The Suburban Book of the Dead_The Remake (Armageddon Trilogy 3) Read online

  THE SUBURBAN BOOK OF THE DEAD

  ARMAGEDDON III: THE REMAKE

  ROBERT RANKIN

  The Suburban Book of the Dead

  Armageddon III: The Remake

  Originally published by Bloomsbury

  Bloomsbury Edition published 1992

  Corgi Edition published 1993

  Kindle Edition published 2012 by Far Fetched Books

  Diddled about with and proof-read by the author, who apologises for any typos or grammatical errors that somehow slipped past him.

  He did his best, honest.

  Copyright Robert Rankin 1992

  The right of Robert Rankin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Follow Robert on Facebook or visit

  http://thegoldensprout.com

  This edition is dedicated to our lovely neighbours, Louise, Jason, Lucy and Jamie, who are very tolerant of the sounds of the Rankins next door.

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  1. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them.

  2. And on the seventh day God ended his work and rested from all of the work which he had made.

  3. And on the eighth day God gazed upon Elvis and said unto him, ‘You had better have a really good reason for

  showing up here!’

  4. And Elvis answered, ‘No sweat, sir.’

  The Suburban Book of the Dead

  You make few friends travelling north on a south-bound freeway.

  Lazlo Woodbine

  Along the crest of the hill a line of trees broke wind. And beneath them in the valley, paradise was looking just so. Well-tended gardens cloistered quaint dwellings of a rustic nature. Pine-scented smoke drifted gently from chimneys. Children played amongst the flowering scullion and scandaroons nestled in the dovecots. It was the 27 July 2061. It was the Garden of Eden. And it was a bad day for Rex Mundi.

  Rex had dodged the bread rolls. Side-stepped the crockery and ducked beneath the salad bowl. But it was the wok that really did for him. Had it been one of those aluminium wedding-present jobs you store dead insects in, he might have survived. But this lad was in a class of its own. A real hand-beaten bronzer with a formidable fighting weight. It was no contest. Rex went down for the count.

  He passed backwards through the open kitchen doorway and out into the pleasant summery sunlight. And here he came to rest in the sprout bed. Little transparent birds twittered in a circle around his head. The incidental music went WAB-WAAAAAH.

  The furry face of a small terrier appeared through a hole in the hedge, an ear cocked to the sounds of breaking china and tumbling whatnots which issued from the family home. When at last these had ceased, the owner of the face, Fido, crept from his refuge and peered down at his fallen master. ‘Hardly a fitting entrance for the hero,’ was his considered opinion. Rex had no comment to make at this time.

  Fido viewed him along the horizontal plane. Even in this undignified repose Rex was a handsome fellow. Tall, well muscled and still bearing the same uncanny resemblance to the young Harrison Ford he had since book one. Pity about the wok-hurling wife, though.

  ‘It’s my duty to care for this man in his time of need,’ said Fido. ‘And having no bucket of water to paw, I regret I must add insult to injury.’ He lifted his rear offside leg and took careful aim. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Rex whispered through gritted teeth. ‘If you want to help, then whimper a bit and look concerned.’

  ‘Gotcha, man. Play for sympathy, eh? Shrewd thinking oooooooh-’ The contents of the slop pail, issuing even as it did from the upstairs window, caught them both with unerring accuracy. Fido took to his heels. Rex clambered to his feet.

  ‘Now just you see here,’ he began. The spade missed him by inches.

  ‘Dig it deep and dig it now,’ were his wife’s final demands. The window slammed shut and Rex was left very much alone.

  He gazed around at his wonderful garden. The toil of his hands and the sweat of his brow had brought all this into being. He had planted every plum and pulse, pepper and pimento, pomegranate and passion fruit.

  He had pampered each pear and peach and pomelo, particularly the pineapples, papayas, parsnips and potatoes. He’d even been patient with the peas. It was a theme garden. Although for the life of him he couldn’t remember what the theme actually was. Nor why he’d planted the sprouts.

  And the house itself. He’d designed that from the ground up. High gabled, daub and wattle. A veritable tour de force in Arts and Crafts revivalism. All for her. Christeen, his wife. Christeen, twin sister of Jesus.

  But was it enough? Not a bit of it.

  Was she contented? Not one smidgen.

  Grateful? As if.

  Beautiful garden, lovely setting, fabulous house. And what did she want? An indoor toilet! One trivial oversight on his part, and all this fuss. Perhaps if he’d stayed around to supervise the actual construction of the house, rather than carousing with his chums at the local grog shop, he might have noticed the omission.

  Perhaps if he had not employed the services of Bloodaxe and Deathblade, Builders to the Aristocracy.

  Perhaps, perhaps. But there it was.

  Rex considered the ramshackled outside dunny he had thrown together. It niffed a bit, but was surely adequate to their daily needs. There was just no pleasing some people. Women were strange and exotic creatures and no man, even one as obviously thoughtful and sensitive as Rex, could be expected to understand them fully. The lady wanted an indoor flush toilet plumbed to an outside septic tank system and that was that.

  She would brook no compromise and there would be no peace in the marital home until the pit was dug and the tank was in. That was the specific order of the day, as it had been for more days than Rex cared to remember. There was nothing for it. The deed would have to be done.

  Rex fingered his big red ear, plucked up the spade and made a very bad face indeed. Now, as with most things, there is a fine art to the successful laying in of a septic tank. And its correct location plays a very large part in the thing. It must be placed just so. Too near to the house and it can become a serious hazard to the nostrils in the hot weather. Too far and the pipes may freeze in the cold. The composition of the soil is of supreme importance, as is that the site chosen is at a lower level than the toilet.

  Then of course there are the planetary aspects to be taken into consideration, the local ley system and a careful check to make sure you’re not digging up a fairy’s ho
use. You can never be too careful. The correct location is everything.

  ‘That will do nicely,’ said Rex, spying out the nearest area of untilled land. ‘Ideal.’ He stalked over, dragging his spade behind him, and peered down at old mother earth. Old mother earth stared back in a hard, uncompromising sort of fashion. ‘Just you try it,’ she seemed to be saying.

  ‘I’m not really a spade man,’ Rex told the sod. ‘More a trowel and dibber fellow me. I generally leave the actual digging side of things to that nice little man with the Wellington boots and wheelbarrow who pops by twice a week. In fact, now that I come to think about it, I generally leave all the trowel and dibbering to him also. In fact,’ Rex stroked his manly chin, ‘I hardly ever come out in this garden. I hate gardening.’

  ‘You see,’ he continued, ‘I’m more your man of action. My forte is for heroic deeds. The saving of civilizations. Putting my life on the line in the cause of truth, justice and some way or another. I’m the stuff of legend. I’m not a digger of poo pits.’ Rex took the offensive spade in both hands and prepared to fling it. The bedroom window shot up and the slop pail whistled past his unreddened ear. The hero lowered his head and began to dig.

  And he dug. He dug and he dug. He got all sweaty in a macho lager commercial sort of a way. But he didn’t make a lot of progress. Digging holes is a funny old kind of a business. You either have the way of it or you don’t. A friend of mine who was once in the T.A. and ran the London Marathon had the way of it; he had served an apprenticeship as a grave digger and he could dig a hole two feet wide, six feet long and six feet deep with a precision nothing less than awesome to behold. Mind you, he did employ the services of a mechanical digger, something which Rex didn’t have immediately to hand. And the fellow I’m talking about got a stitch and never actually completed the London marathon. I expect there’s a moral in there if you care to look for it.

  Rex didn’t care to look. He was thinking about lunch. He was thinking that ‘well begun is best begun and best begun is nearly finished’, and he was thinking that now would probably be as good a time as any to down tools and repair to the drinking house. He’d just level out the bottom and then slip away. No need to mention it to Christeen.

  Clunk! went Rex’s spade as it made contact with a very hard something. Rex up-ended his implement and eyed the blunted blade. ‘There,’ he said, ‘that settles the matter. It would be folly to continue work with a blunt tool. You couldn’t expect a craftsman such as myself to make a decent job of the thing with a blunt tool. Unthinkable.’

  Rex put the useless article aside and stooped to root out the blessed blunter by hand. He probed about with his fingers and found something smooth and cool. ‘Hmm.’ Rex dug his fingers about it and strained to pull it up. It remained firm and Rex checked his spine for severe injury. His digging days were over, he told himself. Rex kicked petulantly at the object. Now he hopped about on the other foot wondering just why he had.

  Rex picked up the spade, raised it above his head and prepared to administer the killing blow.

  And then he stopped. He was gazing down at something rather unusual. The object was a head. A marble head. There was no mistake about it. He could make out the hairline and a bit of a noble brow. A marble head. How about that then?

  Rex stooped and he scooped. He dug and he delved. He trenched and he tunnelled. He burrowed and bored. He scraped and he scrabbled and scratched. And when he was done he sat down on his bum and marvelled greatly, saying such things as ‘blow me down’ and ‘well, I never did’.

  For there at his feet lay a full-sized marble statue, which even in its mucky state was dearly a thing of no small wonder.

  It was the statue of a young man, clad in a wide-shouldered suit, legs akimbo. He was frozen in mid strum upon a carven guitar. He had a serious quiff and killer sideburns. ‘Elvis,’ said Rex Mundi. ‘Elvis, it’s you.’

  ‘It certainly looks like him,’ said Fido, who had been observing the feverish activity. ‘Curly lip and everything. Nice big hole, by the way.’

  ‘Give me a hand then, we’ll lift it out.’

  The dog gave Rex what is called ‘the old fashioned look’.

  ‘Well, fetch a rope or something. I’ll rig up a block and tackle.’

  ‘To hear is to obey, oh master.’

  Rex spat on to his palms and rubbed them together. ‘Soon have you out,’ he said.

  It was somewhat late in the afternoon when the statue of Elvis came to stand upright. And the garden that it now stared down upon was no longer the pretty and picturesque thing it had earlier been. This was now a garden littered with broken timbers, snapped ropes and fractured pulleys. A garden tainted by words of profanity.

  The owner of the garden sat exhausted, his feet dangling in the hole of his own making. ‘There,’ said he, when finally he could find breath. ‘A piece of cake.’

  Fido cocked his head on one side and gazed up at the statue. ‘It’s a killer,’ he said. The lad himself.’

  ‘Certainly is,’ Rex gasped.

  ‘Cosmic, man. Dead cosmic.’

  ‘And to find it right here in my own back yard.’

  ‘Like I said, cosmic.’

  ‘I wonder how it came to be here.’ Rex climbed to his feet and perused his find. ‘Probably went under in the Nuclear Holocaust Event.’

  ‘Hey, man, do you know what this means?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It means that you probably built your house on the very spot where Graceland once stood.’ ‘No kidding?’ Rex was well impressed. ‘Some coincidence, eh?’

  ‘Hmm.’ Fido didn’t have much truck with coincidence. ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful thing, though. Nice centrepiece for the garden.’

  ‘Shame you took a piece off his nose with your spade.’

  ‘They never put noses on,’ said Rex knowledgeably. ‘The Greeks and the Romans and whatnot always made the statues without noses. It was a tradition or an old charter or something.’

  ‘Doesn’t look Greek to me, it’s of the Italian school, though.’

  ‘Go fetch a stick or something.’

  ‘Mind if I take a leak first? All this excitement. . .’

  ‘Not in my hole you don’t.’

  ‘OK man.’ Fido lifted his leg and sprayed the statue.

  ‘Get out of here, Fido.’

  ‘Sorry, man.’

  ‘No, wait, look. You’ve uncovered some letters. Do it again.’ Fido did it again. ‘What does it say?’ Rex asked.

  ‘It’s a name and a date. Michelangelo Buonarroti. 1504.’

  ‘1504?’

  "That’s what it says. Michelangelo. Man, that guy was famous. He was the number one. Michelangelo.’

  ‘The name rings a bell.’ Rex scratched at his head. ‘Yes, of course. He was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, wasn’t he?’

  Fido looked up at his master. Rex looked down at his dog.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Rex. ‘It just slipped out.’

  ‘Jump in the hole, man.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Jump in the hole. Quickly.’

  ‘I will not.’

  "Then, sorry man.’ Fido leapt up at Rex, striking him in the chest and knocking him from his feet. One man and his dog vanished into the hole. And not a moment too soon.

  There was a sudden roaring of engine and squealing of brakes, and something large and metallic smashed through the hedge with explosive force. It ploughed up the plantain, demolished the dovecot, scattered the scanderoons and came to the traditional shuddering halt on the very spot where Rex had just been standing.

  ‘What the-’ Rex struggled in the pit.

  ‘Keep it down, man. Let go of my ear.’

  ‘I’ll do for you, Fido.’

  ‘I saved your life, man. My ear, let go.’ Rex released the pooch’s mangy tab.

  ‘How did you know it was coming? I didn’t hear anything.’

  ‘I’m the seventh pup of a seventh pup. Keep your voice down, I smell big tr
ouble.’

  Rex peeped over the rim of the pit. Above him loomed a big shiny chromium bumper and a licence plate.

  The licence plate read DEE 1.

  ‘It’s Simon Dee,’ Rex whispered. ‘Legendary TV chat show host from the 1960’s. Returned at last to do another series. I always knew he would.’

  ‘I don’t think so, man.’

  Rex heard an electric window swish down, then the oiled click as the driver’s door opened. He glimpsed a pair of polished brogues, a flash of patterned sock and a tweedy turn-up or two. ‘Anyone at home?’ Rex didn’t recognize the accent. ‘Helloooee.’

  I don’t like this, Rex thought. As he watched, the passenger door opened and similarly attired lower extremities lowered.

  ‘Gorne off, do you think?’ said a second voice.

  ‘Puffed if I know. You set the co-ordinates correctly, didn’t you?’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  ‘Then he’s bound to be here.’

  Rex edged along his hole. He could see the driver’s back. A Barbour jacket and a tweed cap. Rex gasped. ‘Devianti!’ This man wore the costume of the cannibal bands which had once prowled the ruined streets of the post-NHE world. But they had gone forever, surely? Rambo Bloodaxe and Deathblade Eric were the last of their line, and they were now reformed characters, if somewhat doubtful builders.

  Rex sought a weapon. His spade lay beyond reach.

  ‘Fido,’ whispered Rex. ‘Fido!’ Fido was doing his best to dig himself in. ‘See them off, boy.’

  ‘Get real, man.’

  ‘You will too see them off.’ Rex grabbed up the cowardly cur and hefted him out of the hole.

  ‘And what have we here?’ The driver turned.

  Fido did his ‘wolf call’. It wasn’t a sound to inspire much in the way of terror.

  ‘See them off, Fido,’ whispered Rex.

  ‘No, please.’ The driver caught sight of Rex. ‘Please sir, we wish you no harm. Call off this fearsome beast.’

  ‘Fearsome beast, eh?’ Fido managed an unconvincing snarl. Rex struggled out of his hole with as much dignity as he could muster. ‘Have a care for your throat,’ he advised.