The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack - Mark Hodder [161]
His legs ached.
He was exhausted.
When was it he last slept? He couldn't remember. Probably years ago. Literally!
He stumbled on. The villagers followed.
Sometimes he outdistanced them and stopped to rest. Then they'd come back into view, yelling and brandishing their makeshift weapons like crazed animals.
If they caught him, they'd kill him, of that he was sure.
As dawn broke, Spring Heeled Jack, Edward John Oxford, the man from the distant future, sprang on his stilts from one field into the next, over hedgerows and across roads, over a golf course and into the shelter of some woods.
He pushed through the trees, leaned against one, and tried to regain his breath.
The sun was up but it was misty and the light too weak to recharge his batteries quickly.
Something irritated his ear-a distant vibration, the sound of a machine.
As it increased, he recognised it. It was the noise made by rotor blades.
Closer it came, until the tree at his back began to vibrate.
He looked up as it flew overhead and caught sight of a ludicrous flying contraption.
Edward Oxford didn't believe anything he saw anymore. The world was one giant fairy story, a crazed jumble of talking apes and horse-drawn carriages and accentuated manners and the stink of unprocessed sewage and, now, flying chairs which trailed steam.
The machine approached again, at such a low altitude that the trees thrashed beneath its downdraught.
"Oh, will you please piss off and leave me alone!" he yelled.
It passed above him. He crouched, leaped, shot up through the twigs and leaves, and caught hold of the side of the machine. It rocked and careened sideways.
The man at its controls turned and looked at him through a pair of goggles.
"I said piss off!" shouted Oxford.
He reached out and grabbed the man by the wrist.
The machine spiralled out of control and crashed into the trees.
Oxford was knocked from its side and fell spinning through the foliage. He thumped onto the ground and lay still, winded, his shoulder hurting.
He got to his knees. He could hear the whistle of steam off to his left. Pushing himself upright, he walked in the direction of the sound until the wrecked machine came into view.
A man was lying facedown beside it. He rolled over as Oxford stood above him with a stilt to either side.
The time traveller squatted.
"Who are you?" he asked. The man had a vaguely familiar face-dark, savage, powerful, but also scarred, battered, and bruised.
"You know damned well who I am!" exclaimed the man.
"I don't. I've never seen you before, though I must admit, I feel I should know you."
"Never seen me! You gave me this damned black eye! Or maybe that was your brother?"
Edward Oxford grinned. More nonsense! More of this world's idiocy!
"I don't have a brother," he said. "I don't even have parents!"
He threw back his head and laughed.
The man beneath him shifted uncomfortably.
Oxford looked down at his face.
So familiar. It was so familiar.
"Where have I seen you before?" he muttered. "Famous, are you?"
"Comparatively," answered the man, and started to wriggle out from between the stilts. Oxford reached down and clutched the front of his coat, stopping him from moving.
"Stay still," he barked.
He searched his memory and thought about the history of this period, the biographies he'd read and the old black and white photographs he'd seen.
The name came to him.
Fucking hell! he thought. You're Joking!
But it wasn't a joke. There was no doubt about it. He knew who this man was.
"Yes, I know you now," he muttered. "Sir Richard Francis Burton! One of the great Victorians!"
"What the hell is a Victorian?" snarled Burton.
Shouts reached them from the distance. There were people approaching -and, too, the far-off chopping of another flying machine.
"Listen, Burton," hissed Oxford. "I have no idea why you're here but you have to leave me alone to do what I have to do. I know it's not a good thing but I don't mean the girls any harm. If you or anyone else stops me, I can't get back and I won't be able to repair the damage.