Valhalla, page 24
My life is a TV soap, and all that dying and Valhalla stuff was a TV soap dream. I’m alive.
Carol walked slowly back down the stairs. Phil the owner looked up at her, muttered ‘Ferchrissakes,’ and went back to reading his newspaper. The front page headline, she couldn’t help but notice, read ELVIS NOT DEAD, SEEN BY TRUCKER IN DES MOINES. Des Moines, she thought; well, she’d guessed by now that Odin was a spiteful bastard, but what had Elvis Presley ever done to him?
She was back. It seemed a dreadful anticlimax to spend her first day back in the land of the living collecting empty glasses and wiping beer off tables, not to mention a waste of that wonderful and undervalued commodity, life; dammit, if she wanted to dole out beer to a pack of drunken bums, she need never have left Valhalla. Surely she ought to be doing something, achieving something, making a difference that would show the world that she was here. Her father had died, had given his life trying to get her home; and though he hadn’t actually succeeded, surely she owed it to him to make an effort, instead of wasting her talents and abilities in this crummy dive. That way, her ordeal wouldn’t have been in vain, if it prompted her to get out there and do what she was put on this Earth to do . . .
She looked round, but there was nobody standing behind her. Odd, that; she could have sworn someone was looking over her shoulder.
‘Hey,’ objected Phil, putting his paper down and lighting a cigarette. ‘What are you just standing there for? I don’t pay you to just stand.’
Carol could feel the cold fury flooding into her, like beer filling a glass. ‘The hell with you,’ she said, and she was about to hand in her notice, duly garnished with suggestions for some complex and biologically impossible exercises, when an unpleasant thought struck her.
‘Phil?’
‘Yeah? What?’
‘Phil,’ she repeated. ‘Dammit, Phil, I know you from somewhere. ’
The proprietor frowned. ‘Sure you do, honey. You work in my bar, though for how much longer depends a lot on what you do in the next fifteen seconds.’
‘No, no.’ Carol shook her head as if trying to centrifuge her brains into her toes. ‘I know you - something familiar—’ She opened her eyes wide. ‘You!’ she snarled.
‘Huh?’
‘It’s you, you bastard!’ She marched across to the bar and grabbed Phil by the collar. ‘You again! How much longer are you going to play these goddamn games with me?’
Phil smiled at her; only, of course, he wasn’t Phil. ‘Oh, come now,’ he said. ‘Credit where it’s due. It says in the prospectus your every wish fulfilled, and here you are, right back where you came from. Not to mention the sudden burning desire to make something out of your life - you always wished you had the drive and the energy, the motivation, to get a worthwhile job and fulfil your potential. So I made it happen. I’m so good to you I amaze myself,’ said Odin smugly.
There were tears in Carol’s eyes. ‘It isn’t real, is it? It’s another of your damn tricks.’
Odin shrugged. ‘Reality’s such a subjective thing, don’t you think? Anyway, I think it’s real. It’s real because this is where you really are, as opposed to where you thought you were. Can’t get much more real than that, can you?’
‘Valhalla?’ Carol asked miserably.
Odin nodded. ‘You were killed in battle by a Viking warrior, ’ he said. ‘Where else would you be?’
‘But at least it’s a different Valhalla, isn’t it?’ she pleaded. ‘I mean, there isn’t all that smelly Norse crap and those dead warrior guys—’
‘Dead warrior guys.’ Odin grinned. ‘Hey, Joe,’ he called out to one of the customers. ‘You were in Korea, weren’t you?’
The customer glared blearily at him over the rim of his glass. ‘Sure was, Phil.’
Odin dipped his head in thanks. ‘And you, Lars, you were in ’Nam, right?’
‘You bet, Phil. Right up to when that guy shot me.’
‘Pete? Sven? Homer? You all got killed in the Gulf War, when that fuel tank blew up. That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Sure thing, Phil.’
Odin turned back to Carol. ‘Dead warriors,’ he said. ‘And you know the last thought that passed through their minds, just before they finally blacked out for the last time? They thought, Jesus, what I wouldn’t give to be back in old Phil’s place, back home in dear old NYC. Or words to that effect. Their heart’s desire, in fact. Plus, we have these really dinky bar-room fights six times a day; you know the sort, the ones you see in movies where they break the balsa-wood chairs over each others’ heads and nobody actually gets hurt?’ He beamed with pride. ‘Valhalla,’ he said.
Carol made a little whinnying noise of pure misery. ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she said pitifully. ‘But this is even worse than that damn Norse joint. It’s dark and dingy and smells of cigarette smoke.’
‘It’s where you wanted to be more than anywhere else,’ Odin replied. ‘Not that I’m disagreeing with you; I’m just stating a fact.’
It took Carol a moment or so to do it, but she pulled herself together; she shoved all her regret and heartbreak into black plastic sacks and slung them out of her mind. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘you win, this time. Now can we go back, please?’
Odin raised an eyebrow. ‘Go back?’ he queried. ‘Go back where?’
Carol clicked her tongue. ‘Valhalla,’ she said. ‘The Norse Valhalla. It’s been so long since I was in this filthy smoke, I just can’t take it any more.’
Odin looked at her. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘maybe I haven’t explained it properly. This is Valhalla. You came here when you died, and I’m afraid you’re staying.’
‘Staying? Here? But that’s—I didn’t die really, it was just one of those fake deaths, like all the Norse guys have, nine times a day? It wasn’t real.’
Odin sighed. ‘That word again. Of course it was real, you silly,’ he said. ‘He split your head open with an axe. What do you call that, a minor scalp wound?’
‘It was a Valhalla fake death,’ Carol insisted. ‘Not real. I was dead already.’
‘It was a perfectly genuine death,’ Odin reiterated. ‘They all are.’
Carol shook her head in disbelief. ‘But that’s crazy,’ she said. ‘All right, so when the Vikings zap each other, how come they always come back?’
Odin was drumming his fingertips on the bar top. ‘They fight,’ he said. ‘They die in battle. They go to Valhalla. Sometimes, as you correctly pointed out, as often as nine times a day. Now, what part of that are you finding difficult to grasp?’
‘But . . .’ Carol gestured helplessly. ‘You’re telling me I’m stuck here for ever?’
Odin nodded. ‘Or, at least, till the day you die in battle; and then you’ll be here again, but in a different death. Now, I don’t want to appear fussy, but all this chatting isn’t getting the tables wiped, is it?’
A customer lurched to his feet. ‘Hey, Phil,’ he mumbled, ‘go easy on the kid, will ya? You ride her too hard, you know that?’
‘Oh Lord, is it that time already?’ Odin didn’t look round. ‘Piss off, Norm,’ he said. ‘This is none of your business.’
The customer glowed with anger. ‘Did you just tell me to piss off?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why, you—’ He swung a massive fist, which Odin avoided easily; the blow continued unchecked until it connected with the jaw of another customer, who jumped up, grabbed his bar stool and smashed it into matchwood over Norm’s head. Norm dropped to the floor without a word. Someone else caught hold of his assailant and threw him over the bar into a shelf of bottles; cue sound of breaking glass—
‘Norm’s dead,’ Odin explained. ‘For at least the next ten minutes. He really likes this place. In fact,’ he added, as a glass whizzed by an inch from the tip of his nose and took out the big plate-glass mirror behind the bar, ‘it’s really heartening, the way so many of our regular customers keep on coming back here, time after time—’
It was dark.
Attila opened his mouth to whimper. He was scared of the dark. Sometimes, he was sure, there were things moving about in his room when it was dark, like the monster that lived under his bed—
Oh shit.
—Which was the main reason why he hated going to bed and made such a fuss when it was night-night time, though Mummy couldn’t seem to grasp that. Mummy just thought he was being naughty and wilful, and the bitch of it was, he was too young to be able to explain what the problem was; and by the time he’d learned enough vocabulary and syntax to put his fears into words, he’d have grown up enough not to be scared of the dark any more. Life sucks, thought Attila the Hun.
Fuck a stoat. Not again.
‘Mummy,’ he called out, in a confused mixture of terror and boiling rage. ‘Mum-mee!’
‘Shuddup,’ said a sleepy voice from the next room. ‘Go ’sleep.’
‘Mum-MEE!’
‘Be quiet, you little toad, you’ll wake your sister.’
‘M—’ He froze. Sister? Don’t have a sister. Never had a sister, none of the other times. (Other times? Times, plural? Oh God, dear God, how many times have I been here?)
He peered round as the darkness thinned. His bed; the toy-box; Dobbin the rocking horse; the blackboard; the other bed.
Her bed.
‘Joanie?’ he whispered.
‘Grmpf.’
‘Joanie? Are you awake?’
‘No. Go ’sleep.’
Joan of Arc, you dozy bitch, wake up and answer me. ‘Joanie! Wake up. I want to ask you something.’
‘Dz. Having nice dream. Talking to me. Go ’way.’
Gingerly, so as not to wake up the monster under his bed, Attila swung his feet over the edge and slid down till his feet touched the ground; then he groped round on the floor until his hand connected with something soft and furry. By the feel of it, Fern the fluffy pink rabbit; ideal. He fixed his eyes on the dark blur, and threw. Fern the fluffy pink rabbit hit Joanie solidly behind the ear, waking her up completely.
‘Wa,’ Joanie complained. ‘Mummy, mummy, he threw rabbit at me!’
‘Quiet,’ Attila hissed urgently. ‘Joanie, it’s me. Me, Attila. Attila the Hun.’
‘Wa—Huh?’ Joanie sat bolt upright. ‘Attila?’ she said.
He crept across the floor, treading painfully on a Lego brick as he did so. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘You remember, don’t you? We were on that scaffolding. We were—’
‘Yes, all right,’ Joanie muttered. ‘I remember. What am I doing—?’
‘It’s what happens,’ Attila replied. ‘Over and over again, I think, I don’t know. Usually, I think, we forget all about it. But this time I guess we remembered. Something to do with us being together, maybe.’
‘I—Oh, just a tick.’ Joanie cocked her head on one side, as if listening. ‘No, it’s just the funny man doing the shipping forecast. Sorry, what were you saying?’
‘I wish you wouldn’t keep doing that, it’s so—Hey, Joanie, this is cool. This time, you’re my sister. You never know, with the two of us we might be able to, you know, find a way out. We—’
The door opened and the room flooded with light. ‘Get back into bed this instant!’ Mummy snarled, and before he knew what he was doing, Attila found himself back under his frilly blue junior duvet, cowering. It’s her, he realised; she’s the one who suppresses the memories. When she’s around we forget who we are.
‘O—’, he said. ‘Od—’
Mummy swung round and glared at him. ‘Now what?’ she snapped.
‘Od—’ There he was, dammit, behind her eyes, laughing. ‘Oh dear,’ he heard himself say. ‘Sorry.’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake,’ she hissed. ‘You’ve not gone and wet your bed again?’
Attila felt his head nodding (and, come to think of it, the sheets were a bit on the moist side; yech!). Across the room, Joanie was sniggering. ‘I said I’m sorry,’ he protested - to his disgust he heard a catch in his voice, just a hair’s breadth away from floods of tears. I won’t cry, dammit, not for you, not for anybody. ‘I d-didn’t mean . . .’ He could feel the disgusting things rolling down his cheeks, all warm and wet.
‘Stop that snivelling at once,’ Mummy ordered. ‘Don’t be such a baby.’
Oh sure. And whose fault is it if I am, you sadistic bastard?
When she’d gone and the room was dark again, he lay still, brooding. It was hard to stop himself remembering, now the floodgates had been opened and all those other times, those other loathsome, hateful childhoods came swirling back; those other nights he’d lain awake, not daring to move because of the monster under the bed. Well, there was just a chance this time, wasn’t there? This time, at least, he knew what was happening to him, and he wasn’t alone, either. Admittedly he’d have preferred Alexander the Great or Eric Bloodaxe or Robert Guiscard, someone a bit more practical and a bit less prone to breaking off in the middle of conversations to listen to the commercials in her head. But a loony ally was an improvement of several million per cent over no ally at all—
He froze. Something had moved, right at the very edge of his vision, in the dark space between the bed and the floor. Breathing very slowly, not moving a muscle, he waited. It seemed like hours, until he was sure he’d go crazy from trying to see out of the furthest limit of his peripheral vision; and then it was there again, that tiny little flicker of movement—
‘Gotcha! ’
It squirmed like hell, but he clung on, driving his nails into its loathsome scaly throat. He heard its claws scrabbling frantically on the carpet, he could feel the searing heat of its breath, and the terror surging through him like electricity. He knew it was strong, far too strong for him to cope with, but still he clung on and squeezed, and squeezed; until quite suddenly, after the most ferocious kick yet, it went limp between his hands and he knew that he’d won. At last, after so many lifetimes of terror—
Finally, you bastard. Finally!
He let go and rocked back on his heels, staring with fascinated horror at the bared yellow fangs, the huge black claws, the lolling green forked tongue. All those childhoods scarred by persecution and torment, and now he’d done it.
‘Joanie!’ he hissed. ‘Joanie, wake up. I’ve killed it. I won!’
‘Grmpf?’
‘Look,’ he insisted urgently. ‘The monster that lives under my bed. I—’
Joanie groaned and stirred. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she muttered. ‘Isn’t any monster. Go ’sleep.’
‘But Joanie—’
‘Go ’sleep.’
He reached down to grab the corpse, drag it across the floor and drape it over her; but somehow it wasn’t there any more. Just Fern the pink fluffy bunny, and a very distant echo of familiar, malicious laughter.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Howard woke up and glanced at his watch. 05:08 a.m., and it was broad daylight. At a wild guess, that suggested it was summer already. Or again. That was one of the problems about getting killed every day; you tended to lose track of time.
He listened; but all he could hear was the distant whump! of the long-range railway guns shelling West Bromwich. He yawned. Generally the main artillery batteries didn’t start pounding Smethwick till just after six, so he had plenty of time for a shave and a leisurely breakfast this morning, if he felt like it. He looked up at the sky again; it was cloudless and blue, much too nice a day to be lounging around in muddy foxholes when he could be up and about. The shave, then, but hold the breakfast. After all, he’d be dead before he’d digested it, so where was the point in wasting time eating it?
Now then; yesterday, the comb. The day before that, the toothbrush. Today, either the teaspoon or the bar of soap. Tough choice.
Heads. The bar of soap. Right.
Good fieldwork, the great generals of history agree, is the foundation of victory. It had taken Howard a while to realise the importance of this fundamental rule, but he’d learned the lesson and taken it properly to heart. Now, thanks to hours of careful observation and reconnaissance, he had a pretty good idea of the daily routine of war-torn Smethwick. For example, at 07:15 precisely a six-man foot patrol would come around this corner at a brisk trot, which gave him a comfortable ten minutes to get busy with the soap.
At 07:14 he put the soap back in his pocket and strolled back to his cunningly hidden observation post behind the burned-out coach on the corner. A minute later, bang on time, the patrol bounced in, slid spectacularly on the soap and skidded down the road, straight into the brick wall Howard had selected for his trap. As they lay slumped and groaning, he pulled out a little notebook and made a note of the score. Six down before 08:00; already he was well ahead of schedule.
Howard could place exactly the moment when he’d decided to stop being a victim and try to make the best of being in Valhalla. It’d been at the end of a long day just before a booby-trapped door had blown him into his component atoms and pressed the reset button; he had been creeping carefully up a dark alley when he’d caught sight of his own reflection in a pool of water forming round a fractured main. His first reaction had been to whirl round and draw his knife to defend himself against the tough guy standing directly behind him, because the man reflected in the puddle hadn’t looked anything like the Howard he had seen in his shaving mirror back in the old days. Where that Howard had been a sad, timid, droopy, spineless creature who looked like nothing so much as a recently deflated balloon, this new (and, it went without saying, improved) version had had a lot of things in his favour. Gone were the stumpy little arms and legs and the round pot-belly, the perpetually worried expression, the beady hamster eyes. Instead, he had seen a man in the peak of physical condition, with a look of supreme confidence bordering on sheer ferocity shining out of those unwavering blue eyes. That was what a sparse, simple diet and masses of fresh air and exercise would do for you, over a period of (for all he knew) years.
