Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead - Andrew Cartmel [117]
Justine nodded. The policemen were talking together in a small huddle. Their faces were strange and getting stranger. Mrs Woodcott kept on talking, oblivious.
‘It is a folk poison capable of pharmacologically inducing an apparent state of death. In Haiti its sacramental use is central to the zombie phenomenon. You’ve heard of zombies. At any rate, you’ve seen the videos, I’ll warrant.’
The policemen were all turning to look at Justine. They were all smiling. They opened their mouths quite wide when they smiled.
‘The second component is a popular amphetamine derivative in a thick gelatine coating that takes several hours to dissolve in stomach acid. At the deepest part of the trance the amphetamine kicks in and begins to brings you back up to consciousness. Imagine the surprise of the poor bloody morgue attendant when you come out of your trance on a trolley. Imagine your surprise if they’ve already locked you in a refrigerated cabinet with a limited air supply.’
‘What’s the amphetamine analogue called?’
‘Billy whiz,’ said Mrs Woodcott. She sipped her port and lemon. ‘At least that’s what I like to call it.’ She turned the yellow and black capsule over in her hand. ‘It really is a lovely little drug. I’d say the dosage in one of these would be about perfect for someone with your body weight.’
‘How come you know so much about this drug?’
‘How come? Because I built it, dear.’
Over by the bar the policemen were beginning to undress. With each piece of clothing they took off their gestures grew more extravagant and stylized, like the movements of a dancer. Their fangs appeared as they smiled and leered, blowing kisses to the people sitting in the booths near them.
‘And is it possible,’ said Justine, ‘that there might be hallucinations as I come back up to consciousness?’
‘Certainly. Vivid dream hallucinations.’
A punky girl sitting beside the policemen got up hastily and tried to leave. One of the policemen grabbed her hand.
‘And could they be partly pure fantasy and partly take the form of a flashback?’
‘Do you mean like a summer‐of‐love‐style acid flashback? How sweetly nostalgic. Flashbacks were partly propaganda of course. Take a tab of acid at the student union fresher’s hop and ten years later you crash head on into a semi while you’re driving your family to church. But they do sometimes occur.’ Mrs Woodcott drained her port and lemon and smiled. ‘The human mind is a strange and dangerous place, as I’m sure you’ve discovered, dear.’
The policeman who’d grabbed the punk now spun her around as if they were going to dance in a Fred Astaire musical. But instead of dancing he swooped forward, his mouth latching on to her throat. Justine noted that the big fangs were basically just for show. Getting the blood out of the girl’s neck involved some kind of fungoid extrusion where the policeman’s tongue ought to be. A damp grey pipe locked to the punk’s throat, pulsing as it drank. Some excess blood splashed on to the surface of the bar. The fat publican sighed and wiped it up with a rag.
‘For instance,’ said Justine, ‘I might seem to be reliving an episode from my recent past, with some weird shit thrown in?’
‘Absolutely.’
The other policemen were doing a striptease, but not a very pleasant one, unless you were attracted to human skin with unusual textures and colours. The kind of texture and colours you might find in a mushroom that had been left too long in the fridge in a sealed plastic bag. The kind of mushroom that was beginning to melt. Justine reflected that she had never liked mushrooms. ‘Like the time I went to Notting Hill and went into a pub and scored a drug?’
‘The hallucination could adopt any sort of delusional architecture. So yes, why not?’
One of the policemen was mincing across the pub, towards