…Almost through Jazir can feel the presence the feeding will be ripe feeding good winning good centre hive one blurb one bone all blurb all bone from the one king queen of domino…
Real time: 8.59.32. The game, playing to an end…
Maze time: indescribable. Max closing his eyes to what he saw, but the vision burning him with clear sight.
Blurb time… Coming through now king queen almost feeding feeding…
The creature was large, almost as large as the pit that held it. It was a mass of black flesh, dripping with juice that shone in tiny rivers down wrinkles of fat. A net of electrical wires connected it to the pit’s sides, and within this web the thing squirmed like a beetle. Here and there on the gross body, tiny dots of white mapped a hopeless camouflage. A large gaping orifice slathered from its belly, with a thick, tongue-like protuberance poking through like a blind flesh snake.
‘Hermaphrodite, Max. Isn’t it beautiful?’
Every second or so the tongue stump would push a still slippy ever-changing domino bone through the opening (POP!), which was immediately grabbed by a passing blurbfly and gone, through the pit and out of the exit portal to the world.
‘Once upon a time there was the Mata Data, and then the Dada Data, and together they made the Baba Data. And such perfect babies, Max! Your spotty children. Nearly time for the big one, the prize bone.’
The body of the beast tapered to a pair of opposite necks or appendages that waved blindly in the stew of grease. Each long thin tube of flesh ended in a bloated head with glued eyes and a dripping, toothless mouth. Blurbflies fluttered at these two orifices, feeding there for new messages or else depositing used-up adverts.
Max could only swing his head from one side to the other, trying to force himself up. But Frank was strong, he held the professor tight and goaded him.
‘Won’t you speak to your child, Max? So rude of you.’
‘Paul…’
Immediately one of the creature’s heads shot a blinded glance at Max’s voice. ‘Maximus…’ Its voice was thick with guttural sounds. ‘Two-Blank! Help me!’
Paul Malthorpe’s face was reaching up towards Max, supported by its uncoiling neck, eyes cracking open. On the other side of the Domino Beast, the head of Miss Sayer, old as the numbers of the world, came upwards to implore him. ‘Help me! Help me!’
‘I do believe, Max, that it remembers you. How touching.’
Frank was laughing now, as he turned Max over roughly. The face of famous cool loomed over Max, as the two hands that strummed a nation’s heartstrings slowly closed around the throat. The head was pulled up, higher, so that Max’s lips were nestled – surprising, gently – against Frank’s neck.
‘You know the Joker can’t resist me. Give in, Max. Give us a kiss. Only peace awaits you.’
‘So it does.’
Max put his own hands in turn around the figure’s yellow-collared throat, and squeezed and rolled and fought back.
‘Wha…!’
The figure was shocked. ‘Nah… Joker! No!’
It took all Max’s strength to resist the Joker inside, to fight back, to keep on fighting, not biting… but killing. Go manual. Not dying, but living. He and the figure rolled over once again, so that Max was underneath, one more push and…… feedmebreedmeneedmeseedme…
‘Come to me, my Joker!’ shouted Frank, as he and Max rolled over and into the pit as…
…kingqueen!
‘Jazir’s through!’ shouted Joe.
As Daisy played her second to last: ‘Six-three!’ to which Jimmy could only knock and draw, knock and draw.
… as Jazir rode Masala down the wave to the opening and squelch! hit the beast at a pace, thundering with a hundred gathered blurbflies. Over Max and Frank they squirmed, Jazir a heavy cargo squashed now against Miss Sayer’s tearful face and Frank Scenario’s scream of denial. With one kick he had Frank off guard. ‘Cool fucker!’
Frank was slipping on the grease of the game. ‘Paul! Miss Sayer! Help me! I command you!’
‘Max! This is Theseus. Where?’ shouted Jazir. Max pointed to where the ever-changing dominoes were popping forth.
‘No!’ Frank was trying to get up, but a swarm of blurbflies held him back. Malthorpe’s head had tightened its long neck around the singer’s thin body.
‘Too late, Frankie baby. Thanks for the songs.’
Jazir had Masala Chicken Tikka Theseus Curry Blurb in both hands now. ‘You want this?’
‘Please!’ answered the head of Miss Sayer.
He rammed it home, into the orifice of the beast, feather and all.
Miss Sayer breathed, settled. Paul Malthorpe breathed, settled, died. Frank Scenario slithered under the pit of blurbflies.