Chapter 3 – What the hell happened to the Lions?

Not a million miles away from Crabstick’s Emporium of Abbatiorial Delights – well obviously; This isn’t a Science Fiction story, and anywhere that far away must be in space, or at least somewhere very Sci Fi-ey – Ambrose and Gerald strode into the murky depths of the temple.

"Trust me", said Gerald, "the murky bits are the best really, all that bright cheery stuff is just for tourists."

Ambrose blinked. "Tourists? But this is the heart of darkest Africa, where the sun beats down like a scalding hot beaty thing. Surely you don’t get many tourists here?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, we don’t. If it wasn’t for the crowd surge at the end of Ms Venticle’s Vibraphone recitals, I don’t know what we’d do."

A large stone slab slid down from the ceiling, making a sound just like a large stone slab sliding down from a ceiling, just behind them, blocking their exit.

"This is new." said Gerald, scratching himself behind the ear. Ambrose took a step forward. "Where are you taking that step?" asked Gerald. "Only it makes the stairs very dangerous if there’s one missing."

Sighing, Ambrose returned the step to its usual position. He’d been hoping to hang on to it, as it matched perfectly with the gap in his staircase at home. He took another step forward (hiding it under his jacket this time, so that Gerald wouldn’t see) and descended into the gloomy depths.

Gerald uttered a strangled squawk, and positively flew past Ambrose, careening off the walls of the staircase and landing in a tangled heap at the bottom.

Reaching the bottom, Ambrose enquired after Gerald’s health.

"Not too good, me old mate," groaned Gerald. "All four me of legs is broken, but at least I got to prove my point about the stairs being dangerous. So, you know, mustn’t grumble!"

Ambrose picked up the stricken dog, ignoring his cries of pain, although to be perfectly honest, I don’t know what Ambrose had to cry about, and laid him across his shoulders. As he moved away from the staircase a two hundred-ton solid stone block fell on to the precise spot where he had been standing.

"Bugger!" cursed a ghostly voice.

"You know Gerald," said Ambrose, "I’m beginning to think there’s more to this than meets the eye."

The injured dog shifted uncomfortably on Ambrose’s shoulder.

"Please don’t shift on my shoulder, this jacket’s just been cleaned." moaned Ambrose.

"Sorry, I always does that when I gets nervous."

Ambrose ducked to avoid several spears that had shot out of the walls at high speed.

"What’s to be nervous about Dogboy, this is just one of those average hidden temples."

Lava began to seep up through the floor stones, Ambrose leapt like a salmon and only managed to slightly melt the sole of one of his boots.

"They do say, the natives and other folks, that this temple be haunted by the ghosts of an ancient, and much more civilised race of people who take out revenge on those who trespass." The last part of this statement was shouted because the floor had given way and the one man and his Dogboy fell into the stygian doom. Had it not been for the handy creeper that Ambrose had just managed to grab onto and swing themselves to safety the two would have plummeted to their deaths. The landed with a tooth cracking thump on a ledge.

"I don’t believe in ghosts," said Ambrose as several tons of scree and rock rolled down the steep sides of the ledge he and Gerald had landed on. "Its all a load of superstitious bunkum."

A few yards above their heads a small gap had appeared, just big enough for the pair to squeeze through.

"You may say that, Ambrose, but on dark nights as I lay sleeping in my kennel, I can oft hear strange ethereal moanings and wailing emanating from within."

A thousand screaming bats hurtled past, each one a blood sucker.

"Probably just the wind." Said Ambrose fighting off the last of the vampire bats. They found themselves in a long sloping tunnel. In the distance a faint rumbling began.

"It’s not the wind. I’ve seen things, strange things, things that would curdle yer blood." Gerald had to repeat that statement, not straight away as they had to swim along in the sudden flood of raging water that came rushing at them down the tunnel, and then drag themselves onto a slippery, vast expanse of stone.

"Well, I don’t believe you. Nothing that fantastic and exciting ever happens in real life." Ambrose shrugged, accidentally knocking Gerald of his shoulders and onto the floor. As Gerald landed there was a faint, almost inaudible click.

"You bastard, that hu…" Gerald’s statement was left unsaid as he was crushed by a huge stone ball that rolled out the side of a wall. Sadly, Ambrose had no time to grieve the sad loss of his friend, not because he was heartless, but because he was now being chased by the ball through lots of thin and winding tunnels.

It didn’t take Ambrose long (that’s one of the reasons he had no girlfriend) to realise that the usually successful tactic of running into a side passage did not work in this situation. Not that he had been chased by a multi-ton stone ball before, but he had once run for three and a half miles before using that very tactic to escape an out-of-control milk float. Well, not into a tunnel, it was an alley actually. In this case however, no sooner had he dodged down a side tunnel, than the huge stone ball would stop on a sixpence and turn after him, as if guided by some malicious intelligence.

The malicious intelligence rubbed her hands with glee. Now that she was not only ageing, but dead, Emilia had to use a lot of Glee these days. She allowed herself a little chuckle. The little chuckle passed out at the very thought of Emilia Hangnail (deceased) and hence never knew what transpired. After several months of intensive psychotherapy he was eventually able to retake his place alongside all the other chuckles in society.

Carefully Emilia guided the ball after Ambrose. "Have you got ‘im yet?" mumbled Aristotle. He was starting to decompose rapidly, one of the many problems with dying in darkest Africa.

"Sssh!" hissed Emilia, "I’m trying to concentrate." Things were getting difficult. Ambrose had dispatched them into the tunnels, with the brilliant plan of collecting all the sixpences, hence robbing the ball of it’s turning ability. One or two things got squished of course, but they didn’t seem to mind; at least they never complained about it to Ambrose. Emilia employed one of her last sixpences to turn the ball after Ambrose once more.

Ambrose cursed. It looked as if his luck had finally run out. The tunnel he had been chased into was narrowing fast, with no side exits. He squeezed as far as he could, looking back over his shoulder as the ball roared towards him.

Then something strange happened, Ambrose was overcome with a strange feeling of being split in half, almost like an out of body experience, like he was climbing out of himself but he was still standing still. The feeling passed and Ambrose gave himself a little shake.

"Thanks very much" said Ambrose, "I needed that"

"No problem, I have plenty." Said the other Ambrose. "Let’s see if I can get you out of this."

The ball rolled closer, accompanied by some ungodless cackling and the smell of rotting flesh.

Emilia and Aristotle were happy, they had originally come to this temple to summon a terrifying and mighty demon to smite Ambrose into chunks, but by sheer coincidence they had discovered Ambrose here and decided to try and do away with him first. And they nearly did.

The other Ambrose was helping Ambrose onto his shoulders.

"Right old chap, here’s the plan. When the ball hits me, causing me no uncertain death, you should be high enough to leap clear."

"Yes" said Ambrose, struggling to stand up right on his own, broad, muscular shoulders, "but then you’ll die!"

"Of course, but then I’m supposed to." He gripped onto Ambrose’s legs and watched as the ball rolled closer, "It’s hard to explain. You set up an alternative universe when you escaped from those natives. You were supposed to die."

"No! My cunning, wile and intelligence defeated them." Ambrose had the bravado to look smug in the face of almost certain squash.

"Yes, but you were supposed to die, and you did, somewhere else. Well, it’s the same sort of thing here, you will die, the you that is me will, but too much rests on you finding your vibraphone." The ball rolled closer, the other Ambrose braced himself.

"I still don’t understand." Said Ambrose. "And don’t brace yourself like that, you could get hurt."

"Thanks for your concern, but I’m already brown bread, the powers that be need you to survive and they’re willing to break all the laws of time, science and even believability."

The ball was there.

"Think it would be best if you jumped. NOW!!"

Ambrose jumped, the ball rolled underneath him, he heard a bone crunching…crunch and a wet popping sound, and finally he hit the ground and rolled clear of the ball.

The ghost and the corpse looked on in disbelief.

"The" began Emilia, "Bastard!" finished Aristotle.

Ambrose turned to look at the ball, which had become wedged in the narrow tunnel. Blood was seeping out from underneath.

"Christ I’m brave." said Ambrose and scuttled of in search of an exit, or possibly treasure.

*******

Emilia was doing the jumping up and down in anger bit. Aristotle sat with hid head in his hands - it had fallen off.

"I can’t believe him, I can’t, I can’t, I bloody can’t." Screamed the ghost, "Someone must be helping him!"

Aristotle looked at Emilia.

"Calm down luv, don’t bust a gut, I’ve done that and believe me, it hurts."

"But, you stupid rotting corpse, he’s gotten away, scot bloody free; again!"

"I know, I know. But you’ve forgotten something." The fawn kicked the sack of sacrificial processed meat. A smile played over Emilia’s face, it played tennis.

"Aaaah, how could I forget the reason we came here." She collected the bits of Aristotle up and picked up the sack.

"Let’s go summon a demon." She said and they walked off down the dingy corridor.

Sadly their dramatic exit was slightly marred by the fact that they began to argue about what Aristotle should be kept in now that parts of him were starting to liquefy.

Oh, and to make sure he was still in the story, Tiddles squeaked.

Basically, don’t. I know, you’ve seen the adverts on TV "You too can have your own demon!". You’ve read the hype about time-shares on the 32^nd plane of the Abyss. You’ve bought the obligatory "Demon Summoners do it in a Pentagram of Blood" bumper sticker. But remember that Demon may look all small, cute and cuddly when you first summon him/her/it, but they will grow up.

Think about the future. Have you really got the time to take it out for a ritual every day? And what about feeding? Oh I know, at first it’s just one or two souls a month, but before long it’ll be three or four a day! And don’t forget, the soul your little treasure wants most, is yours.

A quick word on naming your demon. When you first summon him, and he’s all slimy and new, naming him after your favourite Pop star/Footballer/Soap actor seems a fine idea; but when he’s 200 ft tall, with a 150ft wingspan and breath that smells like Mount Etna on a bad day, the name "Charlie Brown" may not seem so appropriate. A silly name is one sure way of pissing your demon off.

Above all, remember; A demon is not just for Christmas, it’s for all eternity.

*******

Secure in his cosy little pocket, Tiddles plotted. Killed in chapter one, hardly mentioned in chapter two, he was determined to get a big part in chapter three. Nope, innuendo obviously wouldn’t work, that didn’t even raise a titter. So he plotted; he schemed; he twiddled an imaginary and quite frankly impossible (for a hamster) moustache. Finally, he decided on a course of direct action. Wriggling around he positioned himself and waited for his opportunity. He was not normally a patient Hamster, in fact he was pretty pissed off most of the time (It’s not only demons that don’t like silly names), but he had found that being dead put a lot of things into perspective. After all, being called "Tiddles" is infinitely preferable to "That nasty dead thing that looks like a rat". After some half-paragraph of waiting, his chance came. Carefully, he adjusted his position, lined himself up and bit Emilia Hangnail hard, on the very tip of her finger.

Emilia screamed. She didn’t go "ooh" or "youch" or even "yaroo!", she screamed. Not because Tiddles had particularly sharp teeth, or even because he had somehow managed to get down to the bone (which is a pretty impressive thing to do to a ghost), but because Tiddles’ timing was less than perfect.

She had marked out the pentagram using the blood of a freshly defiled virgin, she had placed the sacrificial processed meat at the corners of the pentagram whilst playing a selection of Abba hits. She had invoked the spirits, strangled a kitten, walked three times around the pentagram backwards reciting a chant from Alistair Crowley’s Big Book of Humorous Summonings and finally, had just started the tricky ritual of actual summoning the demon from the netherworld, when Tiddles had bitten her.

This interruption threw her completely out of whack and she screamed several things that, maybe at such a delicate moment, she shouldn’t have.

"Strewth" said Aristotle, who had now taken up residence in the sack that the meat had been carried in, "That language was a bit strong".

"The little bastard bit my finger!" yelled Emilia, waving her finger around trying to detach the still chewing hamster, "I’m going to have to start the whole thing again."

There was a faint tremor in the room and a slight smell of brimstone.

"I hate doing it, especially the Abba part. Why they couldn’t pick The Carpenters I don’t know."

Another rumble, more brimstone and the faintest hint of a brain-melting roar.

"And do you know how hard it is to get freshly defiled virgin’s blood? Near bloody impossible."

An earth tremoring rumble, brimstone and sulphur and loud, raspy, terrifying spawn of hell breathing.

"Um…Emilia" said Aristotle.

"What?" snapped Emilia.

"Are Demons over 20 feet tall, horned, winged, black as the night, multi-limbed creatures with more eyes than teeth and teeth like huge ivory spikes?"

"When they’re fully grown yes - but at first they’re all small, cute and…its standing behind me isn’t it."

Had Aristotle been in control of his limbs he would have nodded. Instead he just sloshed about in his sack. Emilia slowly turned around and discovered that Aristotle’s description was spot on. The Demon was huge. Horns sprouted from its head and curled round his neck like snakes. Its eyes shone like the fires of hell and a snake-like tongue flicked in and out, tasting the air. It flexed its limbs and took a step forward, its giant hooves hitting the ground like slabs of concrete. It leaned slowly forward until its giant head was centimetres away from Emilia. With breath like a thousand dead fish and a voice like the splitting of the earth it said.

*******

Ambrose was getting no where, fast. He was stuck, sealed in a temple, miles away from anything remotely resembling civilisation and to top of the whole disastrous ice cream was the cherry of starvation. He hadn’t eaten since he had some food from his errant thought’s picnic, and now he could eat a horse, preferably fried in garlic and served with spaghetti in a white wine and cream sauce. He would even stoop so low and eat a Mcdonalds ™. He was hoping that an Ambrose from another reality would pop up and give him a sandwich, but that was about as likely as him ever seeing his vibraphone again.

To say he was downhearted would be a pretty good summing up of his feelings. And to complete the whole shebang the rock he was sitting on was sliding downwards into the floor.

The sliding into the floor thing wasn’t so bad; in fact it felt quite nice. It was the falling through the floor, into the apparently bottomless abyss that had Ambrose worried. Standing atop the plummeting rock with the wind whistling through his hair, like some latter day Wily Coyote™ he tried to compose himself.

He was about to fail miserably, when he suddenly thought "Hang on a minute, I’m in enough trouble as it is." and decided to fail cheerfully instead. So it was whistling, smiling and clicking his heels that Ambrose realised he hadn’t got a clue what to do. Then he remembered his trusty pogo stick! If only he hadn’t left it lying around in chapter one, it would have been extremely useful.

This was even more difficult than escaping from those natives! If only he hadn’t squandered the helium in his hollow tooth. If only he’d saved that extra long bootlace. "If wishes were horses", thought Ambrose, "beggars would ride". That seemed like such a good idea that he begged and wished for someone to save him and, sure enough, a horse appeared.

"Oh thanks." neighed the horse, "One minute I’m nibbling grass in an idyllic setting in the middle of the home counties, deciding which filly to jump, and the next I’m plummeting to a certain and extremely unpleasant death just because some loony’s pulled the old if-wishes-were-horses routine". The horse, ‘Cecil Cromby Kitchen Appliances the Fifth’ by name, although not by nature, was distinctly pissed off (it’s that naming thing again – I told you so).

"Ah well" he sighed, "I suppose I’d better save us then."

"Would you? That’d be most awfully decent old chap!"

Ambrose hopped onto Cecil’s back. Then feeling rather foolish standing on one foot on a horse’s back, he sat down. Which is just as well, because at that moment, as the sun hung over of the gaping pit like a slightly pinkish-yellow button in a blue anorak sky, Cecil jumped. And what a jump! The cow who jumped over the moon would have been jealous, if he’d known. (Which he didn’t. He had in fact, retired to Bermuda some two weeks after the moon-jumping incident, as a result of being hounded by the paparazzi, and now lived the life of a recluse, surrounded by barbed wire and machine gun nests).

Anyway, the important thing is that Cecil jumped a very long way. Not quite to the top of course, that would be totally unbelievable. No, he jumped just far enough to land in the entrance of an unnoticed passage part way down the bottomless pit. Incidentally, the bottomless pit failed to live up to it’s name (it too was pissed off, by the way), as a few scant seconds later the boulder crashed into the bottom that wasn’t supposed to be there, and exploded like a bomb. How’s that for high drama?

Meanwhile, up in the tunnel, our heroes were not out of it yet. (Well obviously, they’ve only just got into it. No, no, the ‘it’ in question is trouble, not the tunnel. Oh! Sorry.) Fortunately, there was light at the end of the tunnel. Really - not metaphorically or anything. ‘Cause if there wasn’t any light at the end of the tunnel, they wouldn’t be able to see, you see? Well so could they.

"Walk on Horsey!" cried Ambrose.

Cecil looked at him, as only a horse can – thought for a minute – decided that ‘Horsey’ was a good deal less silly than ‘Cecil Cromby Kitchen Appliances the Fifth’, and walked on.

They walked for what seemed like two hours and as they walked they talked. Cecil told Ambrose of all the famous people who had ridden on his strong, dappled back and Ambrose told the horse how all the animals he had come across, apart from the crocodile, had died a horrible death. This worried Cecil.

"That’s disgusting!" said Ambrose.

"Sorry," said the horse, "I always do that when I’m worried."

As they trotted on, the light at the end of the tunnel gradually got bigger, it got so big in fact they soon realised they had been walking outside for a half a hour and the sun hung like a metaphor in the novel of the sky.

The landscape before them was not as it had been before, gone were the lush green forests, gone were sparkling rivers and gone was the gentle hum of jungle background noises. Here was a sweeping, grass starved, pebble-dashed plain.

"That’s odd." Said Cecil.

"What, the fact that this scenery is radically different?"

"Yes" answered Cecil, " and the fact that a bloody great Tyrannosaurus Rex is standing right in front of us."

*******

"Roger?" said Aristotle, "You can’t call him Roger."

"Nothing wrong with Roger." Said Emilia, "It’s what I would have called my son had he not been born a little girl."

"Yes, but…Roger." Aristotle eyed the demon. It sat a few feet in front of them, playing with a jungle cat and occasionally farting great clouds of noxious fumes. From somewhere Emilia had got the thing a huge nappy and blue booties.

"Roger suits him. Whoosawhicklesouleatindemonden?" Emilia floated over to the demon and tickled him under the chin. The demon made a noise that can only be described as a chuckle.

"Good grief!" Aristotle had gone through changes since he was first introduced. What had started out as a particularly cute fawn had become, after being thrown of a cliff, a disgusting, pulpy, rotting lump of flesh. In a sack.

"Okay, okay. Roger it is." He bubbled in his sack. "Can we please get on with it now? We didn’t summon him so you could get all broody."

Emilia did that tuggy cheek thing that all old people do to babies. Then, to Aristotle’s intense embarrassment, she started to baby talk.

"Okey-wokey, is my ickle demony-weemony going to find that naaasty man Ambrose and smitey-witey him to till pussy-wussy squirts through his nosey wosey?"

The demon belched, stuffed the cat down his nappy, grabbed hold of Emilia in one hand and grabbed Aristotle in another. Using another of his mighty hands he ripped a burning hole in reality and stepped through. As the hole fizzled into nothingness a small voice was heard to say.

"Oh for gods sake, can’t you change his nappy?!"

*******

Cecil galloped through the burning scenery with Ambrose clutching on for dear life. A few feet behind, a Tyrannosaurus Rex chased after them, drool streaming from his snout.

"This is just like Jurassic Park™." Screamed Ambrose over the pounding of Cecil’s hooves. "I want to be Jeff Goldbloom."

"How did you manage to shout that ™ in such tiny letters?" yelled the horse, leaping horse-like (easy for him) over a small bubbling tar pit.

"It’s all in the voice."

The T-Rex™ lunged, its tiny arms flailing like windmills. Cecil deftly avoided the blow and was covered in a cloud of dust as the T-Rex’s™ head bounced off the ground.

The scenery changed. High-sided cliffs rushed passed. Scrubby looking bushes flew past Cecil’s feet.

Ambrose turned his head and was confronted by the huge, gaping jaw of the T-Rex™, its tongue flapping, spraying hot phlegm all over the shop. This has to be it, thought Ambrose, how many more timed can I cheat death?

His thoughts of imminent death were averted by a strange whizzing sound. At first he thought that Cecil was just nervous again, but soon realised this was not the case. The T-Rex™ suddenly came down with a bad case of arrows. Making a noise that only a dying T-Rex™ can, the T-Rex™ died. Great clouds of dust billowed around the horse and its rider, causing them to cough.

Ambrose dismounted in a rather hap hazard manner. He fell off.

"That was lucky." said Cecil.

"I think I’ve fallen on a cactus." said Ambrose from a crumpled heap on the ground, "Something pointy is sticking in my bottom."

"That’s not a cactus." Said the horse with wary tone, "That’s a person of the female persuasion, wearing only a furry bikini. She has a spear."

"Aah" said Ambrose. "Are there more of them?"

"Yes"

"What, pray tell, are they doing?"

"They’re brandishing spears." Said Cecil.

Ambrose gave a faint smile. "I thought I could smell butter." He said.

"Hmmph hurmm mrphh!" came a voice from the vicinity of Ambrose’s nether regions.

"Damn!" swore Ambrose, "You’d think that just once, I’d run into some natives that spoke English. – Yaroo!" This slightly odd ending to his sentence is best explained by reference to an earlier episode in Chapter 2, where Ambrose made a distinctly similar sound as a native thrust a spear into his rear end. The curious coincidence here is that that’s exactly what happened again.

"I said; Get your smelly butt off of my face!" Yelled the enraged Amazon/Cave-girl/Pygmy hybrid, rising to her feet (about one-and-a-half).

Cecil snickered. It’s a strange thing to do, unless you’re a horse, but then, Cecil was, so I suppose it’s OK. "Of course, eighteen-inch tall cave people" sighed Cecil "I should have expected that."

The cave people (exclusively female) quickly explained that they had only saved Ambrose from the T-Rex™ for two reasons. Firstly, they were very eager to try out their newly-brandished spears (and bows), and secondly, because their race was on the verge of extinction. Being entirely female (apart from one or two who had crew-cuts and a propensity for wearing dungarees, body-warmers and bobble hats), they were having a bit of trouble in the breeding department. Ambrose began to explain that he couldn’t possibly get up to (or down to) anything with people so small, when the young lady he had sat upon (Tracy Ferret-Strangler by name), explained that they were more interested in the horse.

"Eeurgh," exclaimed Tracy, "What’s that?"

"That’s Cecil," said Ambrose, "He always does that when he’s nervous."

Cecil had the decency to look sheepish.

"Marvellous" said another cave woman (called Sharon Mouse-Gobbler), "he does impressions as well."

There was a general moan from the other cave women who had heard that joke before and preferred the one about the Irishman calling his son Pancake.

"Let me get this straight." Said Ambrose, "To be able to further your shrinking population, you need my horse."

There was a mass nodding of heads.

"So, what your telling me is that my horse can…fulfil your needs."

"Oh yes." Said Tracy, "He looks big enough."

Ambrose and Cecil exchanged glances.

"So…", said Ambrose with just a nuance of concern in his voice. "So, you’re able to…I mean you’re all compatible with Cecil.?"

"Without a doubt," said Sharon, "If might be a struggle, but I think we could fit."

Ambrose had heard enough.

"I’ve heard enough. I think its disgusting that you could ever consider having sexual dalliances with a horse…Yaroo!!"

Again the unusual end to the statement was caused by more spears being violently poked in Ambrose.

"That’s sick," screamed Tracy, "We need your horse because we have no other way of getting to the opposite valley which is populated by a male tribe of pygmies!!!"

"Yeah, because we’re little, we can fit on his back!!" shouted Sharon "And besides, I don’t think your horse finds us very attractive."

Cecil looked relieved.

"I wish he’d stop doing that." Moaned Tracy after receiving the full force of Cecil’s relief.

After some more discussion and spear poking, Ambrose and Cecil were led back to the pygmy’s camp. They also took the T-Rex ™ with them. Apparently there’s good eating on a T-Rex ™.

During his brief time with the Pygmy Warrior Women, Ambrose learnt a great deal. They played a lot of cards. He also learnt where he was.

The corridor from the Temple actually had turned out to be a one-way rip in the space-time continuum, and Ambrose now found himself trapped in a time the land forgot. Dinosaurs still roamed the earth; presumably they didn’t have anything better to do than just roam, so they did. The People had had to shrink to survive which made it easier to hide from all the dinosaurs. I know the whole thing sounds stupid - but you just have to except it. Like the way you all excepted the fact that Ambrose has no problems at all understanding and speaking to a horse.

After enjoying a McPygmy Rexburger ™, the pair settled down for a good night’s sleep.

The next morning, (I bet you were expecting horrible things to happen in the night. Well they didn’t, the man’s got to have a rest sometime) Ambrose and Cecil parted company. It was a tearful farewell and the decision for the pair to split up was a hard one. Ambrose thought that he should continue his quest alone, and Cecil liked the idea of giving lots of tiny women a ride. He also thought that Ambrose’s past track record with animals wasn’t too good, so keeping as far away as possible from the animal killing maniac would be a jolly good idea.

Ambrose watched the tiny Warrior Women mount Cecil, (which gave him strange thoughts, but he gave them back as he had enough of his own) and ride off into the sunrise.

Ambrose looked about him. No one was here. He was alone, trapped so many million years in the past with no hope of him ever finding his vibraphone or going home. Ah well, at least he had eaten.

There was no reason for Ambrose to feel worried because we all know that The Powers That Be always find a way to save Ambrose.

As Ambrose began to walk he noticed a strange ripple in the air, like a mirage on a hot day. There then followed a series of strange sparky bangs, a buzzing, a whirring and finally a loud pop as weird machine appeared in front of Ambrose. It looked like a big motorbike side car made out of brass, with red velvet seating and a sort of whirligig washing line stuck to the back of it.

A few more brightly coloured sparks shot off it as a man dressed in a top hat, waistcoat and checked baggy trousers stepped out.

"Please don’t be alarmed," said the man in a strange, clipped upper class English accent. "My name is H. G Wells and this is my Time Machine."

"Surely you can’t be serious?" gasped Ambrose.

A strange look passed over the strange man’s face.

"How did you know I’m Sirius? Code names are a well-protected secret within the organisation. Truly, you are every bit as special as the Great Avocado says."

He dropped to one knee and bowed his head. Ambrose was clearly confused. He’d tried being foggily confused and it just didn’t work for him.

"The Great Avocado?"

"You know him too? You are indeed knowledgeable in the ways and doings of our hitherto secret society!"

His forehead was now pressed to the ground, in awe of the great man before him.

"I say," said Ambrose "do you think that we might use your time machine to get out of here? Only that great one-eyed man standing before you is about to squish us both with that great big club."

As one, they leapt into the saddle of the strange machine. After the collision, they picked themselves up from the floor and got on separately.

"That’s a pity" reflected Ambrose, "I was hoping we could get on together".

As it happens, this was an excellent idea, because the reflection dazzled the Cyclops, to the extent that the huge club connected on the back swing, with the jaw of a particularly nasty looking demon, which had chosen that inopportune moment to walk through a hole in the space-time continuum.

"Squish!" went the club.

"Aaaaaaarghhhhhh Mummy!" went the demon.

"Bugger!" went a collection of ethereal voices.

The demon soon recovered, however. He grabbed the end of the club, ripped off the head of the unfortunate Cyclops (who’s name was Beady-Eye Skull Crusher – he was quite happy; well until his head was ripped off, that is) and ate it in a single mouthful.

"F---". Whatever Ambrose had started to say was lost, as with a grunt, whistle, pop, bubble and squeak, the time machine disappeared, taking him, and H. G. Wells with it.

*******

Now you might think that the fabric of the space-time continuum is an orderly place, with everything in its correct place and time, with a few brave or reckless souls gingerly crossing between points with little or no idea of where they are going to end up. Far from it.

No, I’m afraid the fabric of the space-time continuum has been/is going to be/is going to have been ripped apart so many times that it resembled/resembles/is going to have resembled a punk-rocker’s string vest after a fall into a car crusher filled with broken glass and concentrated sulphuric acid, populated by ravenous crush/glass/acid resistant moths.

And as for space-time travellers, central London in the rush hour is an unpopulated wasteland by comparison. Accidents are frequent, with people popping out into normal space in places/times they never imagined. Space-time rage is becoming/has become/is going to have become (oh you know) a serious problem. Suddenly, you feel a blinding pain which causes you to temporarily lose control and cut someone up, the next they’re going back in time to thump you for it, which causes a blinding pain… Sometimes people end up dead (briefly) due to recursive injuries, before the space-time police can get there to sort it out. (This is usually because they’re all attending yet another union meeting on the subject of the definition of retirement age).

In light of this, it should come as no surprise that no sooner had Ambrose and H. G. Wells (Horatio Geraldine to his friends – he would have been pissed off, but he’s British) arrived in the fabric of the space-time continuum, than they had already been side-swiped by a fast moving flooble cart and dumped unceremoniously back into real space (and time).

*******

So it was that Ambrose and his would-be rescuer found themselves crushed into what bore a striking resemblance to a cubicle in a gentlemen’s toilet on Waterloo Station, where Ambrose had once had an extremely unpleasant experience. The only thing was, the noise coming from the other side of the door sounded not entirely dissimilar to that made by an enormous, man-eating lion.

"Rooaarr" it went in a most worrying and unpleasant manner, "Roooar."

"Good lord" said H.G, "That man sounds in most disagreeable pain."

Ambrose looked at the time hopping Victorian, with what can only be described as his eyes.

"Man? Man? That’s not a man, that’s a lion. I recognise the tone of voice."

H.G wells raised his spectacles.

"Well dear boy, it may not be a man, but it is certainly not a lion."

"And how do you work that one out?"

The something in the cubicle next door flushed the toilet, coughed and began to whistle "Vampire Nun Cardigan", a track from Run Like Buggery’s hit album.

"Extraordinary" exclaimed H.G, " That’s Vampire Nun Cardigan. That track only featured on the American import."

Ambrose carefully stood on the toilet seat and peeked over the top of the cubicle door at the whistler. H.G Wells was right. It wasn’t a man. It wasn’t a lion. It wasn’t even a cross between the two. It was more like large, green lobster, wearing a three-piece herringbone suit, bowler hat with deely boppers attached to the side and a space helmet.

"Christ!" said Ambrose out loud.

The lobster thing turned his head and went "Sssshhh, have some respect. This is a library."

Ambrose quickly disappeared back behind the door.

"Well?" said H.G Wells.

"Do you have any concept of where we are?" replied Ambrose, who still couldn’t believe what he had seen. Deely boppers?

H.G poked about at some knobs and buttons on the console of the Time Machine. A revolving brass display clicked round and there was a little "ding".

"Right. According to the revolving brass display that goes "ding", we have landed in the reading room/ urinal of the Intergalactic, Space Time Library."

There was a pause.

"You’re taking the piss." Said Ambrose.

"Well I hope too as soon as you get out the cubicle." Said the little man fidgeting around from foot to foot.

Ambrose made his excuses and left.

The Library was huge, vast, absolutely massive. Ambrose realised he was only in a very small part of it. He looked above and saw a myriad of stars and galaxies twinkling beyond the glass roof. A thousand suns shone like bright yellow sequins on the black velvet dress of the universe. Around the sides of this great glass dome were books, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of them. Library carts whizzed about above his head stacked with more books, every now and then the drivers piled more books onto the already groaning stacks. And there were readers, some like the Lobster man, some like the ever famous Greys. Ambrose wished he had "The Usbourne Guide to Alien Life" with him.

"Quite impressive, isn’t it?" said H.G Wells.

Ambrose turned to look at the small man.

"Why are we here?"

H.G Wells began to walk into the library. "Its quite simple. Several members of my organisation…"

"They wouldn’t happen to be called The Powers That Be, would they." Said Ambrose catching up with the author. H. G Wells looked pleasantly surprised.

"The Powers That Be need you to find your Vibraphone. The fate of humanity rests upon it."

"I didn’t even use it that much." said Ambrose.

"That doesn’t matter. The point is you should have it." The small man tutted, "This sort of thing happens all the time. Do you remember World War Two?"

Ambrose nodded.

"That would never have happened if Colin Whickerstaff from Croydon hadn’t dropped his favourite mug. Famines, wars, deaths, natural disasters, they all rest on seemingly insignificant events."

"So my Vibraphone might cause some flooding or such like."

H.G wells stopped and looked at Ambrose deep in the eyes.

"If you don’t find your Vibraphone, mankind will cease to exist. They won’t even have been a memory. They will just disappear."

Ambrose looked sullen.

"What about womankind?"

H. G Wells ignored the comment. "Here we are."

The pair were now standing in front of a desk. Behind it sat a librarian. It’s an interesting fact that, no matter where you are in the universe, no matter what galaxy, time or reality, librarians always look like librarians. This one was sort of humanoid shaped with long tentacles dotted about, three flippers and a pair of large NHS glasses and its hair in a bun. Librarian.

"Yes" said the librarian in a librarian-type way.

"Yes" said H.G Wells "I’m looking for a book."

The librarian managed to raise one sarcastic eyebrow in the way that all librarians can. She reached beneath the counter and brought out the biggest roll of index cards Ambrose had ever seen.

"Title?" she asked.

"Oh of course." H.G Wells looked at Ambrose. " It’s The Chronicles of Ambrose T. Hedgetrimmer."

Ambrose spluttered, coughed and choked. Then he pushed the choke back in a little and started to tick over nicely.

"A book, about me?"

"Well no, actually" explained H.G. "It’s going to have been a book about the person you might have been going to become, you see?"

Oh Ambrose saw all right, it was just his ears that seemed to be on the blink. Which is odd in itself, that function usually being reserved for the eyes.

"No." he said.

The librarian handed H.G. a small plastic card.

"There you are, sir, just take this to any of the book dispensers. Oh by the way, that’ll be 24,000 Groenids, please." She smiled, in that way that librarians always do when giving you bad news.

H.G. Wells nearly unstiffened his upper lip he was so shocked.

"What on earth for?" The librarian smiled, in that way that librarians always do when explaining something to someone they consider to be simple (everyone).

"Well you see, it says here that you are going to fail to bring it back on time, and after the mandatory three hundred years of daily fines, it still isn’t going to have been returned, so there’s the replacement cost, as well."

"Hang on," said Ambrose "I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we just pay for the book now? That would be cheaper, surely?"

(No, I’m not doing that joke. No. No. No. Her name is Shirley, OK).

The librarian achieved a level of smugness that few librarians ever achieve. Clearly she had been waiting a long time for this. With a weight of condescension that would have floored a charging rhinoceros, she replied "I’m sorry, but we don’t sell books."

Grumpily, H.G. Wells wrote a cheque, and handed it over.

"That’s blown the expense account for another week. I wonder why I’m going to have not returned it?"

He turned away. "Come on Ambrose, old chap. There’s a book dispenser over there. Mind you don’t trip over the rhinoceros."

The book dispenser was somewhat at odds with the rest of the décor in the library. In fact, it would have been more at home in Pie City. Lights flashed all the colours of the rainbow, and several more that Ambrose couldn’t see because his eyes weren’t up to it, as well as one that he heard and four he could smell.

The list of instructions was enormous, and written in thousands of languages, none of which meant anything to Ambrose at all. "How on earth" he wondered "are we going to operate this?"

H.G.Wells inserted the plastic card into the only slot, and pressed the only button. There were a number of whirrs, clicks and pops, followed by what sounded suspiciously like a sneeze, and out popped a book.

"Great!" enthused Ambrose, "Let me see it".

"Oh no!, I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, old boy. If you knew your own future, it would change everything. We’d probably disappear with an enormous poof."

"Poof!" went something behind them. Screams echoed throughout the library. The librarian, seeing that this was going to require more than a simple "Shhhhh!" to sort out, did the thing that all librarians do in these situations. She placed a small card on the desk in front of her. "Gone to Lunch." it said. "Shhh!" said Shirley, and went to lunch.

Ambrose turned around, just in time to duck the huge black talon that disembowelled the slightly slower-moving H.G. Wells.

"Bugger!" came a by now familiar chorus of voices.

The demon exhaled a vast cloud of sulphurous vapour, completely covering Ambrose. This seemed like a great idea, until he realised that he could no longer see his intended quarry. He jumped into the middle of the cloud, landing with a sound like two slabs of concrete with an extremely heavy weight on top of them hitting the ground. Too late; Ambrose had apparently vanished.

Shelves of books went flying, as the Demon tore the library apart, trying to find Ambrose. Once it nearly got him, foiled only by tripping over an inexplicably floored rhinoceros.

Slowly but surely, Ambrose was running out of places to hide. Ninety percent of the library décor had been reduced to smithereens by the flailing arms, legs and wings of the deadly demon. He backed away further and further, into the inevitable corner. Cowering in the corner, his field of vision filled with panting, drooling foul-smelling demon, with the ghastly ethereal presences of Emilia Hangnail, Aristotle and Tiddles sitting on his shoulder, Ambrose closed his eyes and waited to die.