Night on Terror Island by Philip Caveney Page A

put the hat down carefully on a worktop, handling it as though it was some precious relic. ‘The hat looks quite undamaged,’ he observed. ‘I was worried it might have been torn.’
    Kip glared at him.
    ‘Never mind about the bloody hat!’ he snarled. ‘What about me?’
    ‘Oh, you’re right as rain,’ Mr Lazarus assured him. ‘And please watch your language.’ He turned back with a sly smile. ‘So tell me, Kip. Wasn’t it amazing?’
    Kip nodded.
    ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘It was incredible … but … did you have to send me into such a violent scene? I mean, there were bullets flying everywhere.’
    Mr Lazarus shrugged. ‘I just thought it was the part of the film where you had the best chance of getting the hat,’ he said. He studied Kip for a moment. ‘I suppose it
was
pretty intense.’
    A thought occurred to Kip. ‘Hang on a minute,’ he said. ‘How come you already had the film cued to that scene? It’s … it’s almost as though you
knew
I’d turn up today. As though you planned this.’
    Mr Lazarus gave him a disapproving look.
    ‘Kip, has anybody ever told you, you have a very suspicious nature?’
    Kip frowned. He wasn’t convinced for a moment but decided to change the subject. ‘You were telling me before,’ he said, ‘about the Retriever.’
    ‘Was I?’
    ‘Yes, you were. You said that you didn’t know how it worked. But that doesn’t make sense. You invented it, right?’
    ‘Oh yes, back in the 1950s. To tell you the truth, I was trying to come up with an alternative to 3D … something that would rival the process without the need for those ridiculous cardboard glasses everyone was wearing. So I started experimenting with prisms. It was an accident, really. I wouldn’t have known about it at all if it wasn’t for Federico.’
    Kip frowned. ‘Who’s Federico?’ he muttered.
    ‘My pet monkey, a constant companion back then. I was working at the Fantastique in Paris. Do you know it?’
    ‘No. I suppose it’s a cinema?’
    ‘Of course.’ Mr Lazarus smiled as though recalling happy memories. ‘I had set up my equipment in the projection room and I was running a copy of
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
while I fiddled about with the prism. Federico just happened to wander into the beam of light. One moment he was there with me, the next he was up on the screen, being chased by an angry mob.’
    ‘Wow! Did you … did you manage to get him out?’
    ‘No. Oh, I wanted to, but I realised that if I just followed him in there, I wouldn’t be able to get out myself. I needed to invent an escape device.’ Mr Lazarus sighed. ‘That took me years of experimentation . And, when I was finally able to go into that copy of the film, I realised it was too late to rescue Federico. He’d been there till the closing credits, you see. The film even gave him his own credit.
Federico as Frightened Monkey
.’ Mr Lazarus smiled a sad smile. ‘I still have the original roll of film. I watch it sometimes just so I can see him. He seems happy enough. He is being chased by aliens, but they never quite manage to catch up with him.’
    Kip shook his head.
    ‘I’ve seen that film,’ he said, ‘and I don’t remember a scene like that.’
    ‘Of course not! It only affects the copy into which he was sent, and I made sure it never went back to the distributors. I told them it had been destroyed in an accident. ‘Mr Lazarus shrugged. ‘So, that’s how I came up with the Lazarus Enigma. I had invented an incredible machine. How it actually works doesn’t really matter. It’s what it
does
that counts.’
    Kip nodded. ‘It was the scariest thing that ever happened to me,’ he said. ‘And …’
    ‘And what?’ asked Mr Lazarus, moving a little closer.
    ‘It was also kind of cool. I mean, everything was so real, every little detail. Not that I had much chance to study any of it. I was only in there for a few minutes. And if I’d been a couple of seconds slower pressing the exit button