'Now hold on,' said Jack. 'Don't be hasty.'

'There goes that deja-vu again.'

'I'm sure that we could come to some arrangement.'

'I pride myself,' said Mr Sredna, 'upon having an all-but-limitless imagination. I can think up things that no other mortal being can think up. Apart from that one over there.' Mr Sredna gestured towards the bound and gagged and quivering toymaker, all bunched up in the corner. 'And the remaining moments of his life are numbered in seconds. But even I, with all of my imagination, cannot think of any arrangement that might be made which does not involve you dying.'

'You may well have a point there.' Jack's eyes darted all around the room in search of, perhaps, some very large and deadly weapon. Or something else that might provide a final twist in the tale and allow him and Eddie to miraculously survive.

Nothing was immediately forthcoming.

Mr Sredna snapped the fingers of his right hand. The fingers extended; the fingertips hinged; evil-looking blades sprung forth.

'You first,' said Mr Sredna, pointing at Eddie. 'Shredded teddy, I think.'

'No you don't.’ Jack raised his fists.

'Don't be absurd, Jack.' Mr Sredna lunged forward, swinging his unclawed fist. It struck Jack in the side of the head, carried him from his feet, across the workbench and down the other side, where he fell to the floor next to the kindly loveable white-haired, all-tied-up-and-trembly old toymaker.

Jack floundered about amongst the sawdust bales and rolls of fabric. Jack heard a terrible scream from Eddie.

And then Jack leapt back to his feet. He saw Mr Sredna holding Eddie by his un-special-tagged ear and he saw the claws, glistening and twinkling in the glow from the firelight. And he saw the hand swing and the claws go in, piercing Eddie's chest, shredding the cinnamon-coloured mohair plush fur fabric, spraying out sawdust, tearing once, then tearing again and again.

'No,' screamed Jack, and he leapt onto the table and then onto Mr Sredna. Shredded Eddie flew in every direction: a cascade of arms and legs and belly and bits and bobs. Jack's momentum bore the evil twin over, but he was up in an instant and he flung Jack down and stood astride him, grinning hideously.

'You killed him.' There were tears in Jack's eyes. 'You evil shit. You wicked, vicious, filthy...'

'Shut it,' said Mr Sredna. 'It was only a toy. A toy teddy bear. A big boy like you shouldn't get weepy over a toy teddy bear.'

'He was my friend.'

'That's very sad,' said Mr Sredna. 'A big boy like you should have grown out of toys. A big boy like you should have got yourself a girlfriend.'

Jack crawled back upon his bottom, but he really had nowhere to crawl to.

'In a way I'm sorry that you have to die too.' Mr Sredna grinned as he spoke. He didn't look that sorry. 'Folk here are so dull, do you know what I mean? They lack any kind of spirit. But you're full of it. Independent. And tricking me into believing that you were Jon Kelly: inspired.'

'Rather obvious, I would have thought,' said Jack.

'I'm trying to pay you a compliment. Being an innovative hands-on sort of a God is a very lonely calling. You can always do with a bit of stimulating conversation. But I never seem to be able to get that. No one in my own league, you see. So I just make do with having lots of sex. They're very sexy, my women, aren't they?'

'You're quite mad.’ Jack curled his lip. 'You're insane.'

'They said that about Hitler. Fancy Jon Kelly telling you about him. But Hitler wasn't actually mad. He was the way I made him: a bit of a prototype. Wait until the folk out there find out what the new president of America is going to do. They sent Jon Kelly here because they were worried about the way he was behaving. They have no idea, but it is going to be spectacular. He'll be employing a private army. And my private army will be unstoppable.'

'And then you'll be in charge of everything, will you? Not just here in Toy City.'

'Today Toy City! Tomorrow the World!' Mr Sredna laughed that laugh that evil geniuses laugh. The one that really gets on the hero's nerves.

'Mad.’ Jack wiped tears from his eyes. 'Quite mad.'

'It's simply beyond your comprehension.' Mr Sredna reached down with his clawed hand and hauled Jack back up by the throat, lifting him once more from his feet. 'Small minds have no comprehension. I am indeed one of a kind, placed upon this planet by the Big Figure himself

'You'll answer to Him,' said Jack. 'You'll answer to God.'

'Oh, I don't think so. He's no longer interested in this planet. The universe really is a big construction kit, given to him as a birthday present by his father. But you know what kids are. Once they've done a jigsaw or completed some puzzle or other, they're no longer interested in it. God gave mankind free will, they say. God does not interfere in the affairs of man, they say. It's because he's not interested. He's done this planet. He's moved on. Perhaps one day he will put the entire kit back in its box, but probably not. You know kids, do they ever put anything back in its box?'

'So you'll rule here?' Jack's hopelessness was now all-consuming, and the terrible emptiness he felt, with Eddie dead, left him without much in the way of a will to live — although he would have dearly loved to have wrung the life from the toymaker's evil twin. 'You'll rule this planet and no one can stop you?'

'I don't see anyone, do you?'

Jack might have shaken his head, but with the hand so tightly fixed about his throat, he was unable to do so. 'And so can you be killed?’ Jack managed to say.

Mr Sredna laughed once more. 'Of course I can be killed; I'm not immortal. I'm very much like the nursery rhyme folk in that respect; old-time craftsmanship, you see, built to last. I mean, look at me, Jack. Not bad for a man of six thousand, am I? That Adam and Eve who seeded the garden in the outer world didn't last too long. Things really are different in this world. We still have the magic. So, yes Jack. I can be killed, but not by you. You left the gun back in the chocolate factory after you shot the wrong head. There are no more twists in the tale left for you.'

And the fingers closed about Jack's throat.

And that, for all it seemed to be, was sadly that for Jack.

31

It is a fact, well known to those who know it well, that, at the moment of death, your entire life flashes right before your eyes.

In fact, this fact is known to almost everyone. Although why this should actually be is something of a mystery.

Because, let's face it, who has actually verified this fact?

Has anyone ever really come back from the dead to tell it like it is?

No, they haven't.

'Oh yes they have!' cry those who lack for a life and a girlfriend. 'Otherwise how would we know this fact?'

But, 'Oh no they haven't,' reply the knowers. 'No one has ever come back from the dead.'

Being dead is being dead. Being brought back from the dead means that you weren't really dead at all; you were only in a dead-like state. You just can't bring people back from the dead.

You can't. You really can't.

Now Jack might have taken issue with this, because as Mr Sredna squeezed him to death, Jack's life did flash right before his eyes. Very fast, but in very great detail.

Jack saw every bit of it: himself being born, and growing up in that small industrial town. And he saw himself indentured as an apprentice into the clockwork factory there and hating every minute of it. And he saw himself meeting with Jon Kelly. And then being involved in the terrible car crash. And then his lonely wanderings and the cannibal farmer and Toy City and Eddie.

And Jack realised that Eddie really had been the bestest friend that he'd ever had. And then things became a bit metaphysical and Jack felt himself moving towards other places, places of after-existence — perhaps to the realms where young God was still putting bits of his construction kit together, creating new worlds, worlds that, Jack hoped, would be a great deal better than this one.