Good Omens(98)

He sat on the top of the car, in the rain, and felt the water seeping into the bottom of his trousers.

There was a low roar. Thunder? No. It was continuous, and getting closer. Motorbikes. The sergeant opened one eye.

Jesus Christ!

There were four of them, and they had to be doing over a hundred. He was about to climb down, to wave at them, to shout, but they were past him, heading straight for the upturned lorry.

There was nothing the sergeant could do. He closed his eyes again, and listened for the collision. He could hear them coming closer. Then:

Whoosh.

Whoosh.

Whoosh.

And a voice in his head that said, I'LL CATCH UP WITH THE REST OF YOU.

(“Did you see that?” asked Really Cool People. “They flew right over it!”

“kin'ell!” said G.B.H. “If they can do it, we can too!”)

The sergeant opened his eyes. He turned to the police constable and opened his mouth.

The police constable said, “They. They actually. They flew righ ...”

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Splat.

There was another rain of fish, although of shorter duration, and more easily explicable. A leather jacketed arm waved feebly from the large pile of fish. A motorbike wheel spun hopelessly.

That was Skuzz, semi.. conscious, deciding that if there was one thing he hated even more than the French it was being up to his neck in fish with what felt like a broken leg. He truly hated that.

He wanted to tell G.B.H. about his new role; but he couldn't move. Something wet and slippery slithered up one sleeve.

Later, when they'd dragged him out of the fish pile, and he'd seen the other three bikers, with the blankets over their heads, he realized it was too late to tell them anything.

That was why they hadn't been in that Book of Revelations Pigbog had been going on about. They'd never made it that far down the motorway.

Skuzz muttered something. The police sergeant leaned over. “Don't try to speak, son,” he said. “The ambulance'll be here soon.”

“Listen,” croaked Skuzz. “Got something important to tell you. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ... they're right bastards, all four of them.”

“He's delirious,” announced the sergeant.

“I'm sodding not. I'm People Covered In Fish,” croaked Skuzz, and passed out.

* * *

The London traffic system is many hundreds of times more complex than anyone imagines.

This has nothing to do with influences, demonic or angelic. It's more to do with geography, and history, and architecture.

Mostly this works to people's advantage, although they'd never believe it.

London was not designed for cars. Come to that, it wasn't designed for people. It just sort of happened. This created problems, and the solutions that were implemented became the next problems, five or ten or a hundred years down the line.

The latest solution had been the M25: a motorway that formed a rough circle around the city. Up until now the problems had been fairly basic.. things like it being obsolete before they had finished building it, Einsteinian tailbacks that eventually became tailforwards, that kind of thing.

The current problem was that it didn't exist; not in normal human spatial terms, anyway. The tailback of cars unaware of this, or trying to find alternate routes out of London, stretched into the city center, from every direction. For the first time ever, London was completely gridlocked. The city was one huge traffic jam.

Cars, in theory, give you a terrifically fast method of traveling from place to place. Traffic jams, on the other hand, give you a terrific opportunity to stay still. In the rain, and the gloom, while around you the cacophonous symphony of horns grew ever louder and more exasperated.

Crowley was getting sick of it.

He'd taken the opportunity to reread Aziraphale's notes, and to thumb through Agnes Nutter's prophecies, and to do some serious thinking.

His conclusions could be summarized as follows:

1. Armageddon was under way.

2. There was nothing Crowley could do about this.

3. It was going to happen in Tadfield. Or to begin there, at any rate. After that it was going to happen everywhere.

4. Crowley was in Hell's bad books. [Not that Hell has any other kind.]

5. Aziraphale was.. as far as could be estimated.. out of the equation.

6. All was black, gloomy and awful. There was no light at the end of the tunnel.. or if there was, it was an oncoming train.

7. He might just as well find a nice little restaurant and get completely and utterly pissed out of his mind while he waited for the world to end.

8. And yet ...

And that was where it all fell apart.

Because, underneath it all, Crowley was an optimist. If there was one rock.. hard certainty that had sustained him through the bad times.. he thought briefly of the fourteenth century.. then it was utter surety that he would come out on top; that the universe would look after him.