The Ninth Nightmare

‘How are you doing, buddy? Pretty darn miserable out here, on a night like this.’

‘I had a puppy but I don’t know where it’s gone,’ said Michael. ‘I think the Packers took it.’

‘The Packers? Who are they?’

Michael pointed to the nearest ramshackle workshop. ‘They’re in there. They’re always chopping. Chopping and sawing.’

Xyrena said to Dom Magator, ‘Why can’t we take him with us? It’s technically possible, isn’t it?’

‘Of course it is,’ Dom Magator told her. ‘But in real life Michael has Mobius Syndrome. It’s a rare congenital birth defect. In real life, Michael can’t walk, or talk, or eat. He can’t even suck a bottle of formula. He spends most of his time asleep, and dreaming. I don’t know how he got himself into this dream. Maybe Brother Albrecht wanted to display him in his freak show, but then realized how serious his disability actually was. I guess there isn’t a whole lot of entertainment value in watching some poor kid just lying there, drooling.’

Jekkalon came over. ‘Are we going to take him with us or not? We can’t very well leave him here.’

Xyrena said, ‘We have to. Dom Magator will tell you why.’

Jekkalon frowned at Dom Magator. ‘We really can’t?’

‘No. I’m sorry. And we really have to get moving.’

‘Can’t we just find his puppy for him? He said that some people called the Packers took it. They’re in that workshop. We only have to ask them politely if they’ll give it back to him, and tell them that we’ll blow their heads off if they don’t.’

Dom Magator checked the instruments on his wrist. ‘OK. You can try. But you have thirty seconds flat.’

Jekkalon jogged across to the workshop, followed by Jemexxa and Zebenjo’Yyx. The workshop had a sagging roof and windows that were opaque with grime. Its guttering was crowded with clumps of moss so that the rainwater clattered noisily down the outside walls. For the first time, Dom Magator saw a faded sign over the door that said Roussos Meat Packers.

‘You see that?’ he said. ‘This has to be the reason why Brother Albrecht wanted George Roussos to share in this nightmare. He needed his expertise in meat-packing.’

‘Oh my God,’ said Xyrena. ‘You’re not telling me what I think you’re telling me?’

‘We should go,’ Dom Magator told them. ‘If those goddamn clowns reach our portal before us—’

But Jekkalon went up to the workshop door and tried the handle. Inside, they could see dazzling lights shining and they could distinctly hear chopping noises, but the door was locked.

‘Leave it!’ said Jemexxa. ‘Come on, Jekkalon, we need to get out of here like now!’

But Jekkalon said, ‘What was the point of us visiting this dream at all? We couldn’t kill the Grand Freak, we couldn’t catch Mago Verde, we couldn’t save our mom! The least we can do is save this poor kid’s puppy!’

With that, he kicked at the workshop door. It cracked, but stayed shut. He kicked it again, and again, and the third time it juddered open.

‘Jekkalon!’ said Dom Magator. ‘Forget it! We don’t have the time! It’s a puppy, for Christ’s sake!’

‘It’s the principle! We’re supposed to be warriors, aren’t we? Well, let’s do some warrior stuff! Let’s be heroes!’

He disappeared in through the door. Dom Magator said, ‘Come on,’ to Zebenjo’Yyx, and lifted his Sonic Blinder out of its holster. However rashly Jekkalon was behaving, they couldn’t let him enter the workshop without backup. If the clowns reached the portal before they did, they would just have to fight their way through, regardless of the consequences — even if Dom Magator had to use his Absence Gun.

The workshop door led them into a narrow corridor. There was a changing room on the right-hand side, in which bloodstained coveralls and red safety helmets were hanging up on pegs. The air was thick with the sweet, cloying smell of dried blood and feces, as well as cigarette smoke and sweat.

The chopping noise was much louder now, as well as persistent sawing. One man was singing O Sole Mio, and two other men were whistling two totally different tunes, out of key. Dom Magator and Zebenjo’Yyx came to the end of the corridor and found themselves on a platform of planks and scaffolding overlooking the main body of the workshop. Jekkalon was already halfway down the steps, but it didn’t appear as if anybody was paying him any attention. The workshop was crowded with at least twenty-five men, all of them in dirty coveralls, and all of them wearing red safety helmets, and all of them far too busy cutting and chopping to notice two or three strangers.

It looked as if Dom Magator had been right. Brother Albrecht must have drawn George Roussos into his nightmare tonight because he needed the skill of his workforce. These men were nothing more than dream figures, but this was only a dream, and while they were here, they could do whatever Brother Albrecht needed them to; and what they were doing was butchering.

The interior of the workshop had been set up as a meat-packing plant, with rows of stainless-steel hooks suspended from rails, and stainless-steel tables for cutting and trimming and disemboweling. There were two rows of pressure lamps hanging from the ceiling, hissing loudly, which illuminated the workshop with a bleached, unearthly light.

On the tables lay cattle and pigs and other more exotic animals, like llamas and mountain goats. The men were bent over them with boning knives and saws, cutting them in half and removing their legs and their heads. The cutting and trimming tables were running with blood, and the paunch table, where cattle had their bellies slit open to let their bowels drop out, was thickly splattered with manure as well as blood.

Dom Magator looked around the workshop in disgust. When he was a restaurant inspector in Baton Rouge, he had visited more filthy slaughterhouses than he could count, mainly to find out how hamburgers had become contaminated with E-coli bacteria. But this place was a hundred times filthier, and the grisliest spectacle that he had ever seen.

‘Shit,’ said Zebenjo’Yyx.

‘Exactamundo,’ said Dom Magator.

It was then that he realized that none of the slaughtered animals had been skinned — even the shaggiest goat. Not only that, none of their meat had been cut from their carcasses in the usual way — no steaks, no spare ribs, no hocks. He thought of Brother Albrecht’s freak show and it dawned on him what was happening here. These animals weren’t being butchered for their meat. Strictly speaking, they weren’t being butchered at all — they were being disassembled so that their heads and their legs and their bodies could be mixed and matched with human beings.

‘Jekkalon!’ he told him. ‘Jekkalon, we need to get out of here!’

But Jekkalon ignored him, and started to walk quickly along the side of the workshop. At the far end, in a shadowy corner, there was a row of cages with various animals in them. Dom Magator could make out at least three sheep and a German Shepherd.

For a few seconds, Jekkalon was out of sight behind one of the cutting tables. But then he reappeared, and he was carrying a golden Labrador puppy over his arm.

‘I got it!’ he said.

He reached the steps that led up to the platform where Dom Magator and Zebenjo’Yyx were standing. As he started to clamber up them, however, one of the slaughtermen looked up from the pig that he was cutting apart, and roared out, ‘Hey! You! Where the hell do you think you’re going with that dog?’

Jekkalon ran up the rest of the stairs so fast that he collided with Dom Magator when he got to the top. By now, all of the slaughtermen had turned around and seen what was happening, and they came rushing toward the bottom of the steps, brandishing axes and boning knives and saws. They were led by a thick-necked giant with a bare, blood-spattered chest, who was bellowing like a bull.

‘Get out of here!’ Dom Magator told Jekkalon. Then, to Zebenjo’Yyx, ‘Give me some covering fire, will you?’

Zebenjo’Yyx held up both arms and rattled off two streams of quarrels. The giant slaughterman was already mounting the steps, but he let out one last stentorian bellow and then he toppled backward, bringing down three of his companions with him. His body was unceremoniously heaved aside so that the rest of the slaughtermen could start to climb the steps, screaming and shouting even louder than before.

Dom Magator took two or three steps back, then lifted his Absence Gun, with the focus set in three stages,