The Forty First Wink Read online

  The main hall was big. Impressively so. From where Marty stood in the entranceway, he could only just make out the other end of the room, and the walls which stretched off towards it boasted dozens of tall, gleaming mirrors. Each mirror ran from floor to ceiling, with some ridiculously contorted, and some sweeping up and over in a concave fashion, creating a mirrored tunnel effect which would no doubt confuse and delight park patrons. Where the mirrors merely gave way to the ceiling, huge pendulous lamps hung, and above them, smaller lights gave the impression of stars twinkling in a perpetual night sky.

  From within each of this myriad of mirrors, a Marty stared back into the room, but rather than mimicking the expression of curiosity and slight awe that the room had instilled into the real Marty, the reflected faces peered out from their respective windows with a mixture of surprise and alarm at his sudden arrival.

  "What the hell are you doing here?" They all shrieked in unison. Marty was already at the closest mirror with Timbers at his side, the pirate’s hand on cutlass hilt. Still in the doorway, Kate was clearly trying to take in the situation as she stared first at Marty, then at his disconnected reflection. He had explained the situation to her back in the gift shop, but when reality actually hit, and turned out to be nothing close to reality at all, it was a little bit harder to swallow, Marty imagined. Her gaze returned to real Marty. His eyes were fixed on his reflection, his jaw set and his expression impressively determined.

  "You know what I'm doing here. You scarpered back at the flat, and I still need answers from you."

  Without the expected attempts at a witty retort, mirror Marty lunged towards the pane from his side as he had done on their first meeting. Hitting the mirror with considerable force caused it to shudder and contort slightly, but ultimately sent him crashing backwards and into an unceremonious heap on the reflected floor behind him.

  Real Marty raised a 'Yes! My plan worked!' smile and pumped the air with his fist. "These are a bit more sizeable, and they're bolted to the wall. You're going nowhere, mate." He leaned closer to the mirror, peering down at his seated reflection. "Not until I've got some answers."

  Mirror Marty's eyes betrayed a panic that had not been there before, trapped as he was. "I…I can't. While you're here, I'm here, too," he wailed breathlessly, and scrambled to his feet, glancing frantically left and right before making a run for it, which took him into the adjacent mirror, then the next one, and the next.

  Real Marty took off after him, leaving Timbers staring into a mirror that didn't cast the reflections of him, Marty, or Kate, merely showing the empty room around them. Six or seven mirrors down, Marty caught up to his reflection, who was now at a full sprint and approaching the far end of the room. As he did so, he was immediately transferred onto the large distorted mirror that covered the far wall, where he continued his attempted getaway with impossibly thin gangly legs, elongated arms pumping at his sides, and stretched face puffing and gasping for breath. Such a violent and instant change of direction is all well and good if you are a reflection. Not so much if you are the caster of the reflection and have to abide by the laws of physics. Thanks largely therefore to Isaac Newton, Real Marty ran at full speed into the far wall with an echoing thud that stopped him dead in his tracks and sent him staggering.

  Leaning forward to catch his breath, hands on his knees, Marty watched as mirror Marty's continued retreat took him along the other side of the room, flashing in and out of each mirror he arrived at. He straightened as his reflection grew smaller, approaching the near wall where they had entered. "This is getting us nowhere. Literally. Where do you think you're going to go?"

  Mirror Marty reached the near wall and had disappeared off the edge of the mirror to the left of the large double entrance doors. Immediately he reappeared at full gallop on the mirror to the right of the doors, again reaching the corner and transposing himself onto the long side wall where the chase had begun. Standing where he had come to a stop by the far wall, Marty watched as his reflection charged headlong towards him, then past him, and onwards, seemingly oblivious to the fact that his real self had stopped his pursuit.

  Timbers and Kate had made it to the far end of the room now, where Marty had gotten his breath back, and was watching himself running mirror laps.

  "So…what now?" Timbers asked. "Shall we just wait for him to wear himself out?"

  Marty nodded. The only exercise he regularly partook in was running for the bus or to the off license before it shut, so if his reflection was anything like him, they wouldn't have to wait long.

  Sure enough, mirror Marty managed another lap and a half before petering out on the far wall where he came to a halt, panting and wheezing. He looked as though he'd been through a taffy puller thanks to the distorted mirror in which he stood.

  Marty finally broke the silence as he reached the stretched version of himself. "Now can we talk? You can see there's nowhere for you to go." His voice carried a faint tone of sympathy, and his mirror clone looked up, blinking and disheveled from his exertions, but also apparently surprised by the manner in which he had been addressed.

  Nevertheless, as he regained his breath and composure, mirror Marty folded his arms defiantly and shook his head. "I told you, if you leave this place, I'll get filed away in your head again, and I'm not having that," he muttered through gritted teeth.

  Timbers shouted from beside Marty. "What's the difference? It's not like you can go wandering around when Marty is here and you're stuck in a mirror is it?"

  The reflection made an impatient looking face. "You don't understand, how could you? Here I get to be at least. Whenever he walks past a mirror, I'm there, and it's a damn sight better than just floating around in his noggin, bumping into random thoughts and disgusting impulses." He glanced at Kate and winked. On the real side of the mirror, Marty blushed. His doppelganger did not.

  "Besides, he won't let you leave anyway," mirror Marty continued, stopping abruptly as though he had imparted too much information.

  Marty raised an eyebrow, turning to Timbers and Kate, who shrugged in unison. "Who won't let me leave?"

  His reflection retreated back to his folded arms, closed mouth stance, now looking slightly more uncertain and sheepish than he had done moments earlier.

  Kate tutted loudly and stepped to the mirror. She had unhooked a post from the rope which ran the length of the room, splitting it down the middle, and was now holding it threateningly as she advanced. Mirror Marty's eyes widened as she raised the pole over her head and swung it in a wide arc towards the pane in which he stood. He leapt sideways and fell ninety degrees into the adjacent mirror, just as Kate brought the pole crashing into the one in which he had been standing moments earlier. With an ear-shattering crash, the mirror exploded into countless pieces. The entire mirror dropped, sending shards of glass skittering across the floor and flinging a sharp ringing echo around the room.

  Timbers and Marty stood with eyes and mouths agape as they looked on, first at Kate, and then at the wooden frame where the mirror had stood. Before either of them could snap out of it, Kate was moving again, this time towards the mirror into which mirror Marty had flung himself. He was rising to his feet when he spotted her approaching. Letting out a cry not dissimilar to a seagull with its nether regions on fire, he again made a break for the adjourning mirror, just barely reaching it before the heavy post created another seven years' bad luck.

  Kate headed towards the next mirror, and mirror Marty was already scrambling for a way out when his real self stood between them. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he shouted. "We're here to talk to him, and we can't do that without the mirrors!"

  He fully restrained Kate now, hands braced against the post she was holding out in front of her, pushing towards the mirror that housed the cowering mirror Marty. She fixed him with a determined, yet measured look, and in that instant, Marty felt certain she knew what she was doing and that he could, and should, trust her. A barely noticeable nod passed
between them and Marty released his grip on the post.

  Kate moved to face mirror Marty and hoisted the dangerous end of the post up onto her shoulder. "Listen up, Marty through the Looking Glass, this is what's going to happen next." Her gaze was unwavering and fixed on the figure reflected in the mirror. "You're going to tell my friend here what he wants to know and we're going to leave you be. If you don't, well…" she hefted the post off her shoulder and regarded it casually. "I'm here because he's here, so I really don't have anything better to do than seek out every single mirror in this city and…" she made a mock swinging motion with the post and a dramatic exploding noise for added effect, "No more mirrors, no more playtime for you. Do you see where I'm going with this?" She dropped the end of the post to the floor and leaned on it, moving in closer to the mirror to eyeball the suddenly concerned looking figure within.

  Behind them, Timbers prodded Marty's leg and winked up at his companion, beaming as he did so. "I told you I liked this one." He made spherical motions with his hands. "Cannonballs!"

  Before he could shake his head disapprovingly, there was a calamitous roar as the far wall of the hall exploded inwards behind them. Marty was thrown to the ground where he joined an equally shell shocked Kate and Timbers. From the crumpled heap on the ground, Marty could see his mirror counterpart transfixed and pointing where the wall had once been. Looking over his shoulder in the direction of the carnage, Marty saw what his mirror self had been pointing at. He saw what caused the explosion, and he saw the reason for the gaunt, terrified expression on his reflection's face.

  Even before the dust settled, and as the sound of its violent arrival into the building still ricocheted around the hall, the manically nightmarish vehicle hoved into view. At first glance, it appeared to be a car of some kind, vintage in design, and not unlike the old mobster cars of the 1920s. Instead of wheels, however, each corner sported what appeared to be a pogo stick, and it was these springy devices that had propelled the car through the wall, and were now causing it to leap, frog-like into the center of the hall. As it came to rest, the doors sprang open, and Timbers was already on his feet and calling to Marty and Kate as the passengers of the vehicle came spilling out. Marty, still stunned from the incendiary entrance of the pogo car, shot a glance over to where his pirate friend was gesticulating wildly.

  "Run! It's Peepers," the tiny captain bellowed over the still echoing roar of the leaping Sedan.

  The explosion still reverberating around his head would only allow single word answers, as Marty managed a bewildered, "Who?"

  Timbers pointed now, both tiny hands cast in the direction of the carnage, which had arrived through the wall. His words were deliberate, fevered, and squeezed through gritted teeth. "Mr.…Peepers…is…behind…you!"

  Turning back to look behind him, Marty instantly wished he hadn't.

  From amidst the rubble, dust and general mayhem that now formed the center of the hall of mirrors, the preposterous vehicle swayed and dipped on its springs as three, four and still more figures jolted with jerky, inhuman movements from both open doors. The question on Marty's mind would surely have been 'How could they all fit into that car?' had his mind not been so preoccupied with the single overriding thought, Clowns! Lots of clowns! Where is the exit?

  He was already on his feet, following the quickly retreating Timbers and dimly aware of Kate at his side as one more figure slunk out of the car behind him. Mr. Peepers was considerably taller than his clownish cohorts and moved seemingly without any effort into the light, which had poured in through the newly torn hole in the wall. Huge, unblinking eyes stared after the scarpering trio as they reached the exit at the far end of the room, and wickedly sharp and crooked teeth gleamed as the mouth beneath them unhinged and dropped open. As Marty passed the frantically scuttling Timbers and flung open the exit doors, he heard a bowel-quivering shriek that followed them, his heart threatening to outpace his legs as the cry degenerated into a high pitched, shrill giggle before giving way to the sound of several oversized feet flapping heavily on the ground.

  Time seemed to slow, and against his better judgment, Marty shot another glance over his shoulder.

  Six clownish figures were making their way swiftly and convulsively towards them like drunken marionettes in a washing machine, meeting and passing obstacles as though they weren't there, and gaining on Marty and his retreating party far too quickly. Even as he glanced, Marty could see the grease-painted faces moving into stark clarity as they sprang into closer view. He wished he could move more quickly, somehow change into a higher gear and propel himself and his friends into the relative safety of the park concourse, but his limbs suddenly felt leaden, as though he were running through treacle.

  The short corridor, which led to the gift shop, now felt impossibly long, and seemed to stretch out still further as they charged headlong away from their pursuers. Surprisingly keeping pace with his much taller companions, Timbers drew alongside Marty.

  "Hey!" the little pirate chirped, in a voice that carried a flippant tone that in no way fit their current fraught situation. "Wouldn't it be awful if one of us fell over now, like you see in movies?"

  Marty's already whirling mind started a new spin cycle, and he just barely managed an incredulous double take at the tiny scuttling buccaneer before the distraction nearly caused him to fall over, like you see in movies. Pinwheeling forward, Marty exploded into the gift shop, Kate and Timbers arriving in a more graceful fashion immediately behind him. Clearly there was no time for sprawling in a heap beneath a rack of sunglasses he had just knocked over, so Marty stumbled to his feet as the sound of heavy footfalls and whooping giggles echoed out of the corridor behind them. Mercifully, the door that led out into the park concourse was only a few feet away and still ajar. Within moments, it had become loudly and violently more ajar and a swift exit was made into the welcoming relief of the midday sun.

  #

  They had been in the gloomy semi-darkness of the hall for what seemed like hours, and the dazzling glare of the sun hit Marty like a slap in the face. Blinking and trying to focus, he caught sight of Timbers, already retracing their steps, scuttling back up the center of the concourse towards the lake where they had moored the Fathom. Acting purely on instinct, and with scarcely enough time to catch his breath, Marty took off after his miniature compatriot, snatching up Kate's hand as she stood equally stunned by the sunlight beside him. Soon, they were all in full flight once again, as the entrance to the Parallel Hall of Mirrorverse splintered outwards and half a dozen clowns spilled out into the light of day. Now fully exposed in the broken frame of the doorway, they looked freakish, stunted, and somehow ill-fitting of reality. They carried themselves with jerky, disjointed movements, and every expression that contorted their faces seemed exaggerated to the extreme. Marty observed all of this in one frantic glance over his shoulder as they reached the top of the hill that overlooked the lake. Stopping, gasping for air, and surveying the waters in front of them, Marty eventually spoke.

  "Yeah, there was definitely a pirate ship here when we arrived."

  The lake that stretched out before them was certainly light one pirate ship.

  Timbers had produced a tiny brass telescope from somewhere within his coat and scanned the skies with his good eye.

  "I specifically told them not to steal the ship. They are all fired!" he ranted, theatrically shaking a fist at the sky.

  Marty however, was more concerned with their pursuers, who had spotted them at the top of the hill and were juddering horribly in their direction, whooping and giggling with menace. "We don't have time for this." a voice rang out from his side. It was Kate, and she was already bolting across the edge of the lake towards the adjourning path, beckoning Marty and Timbers to follow. Arriving at the doorway of a huge, stark, featureless building, she waited for the others to catch up.

  Marty saw the sign over the door first as he approached. Metallic and shimmering, it proudly declared 'Zero-G Fun House.
’

  Slowing to a stop alongside Kate, he raised a hand of concern.

  "Erm, just to clarify. We're stuck in my dream, we have a bunch of clowns from hell chasing us and we're about to go and hide in a fun house?"

  Pausing for the dawning realization, which didn't appear to materialize in his colleagues, Marty continued.

  "Do we not think this is, oh, I don't know, a really bad idea?"

  Kate clearly didn't. "Do you see anywhere else to hide around here because I don’t?" Scanning the burger stands and picnic tables that skirted the lake, Marty realized Kate was right, just as she turned and flung the doors open, disappearing inside. Timbers appeared to second the motion as he scuttled past Marty and into the fun house.

  Flinging exasperated hands in the air, Marty shouted after his fleeing compadres. "Brilliant! Where are we hiding next? A basement? A graveyard? An old abandoned mansion? Don't forget to shout 'Hello? Who's there?' just before you get eaten."

  Before he could think of any more witty and cutting comments to make, the hellish mob of circus horrors reached the top of the hill. They advanced, filling the air with demented shrieks and whoops. Marty returned fire with a rather ineffective single, strangled yelp. With nowhere else to run, and against his better judgment, he turned tail and followed his companions into the darkness of the fun house.

  Flinging open the doors which had, moments earlier given way to Kate and Timbers, Marty bolted inside, planting a foot firmly on absolutely nothing at all. Swan diving head first towards where the floor should have been, he instead performed a wildly flailing somersault, which would have drawn a round of applause from onlookers (had there been any looking on at the time) before eventually reaching terra firma, some two or three meters lower than it rightfully should have been, and also not particularly firma.