Serial Sunday: The Galton Horror I

By Charles EP Murphy.

A mere handful of people in Britain watched the Shackleton 1 probe launch into space back in 1996. Gunnar Glass had been twelve, portly and mousy-haired and learning to avoid the bigger boys who went after portly mousy-haired boys. The disused RAF Galton airbase had been SatLite’s shiny new Galton Spaceport for a year and been a building site for five years. Dad said the ‘spaceport’ was probably a tax dodge. According to the local paper, SatLite’s chief scientist Dr Barrington (who looked like Father Christmas on a diet) had been involved in a scandal at a university and Did We Want This in Galton.

“Britain is doing something in space, Britain can still compete in the world!” yelled Galton Spaceport.

“Well done us,” the country said, before turning over to BBC2 to watch The Simpsons.

Gunnar picked up on all this cynicism but like everyone else in Galton, he went to the launch anyway because Galton Spaceport was fifteen minutes down the road. It was the only interesting thing to happen in town since the Luftwaffe bombed it. His best mate Francis—the thin one to his fat one, or “Bulk and Skull” to all the bullies—slouched along as well, saying he bet it’d blow up on the launch, bet him a fiver.

All the soaked-up cynicism went away when the probe launched.

In among those refurbished old concrete bunkers, there were brand-new white prefab huts and a gleaming rocket aiming at the sky. Gunnar had thought it looked cool, like something out of Thunderbirds. Once it took off, it was exactly like something out of Thunderbirds, and he felt that old thrill of seeing the Thunderbird machines take off and the feeling that this was real.

Everyone in town cheered. Francis had a big grin on his face; right up until Gunnar reminded him he now owed him a fiver.

“Isn’t that Tony Blair?” asked Francis, changing the subject.

It bloody was and all, shaking hands with Dr Barrington. They knew that Blair hung out with all the big-name stars and didn’t look like a dork like the Prime Minister did, so Blair must be cool.

Gunnar pointed Blair out to his dad, who laughed. “New Labour must be very confident if they think Galton’s going to vote for them!”

When Gunnar was thirteen and getting spotty, Galton did vote for New Labour. In its first week, the new government put the Internet Act through parliament. Gunnar didn’t know that because, of course, he was just thirteen, he wasn’t watching Newsnight, but he did see the newsagents the next morning and all the papers covering it: “INTERNET FOR ALL BRITONS BY 2000, PROMISES BLAIR.”

Gunnar knew the Internet as the thing that made computers magic on shows like BUGS and the thing the richer kids got to have. Now everyone in town was getting it (or so it felt). The world was open to him.  

 And mobile phones were suddenly everywhere, slim things that were smaller and better than phones in the rest of the world, and factories were springing up all over Britain to make them for the rest of the world. Adults kept saying Britain made the best in the world and this time they meant it.

Britpop was back too and bigger than ever, and special effects on the telly were getting as good as American stuff, and Psygnosis suddenly went from a game company to announcing a 64-bit console that would connect to the internet everyone now had. 64-bit! How the hell was that possible? The Saturn and PlayStation had only just cracked being half that!

And then when he was fourteen, Shackleton 2 was sending the most advanced probe in the world to Mars. The whole country was cheering while Gunnar thought, Piss off, you didn’t care before.

It was “Cool Britannia”. The country was entering the new millennium richer and cooler than everyone else.

He didn’t think to wonder if there was a price for all of this.

***

Gunnar was fifteen and had finally fought his zits to a draw when the work began on Shackleton 3. By this point, him and Francis had been watching the spaceport for years, like trainspotters but not lame because it was about space. They’d have been in the Shackleton Kids Club if they weren’t too old.

One day, he realised they were seeing things that didn’t make sense.

“There goes another bus,” said Gunnar, snapping a pic with his phone. “What’s all that about?”

The bus was grey and absent of any logo, the third such bus this week, and always arriving at ten at night when nobody would see it.

“Must be the night shift.” Francis sounded like he wanted that to make sense. “What else? That must be why it keeps going in. Same bus each time.”

“I’ve never seen it leave though.”

“It must do. C’mon, we should get back home before our parents go spare.”

The thought niggled at him all the way home. And so did another: was there anything coming in at night later than when his parents let him ‘go trainspotting’?

The thought continued to root around in his head all night and then all day at school and then that night as a fourth bus took in yet another group of people. So, he waited until his parents had gone to bed, then snuck out the back door and jogged down the road.

It was after midnight, not a single house in Galton lit up, but the Spaceport still glowed with lights. What were they working on this late?

At quarter past midnight, he saw the bus leaving with nobody on it. He thought to himself, don’t be stupid, another bus is going to come in the morning, it must be needed somewhere else.

But now that thought niggled and rooted and whispered, and that Thursday, he woke up at 4AM and snuck out and waited in the dark and the cold, holding in his bladder, waiting for a bus to come pick up the night shift. And nothing came.

Gunnar missed breakfast and the start of school because of that. His parents were furious. He was grounded for the rest of the week and had to get Francis to watch on his behalf.

The night, Francis told him there were two buses now.

“xtra workers 4 shack3?” Francis texted.

Gunnar chose to believe that. What else could it be, after all?

He’d learn. Everyone would learn.

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Charles EP Murphy is an author who, among other works, wrote the books Chamberlain Resigns, and other things that did not happen and Comics of Infinite Earths for Sea Lion.