obvious that the only reaso
n for the
first of Grayson
’
s spirits
to bring me to this time and place was
to try and kill
off
the younger me
before I could make that decision
and thus become the older me
. Time travel - it
’
s a messy business and you don
’
t want to get
involved with it on any level.

Trust me, I know
this from experience
.

The hall was buzzing with life and excitement as the parents and other relatives were arriving early to take the best seats so that they could get pictures of their offspring in hasti
ly tacked together costumes
that didn’t quite look like they had on the patterns
. Said pictures would then be used
to embarrass those same children
in front of prospective spouses for the rest of their single lives. It was still early, so the curtains wouldn
’
t be open
ed
for a while. I turned around and went back out into the school
’
s hallways
(hoping in vain that the trip
back
through t
he doorway would deposit me once again
in my front garden in my own time)
and slipped off down a side corridor that had been blocked off by placing two
small
table
s in front o
f it. As a security barrier it left something to be desired in terms of effectiveness.

Beyond
the tables
the lights were off, but I still had the layout of this place imprinted on my memory. I could have found my way around it blindfolded, though I would have looked a bit silly doing so. I walked confidently down past the music and art rooms and turned right along the passage
that split the science and home economics (it was still called
‘
cookery
’
and
‘
sewing
’
back then ... now ... I hate time travel!) rooms. Around the corner at the end was the drama studio that served as the rehearsal
room
and dressing space for any of the school productions and also the side accesses to the stage itself.

“
What are you doing here?
”

I was blinded by the light of a torch shining straight into my eyes. I couldn
’
t see anything beyond the glare, but I had recognised the voice straight away and felt momentary fear at being caught doing something that I shouldn
’
t. It was the voice of Mr Graham.

“
Would you believe looking for the toilets?
”
I queried, squinting against the light.

He stared at me unbelievingly for a moment and then quite suddenly
smiled,
an expression that I don’t think I had ever seen him wear before.

“
Oh
,
they
’
re down the other corridor on the far side of the entrance,
”
he directed me, lowering the torch away from my eyes.

I didn
’
t hesitate and just punched him hard in the face. There was a crunch and he crashed backward onto the floor, denting a couple of lockers with his head on the way down. He didn
’
t move once he
’
d reached the stained lino. I recalle
d that he had shown up after the
weekend with black eyes and nose protected under a swathe of bandages. It had
never been explained to us w
hat had happened, but now I knew.

Maybe time travelling isn
’
t all bad.

I left the PE teacher lying
on the floor where he had falle
n and stamped on his torch, breaking the lens and the bulb. I then made my way quickly down the rest
of the corridor and slipped
through a small door into the wings of the stage.
It was a maintenance door and was kept locked at all times, so it took me a few extra seconds to pick it.
My night vision had been utterly destroyed by the PE teacher
’
s torch, but there were enough sta
ge lights switched on to compensate
for that. If my memory of timings was right then the attack on
my younger self was about to take
place almost any time now. During the pre-performance briefing I had made some sort of joke
about the camels
and had been sent to wait alone on the stage and thus been excluded from the general round of people telling each other to break lower limbs. That was the only time that evening that I was alone
long
enough for a discreet attack to be mounted.

I (that is the older I) made my way through some of the backstage scaffolding, looking for any sign of where the attack would come from. I could hear the general hubbub from the main hall
through the curtain
and was aware that if I failed to deal with this quietly I could end up releasing a bloodbath amongst the general parent population.
Nothing like a bit of added pressure
to focus the attention
.