Scape at last. 'Christ, they're an ugly-looking bunch – give me the flippin' creeps.'
I saw them then, peering apprehensively around the open church doors. The elderly gentleman raised his arms wide in a gesture of benevolent welcome. Slowly with anxious glances around the building's interior, the odd looking residents of that district to which I had been delivered at the start of this nightmare filed in, caps in hand. The people of Wetwick had arrived.
'Just look at those bug-eyed suckers.' Scape shook his head as he peered through the narrow aperture. 'Whoops – now they're getting excited, all right.'
From my position, leaning over his bowed back, I could see Bendray turn grandly about, his arms spreading wider, his gesture obviously inviting the goggling crowd to inspect the church's premises. Indeed, some of the Wetwick residents had already filtered through the pews, and had excitedly picked up copies of The Compleat Angler from the hymnal racks. Their extraordinary eyes grew even larger as the books were excitedly handed around. Others, with strangely accented cries, had discovered the fishing tackle draped at various points; their jabbering grew louder as the barbed hooks were brandished before each face. Soon the church was filled with their voices as a group of them ran down the nave towards the tacklestrewn altar.
Scape pulled the door shut. 'Old Bendray's not gonna need us for a while,' he said, straightening up. 'Looks like he's getting his point across.' I greatly desired to ask what that point was, but refrained. The conspirators' proximity dictated that I continue my charade. I maintained a discreet silence as Scape paced about the vestry's confined area, rubbing the small of his back.
'Goddamn books were heavy,' he muttered. 'Plus all that other crap – should hit on the old goat for a hazardous-duty bonus.' He gestured towards Miss McThane and myself. 'Take five, guys – I think we're in here until the fish-eye brigade out there gets their fill.'
Miss McThane glanced up at me, smiled before turning to silently regard her companion, then went back to the of her manicure. I backed as far away as I could in the cluttered room.
'Hey, what's this stuff?'
I looked round and saw that Scape had discovered the alcove behind the pump-organ. As I watched, he drew one of the clockwork choristers out along the brass track laid into the floor.
'No!' I shouted involuntarily. 'Don't – that is… I don't think you should tamper with that.'
He disregarded my warning, bending down to examine the device. 'This is some of your old man's stuff, isn't it?' He looked up at me, then back to the choirboy mannikin. 'Far out.'
'It's – it's very delicate.' I stepped across and laid my hand on his arm. 'Extremely so. I think it would be best if you refrained-'
'Screw that.' He shook me off, then knelt down for a closer look. His hands had already found the small panel at the back and had pried it open. 'I've been itching to get a hold of one of these.'
'Please… I beg of you.' Dreadful memories urged my anxiety. 'Desist-'
'Forget it,' said Miss McThane to me. 'There's no stopping him when he's got a new toy.' She gazed with an expression of disgust as Scape explored further into the choristers' alcove.
'All right.' His voice came muffled from the depths, beyond the row of mannikins. A flaring safety match threw his shadow back towards me. 'I think I found the master controls.'
So he had; I recognised the assemblage of levers and gears from the last time. No doubt the apparatus was still in the state of erroneous adjustment in which I had left it; I could see that the great coil of the central driving spring was still wound tight.
I left off wringing my hands and grasped the back of Scape's vestments to pull him away from the machinery. 'You mustn't,' I cried. 'The devices are misaligned and malfunctioning-'
He shook me off with considerable violence, sending me sprawling upon the floor. His brow furrowed in anger above the blue lenses. 'I've been studying your old man's gizmos for years,' he said sharply. 'There ain't anything I don't know about them.'
I made another attempt to ward off tragedy, grasping him about his robed knees. He toppled backwards and, flailing about for balance, grabbed hold of the centremost lever. 'Watch out!'
Scraping through a layer of rust, the lever swung in an arc under Scape's weight. For a moment there was silence, then a soft, unmistakable tick. Our combat ceased, with Scape supine on the alcove's floor and I halfway above him; we both arched our necks to see the machinery beyond us.
Another tick, and a groan of metal shifting from its long-confined position. The noises began to rattle and clatter faster, as the escapements and ratchets of the apparatus woke into their spurious life.
'Christ Almighty-' I scrambled across my opponent's form and yanked the lever. It resisted all my efforts; I might as well have been tugging at the balustraded stones of the church in a Samson-like attempt to bring the entire edifice down upon our heads. The row of mechanical choristers shifted, the jointed limbs beneath the robes creaking, the porcelain faces swivelling above the ruffled collars. In the manner of an owl, the head of the lead chorister swung all the way round, its glass eyes beatifically regarding us. The rosined wheels that my father had installed in the device's throat engaged; ' Glo – ri – a,' it sang in a piercing treble.
Scape got to his feet and joined me in tugging at the lever. 'We gotta get this thing shut off before those creeps out in the church hear it.' Our efforts were to no avail as the lever remained in its position.
A creaking noise sounded from the other alcoves around the perimeter of the vestry, as the remainder of my father's devices stirred into life from their rusting sleep. Looking behind me, I saw a white-haired priest emerge into the room's open space; the figure was entirely lifelike except for the maniacally rolling glass eyes and the hand repeating its blessing over the pump-organ. 'And with thy spirit,' it pronounced, or rather, the wheels inside its throat did.
'Nice going,' said Miss McThane. Her sarcasm was cut short as she was forced to duck away from the benediction of the clockwork priest, now spinning about rapidly enough to lift the hem of its vestment as though it were a dervish. Light flooded into the room as the door, also connected to the machinery, flew open. A number of the Wetwick residents gaped at this sudden apparition revealed to them. The choristers rocked back and forth along the metal track, and then began filing towards the onlookers; an off-tune Latin chant sounded from the porcelain throats.
'Stop those little shits.' Scape pushed past me and grabbed the robe of the last chorister in the procession. The rotten fabric tore away, showing the clicking armatures and spinning gears of the device as it marched on. He grasped one brass strut, but succeeded only in dislodging the cherub head askew so that it hung sideways and groaned in basso profundo. The priest ceased its gyrations and followed after the choir.
The Wetwick residents were now entirely alerted by the noise and commotion. They ceased their roundeyed goggling at the copies of The Compleat Angler and watched in amazement the erratic progress of the automata into the church; the machinery, having fallen into such a state of decay, now jerked about with appalling violence. The actions of the choristers were further deranged by the fact that Scape's billowing vestments had become entangled in the exposed workings of the one figure with which he had attempted to interfere; flailing about, his face reddening with his shouted curses, he was being dragged on his back behind the choir as they made their way. The terrified onlookers scrambled away, trampling each other in their haste to avoid this apparition. Miss McThane, her long hair in wild disarray, tugged at her companion in a futile attempt at rescue.
From a position of relative safety at the vestry door, I watched as Bendray, with raised hands and quavering voice, first tried to restore order to the panic-stricken assemblage. He soon abandoned the effort and, wisely fearing for his own skin, slipped out the church door, moments before the great mass of the Wetwick residents jammed the egress, tearing at one another's backs and limbs in desperate flight, the crazed energy of their numbers resulting in virtually none of them winning through to the darkness outside.
Inside the stone walls, echoing with cries of terror and grating mechanical noises, the carnage had become even more nightmarish than on that long past occasion when I had first attempted to put my father's devices into their appointed motions. With the furiously struggling Scape in tow, the choir had reached their positions, but had split into various factions, as if arguing amongst themselves on the proper course of their further ritual. One group of the mannikins seemed bent on another procession, and to that end had turned about, battering against the others as the deranged machinery drove them along the metal rails. Scape's imprecations mingled with the cacophony of hymns sung simultaneously, the artificial voices shrilling ever higher as the rosined wheels wore down to the bare metal beneath. Two of the porcelain heads butted together as though in the combat of rams, cracking and spraying throughout the church bits of the smiling cherub faces and the springs and gears beneath. The headless choristers went on battering into each other's robed chests as one of the church windows dissolved into
