World War Warrington

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World War Warrington - book excerpt

Chapter 1

The Germans have spies everywhere – at airports, train stations, bus stations and boat ports all over the country… it’s like Nazi Germany all over again. The girls have had to wear disguises again, so they cannot be identified. Unfortunately, the only costumes they had spare were from last Halloween: a snake charmer and Cousin Itt. Fortunately, however, Al had taken the time to rip off the suggestively-placed snake from the bottom half of her costume.

Sonny constantly trips over the floor-length strands of hair encompassing her as she tries to navigate through the airport. One trip is particularly fatal, and her face comes within inches of the floor, just as one of her hands parts the sea of brown acrylic strands to stop herself from falling.

“Oops, almost lost ya hat, there!” Al laughs, picking the bowler hat up off the floor and patting it back on top of Sonny’s head.

Sonny wobbles back into an upright position. “How come I’ve ended up wearing this one?” she complains.

“You’re taller.”

A concealed huff blows a few strands of plastic hair into the space in front of Sonny.

“Not to worry, we’re nearly out now,” Al reassures her.

Just as they get to the doors of Brandenburg Airport, a shady-looking guy with dark sunglasses scrutinises the departing passengers carefully.

“Shit!” Al hisses, pushing the clump of hair that is her twin sister into another direction.

The man notices their reluctance to pass by him, and he decides to pursue the strange-looking duo. Al glances over her shoulder and spots him following them suspiciously.

“There’s a guy following us. Looks like one of the Baulsack’s men,” Al reports to Sonny quietly.

“What are we gonna do?” she panics, the long hair dusting the floor a bit quicker now.

“In here.” Al pulls her into the women’s toilets.

They lock themselves into one of the cubicles and Sonny pulls the costume off her head, leaving her own hair splayed across her forehead.

The man enters the bathroom cautiously, making sure there are no women in there to alarm. He spots the long brown hair spilling out from underneath the cubicle door, pulls out his silenced pistol and carefully aims it at what he considers to be head height, before pulling the trigger, punching three holes straight through the flimsy door.

The hair slides to the floor, forming a puddle at his feet. He bends down to pull it towards him and a heavy foot kicks him on the backside, sending him headfirst into the door. He lets out a painful moan, holding the newly formed lump on his forehead, and Al and Sonny stand over his tensed body.

“You’re not supposed to peek under there, you know. Perv.”

He frowns and attempts to pick himself up off the floor in a daze, but Al rips the turban from her head and swings it across his face with her fist concealed inside. He slumps back against the door, his eyes rolling around inside his skull, like an addict on a bad trip. Sonny checks his pockets while they have the chance. She pulls out an ID card that has the Baulsack Das Schloss logo on it,

“I’ll be taking this… Mr Hans Müller,” Sonny extracts from the card.

They exit the bathroom, leaving the Cousin Itt costume on the head of Hans Müller to partially conceal him, and head out of the main doors again.

They reach the pickup point, where one of the Fontanas’ German confidants had left a bag full of weapons for them. Quickly grabbing it, they make their way to the taxi rank.

In the car, they discuss the information on the ID card,

“Do you know where Das Schloss is?” Sonny asks her sister.

“I didn’t even know it existed.”

“Well, we’ll have to do some research.”

Al raises her eyebrow at Sonny. “By ‘we’, you mean me.”

She nods innocently. “Yeah.”

Al studies the card some more before tucking it into her wallet for safety,

“I can’t imagine Helmut going back there, though. That’s the first place we’d look.”

The taxi driver glances at them through the rear-view mirror and accidentally makes eye contact with Sonny. He quickly looks back to the road.

“Everything alright, mate?” she quizzes him.

His eyes dart to and fro between the girls and the road. “Are you talking about Helmut Baulsack?” he asks.

“Yeah, know him?”

He lets out a quick chuckle. “Ha, everyone knows him around here.”

“What do you think of him?”

“I think he’s a crazy bastard.”

Al sits forward in her seat to speak to him. “What do you know about Das Schloss, then?”

He becomes nervous. “It’s a very secretive place, a hidden door leads you there. I think he would go back if he’s trying to avoid someone.”

“Where’s the door?” Sonny asks, intrigued by the mystery of it.

“How should I know? It’s hidden.” He shrugs.

The girls relax back into their seats, mildly disappointed at not having the information fed to them via silver spoon.

“But,” he continues, seeing their dismay, “I know a guy that can help you.”

Their eyes light up again. “Take us to him.”

***

He drops them off outside a row of buildings, indicating the one covered in psychedelic graffiti as their desired destination. The small, barred square windows seem painted on themselves, and the front door looks the worse for wear, along with the tatty old voice box with buttons connecting to all of the apartments.

“He’s room number thirteen, tell him Elias sent you,” he instructs them.

They shake hands and give him a generous tip, for his unwavering discretion, before he pulls away, leaving them alone on the quiet street.

“Shall we?” Sonny gestures towards the door.

“We shall,” Al replies, making her way to the stoop.

“What number did he say, again?”

Al rolls her eyes and reaches for the button. “Thirteen.” Distant ringing can be heard.

The voice box crackles. “Sie haben den Arbeitsplatz von Bertolt Bertalt den Dritten erreicht!” he performs. (You have reached the office of Betolt Bertalt the Third.)

“Guten tag! Elias schickte uns,” Al relays what Elias told them to. (Hello! Elias sent us.)

A pause. “Warum?” (Why?)

“Es geht um Mr Baulsack.” (It’s about Mr Baulsack.)

There is no reply other than the sound of the door unlatching to let them in. The girls glance at each other before pushing themselves into the crumbling building.

They walk up the narrow staircase, passing some unusual residents on the way who all stare at the girls like they are the weird ones. Al is a little offended until she remembers she’s still wearing her snake charmer pants, with remnants of green scales still poking out of the front.

An older woman, who looks like her body is formed of ninety-nine percent plastic, leans provocatively in her apartment doorway. She looks every bit a woman you wouldn’t want to touch. She extends a distorted, wrinkly finger and beckons them to her.

Al frowns in astonished disgust. It’s a shame you can’t get Botox in your fingers, is all she can think about. Never before had she seen a finger with bingo wings.

They get to the corridor that should host the door to room thirteen – they pass the others, eight, nine on the other side, ten… the door is open, displaying a man dressed in a full, black rubber gimp suit hoovering his living room. The girls look at each other again.

“Standard.” They laugh.

Sonny knocks on door thirteen a couple of times. Clattering and tumbling can be heard in the room as the occupant stumbles with haste towards the door. With a violent tug, the door is opened to present a tall, extremely excited older man with frizzy grey hair that sticks out from every angle. He has a pair of small red glasses on the end of his nose, held together with various bits of tape and a beaded glasses strap that disappears behind his neck.

He has a giant curly moustache and a long, grey beard that almost touches the floor like the Cousin Itt costume, and he wears a pair of parachute trousers, not too dissimilar to the ones that Al is wearing, too. No shirt and no shoes or socks are to be seen, though, only dozens of beaded necklaces and a multicoloured ascot. Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier envelops the room; its waltzes dance out of the apartment and start to climb up the walls of the corridor.

“Hallo!” he shouts.

The girls recoil a bit,

“Hi… Can we come in?” Al asks, feeling uneasy at the presence of a gimp head peeking around the doorframe of the room next door, despite still hearing the hoover being pushed around.

“Ah, English. Of coors, come in!” He stares in wonderment as they push past him.

The room is small. The kitchen stands on the left-hand side, bearing only the essentials: microwave, fridge, kettle, sink. The rest of the tiny room houses everything else. There’s a small cabinet, a single mattress is on the floor next to a couch, and the record player sits on a table with only three legs, the missing one being shoddily replaced by a stack of books, slightly too short to match the other sides.

“Nice place.”

“Oh, danke schön.” He blushes. “Plees, sit.” He motions to the only available seating, which is the couch.

They perch on the end, trying to dodge the stains of God-knows-what, that are extremely visible, even to the naked eye.

“So… Vat vould you like to know about Herr Baulsack?” he inquires.

“We need to find his castle,” Al states.

Bertolt’s eyes widen and he takes a deep breath in whilst he thinks it through.

“Are you sure you vant to do zat? I don’t know anybody zat has come out alive.”

“We’re sure.”

He sits on the floor in front of them, cross-legged.

“Zere ist only von vay to discover ze door,” he begins excitedly.

The girls wait for him to continue, but instead he waits for them to ask how, his mouth hanging open in an anticipatory smile,

“How?” Al complies, holding back an eye-roll.

“Die Höllenpforte!” (The gates of Hell!) he sings, throwing a Fun Snap onto the ground as he does so, to make it more dramatic.

“The gates of hell…” Sonny whispers to herself.

“Are those Fun Snaps?” Al asks, pointing to his hands that have now retreated behind his back again.

His eyes dart from side to side, trying to think of a way to change the subject, and keep up his air of mystery and magic. Thankfully, Sonny does it for him,

“Where are these gates of hell, then?”

He laughs obnoxiously. “Ha! Ze gates are everyvere! Zey are inside of you. I vill help you to find zem.”

Bertolt gets up from the floor and walks over to the only storage in the entire room. He crouches down to get something from the bottom tier, and spins around holding a cauldron and various little boxes.

“What, so we’ve gotta do some voodoo shit to get there?” Sonny asks, unimpressed with this unusual detour.

“Not to get zere… to see zem,” he emphasises.

The girls look confused. “What?”

“Zis is his armour! His Schutz! Ze only vay to see ze door’s location is to see eet srough your mind’s eye,” he sings, waving his fingers around his head.

“Right…” Al says, as the idea of it sinks in. “Go on, then.”

He claps joyfully and begins mixing his potion together like a frantic Merlin. Flashes of pink and green erupt from the small cauldron as the fog spills out over the sides. The girls had never believed in magic, but if anything would convince them, it’s this.

“Wunderbar! Eet iz complete.” He throws his arms out to the side in triumph.

He digs around in the kitchen for a couple of glasses to pour the potion into, eventually finding a pair of dirty plastic cups under the sink. He uses a ladle to dish it out evenly and passes the cups to Al and Sonny. They scrutinise everything closely, not wanting to put their mouths on the grubby plastic, nor wanting to drink the bubbling green liquid.

“Is this safe to ingest?”

“Ja!” he snaps, offended that they would even question the great Bertolt Bertalt III.

They look at each other, do a “Cheers!” with the cups and drink it. Bertolt rises up from the floor and increases the volume on the record player. He retrieves a set of bongo drums from somewhere and returns to his spot on the stained carpet.

“Cloz your eyes. Look inside your mind,” he instructs.

The girls do as they’re told but don’t feel any different,

“I don’t see anyth–”

“Shh!” he interrupts. “Konzentrieren.” (Concentrate.)

They both settle into the lumpy couch and try to get into a spiritual frame of mind. Suddenly, the music becomes muffled, like it’s entangled with sticky treacle, and colours begin to form under their eyelids. Bertolt begins quietly drumming on his bongos, humming a steady tune. His own eyes are closed now.

A graffitied alleyway melts into sight, but blurry, leaving streaks as the image moves forward towards a metal staircase leading underground. They spiral down with it, into a dingy corridor with little light, the ceiling dripping with condensation.

“Vat do you see?” he asks rhetorically. “Vat do you sense?”

He begins chanting now, louder than before, leading the rest of the sounds in the room to follow suit. The image becomes clearer, quicker and more real to the girls, who go zooming through the twists and turns of the dank corridor until they reach a dead end.

“It’s a dead end,” Al whispers, thinking she wouldn’t be heard over the loud music.

Bertolt whispers back, but it originates from her own mind,

Zat’s vat he vants you to sink.

As the music and the wails grow louder and more frantic, a brick in the wall glows with golden beams spilling out from behind. It pushes itself further into the wall and it crumbles, to present a set of golden gates with the devil’s face protruding menacingly from the centre. A whirl of smoke exits its mouth and its eyes glow red before the gate separates and unveils the dreaded Baulsack castle.

Everything falls silent as the image fades away. The girls open their eyes and Bertolt is not seated behind his bongo drums as he was before.

“Vell?” he asks, his head silently stalking behind the couch.

Sonny turns around to face him. “I saw the wall and that, but where’s the alleyway?”

“Take a valk around ze city, see ze sights… You’ll know ven you cross it.” He smirks and straightens up.

The girls stand too.

“Are we alright to leave this bag here for a while? We won’t be needing it all.”

“Vat iz eet?” he asks, pulling the zip apart and peering inside.

His eyes widen as he takes in the number of deadly weapons casually concealed inside the bag. “Mein Gott.”

He looks at the two innocent girls in front of him for a while. They begin to feel slightly uncomfortable under his close scrutiny, shifting their weight nervously as they regret even telling him.

He bursts into laughter, throwing his head back. “You two are crasy! Of coors you can leaf eet here, if I can have zees nunchucks.” He pulls them out of the bag and starts swinging them around his head.

The girls look on amused, grabbing a couple of guns and a knife for themselves. “Sure, keep them.”

Bertolt thanks them kindly and leads them to the door.

“Here, take zis,” he says, grabbing something out of the kitchen drawer.

It’s the final piece from a set of Russian Dolls. The tiny face stares back with a blank smile.

“What for?” Sonny frowns.

“You’ll know.” He nods and smiles erratically.

Al looks past his shoulder into the room again. “Can we take some Fun Snaps, as well?”

He rolls his eyes but fetches a handful of the small exploding packages and tips them into Al’s palm.

“Be careful wiz zem!” he orders, as they leave through the crumbling corridor.