Terry Pratchett - Johnny and the Bomb

"The bike wouldn't start!" mumbled Tom. "The phone wouldn't work! There was a storm! I tried to get down here in time! How could it have been my fault?"

Somewhere ...

Johnny felt it again ... the sense that he could reach out and go in directions not found on any map or compass but only on a clock. It poured up from inside him until he felt that it was leaking out of his fingers. He hadn't got the trolley or the bags but ... maybe he could remember how it felt ...

"We've got time," he said.

"Are you mad?" said Kirsty.

"Are you going to come or not?" said Johnny.

"Where?"

Johnny took her hand, and reached out for Yoless with his other hand.

Then he nodded towards Tom, who was still staring at the flames.

"Grab him, too," he said. "We'll need him when we get there."

"Where?"

Johnny tried to grin.

"Trust me," he said. "Someone has to."

He started to walk. Tom was dragged along with them like a sleepwalker.

"Faster," said Johnny. "Or we'll never get there."

"Look, the bombs have fallen," said Kirsty, wearily. "It's happened."

"Right. It had to," said Johnny. "Otherwise we couldn't get there before it did. Faster. Run."

He pushed forward, dragging them after him.

"I suppose we might be able to ... help," panted Yoless. "I know ... first aid."

"First aid?" said Kirsty. "You saw the explosions!"

Beside her, the young man suddenly seemed to wake up. He stared at the fire in the town and lurched forward. And then they were all running, all trying to keep up, all causing the others to go faster.

And there was the road, in that direction.

Johnny took it.

The dark landscape lit up in shades of grey, like a very old film. The sky went from black to an inky purple. And everything around them looked cold, like crystal; all the leaves and bushes glittering as if they were covered in frost.

He couldn't feel cold. He couldn't feel anything.

Johnny ran. The road under his feet was sticky, as though he was trying to sprint in treacle.

And the air filled with the noise he'd last heard from the bags, a great whispering rush of sound, like a million radio stations slightly out of tune.

Beside him Yoless tried to say something, but no words came out. He pointed with his free hand, instead.

Blackbury lay ahead of them. It wasn't the town he knew in 1996, and it wasn't the one from 1941 either. It glowed.

Johnny had never seen the Northern Lights. He'd read about them, though. The book said that on very cold nights sometimes the lights would come marching down from the North Pole, hanging in the sky like curtains of frozen blue fire.

That was how the town looked. It gleamed, as cold as starlight on a winter night.

He risked a glance behind.

There, the sky was red, a deep crimson that brightened to a ruby glow at its centre.

And he knew that if he stopped running it would all end. The road would be a road again, the sky would be the sky ... but if he just kept going in this direction ...

He forced his legs to move onward, pedalling in slow motion through the thick, cold, silent air. The town got closer, brighter.

Now the others were pulling on his arms. Kirsty was trying to shout too, but there was no sound here except the roar of all the tiny noises.

He snatched, at their fingers, trying to hold on ...

And then the blue rushed towards him and met the red coming the other way and he was toppling forward onto the road.

He heard Kirsty say, "I'm covered in ice!"

Johnny pushed himself to his feet and stared at his own arms. Ice crackled and fell off his sleeves as he moved.

Yoless looked white. Frost steamed off his face.

"What did we do? What did we do?" said Kirsty.

"Listen, will you?" said Yoless. "Listen!"

There was a whirring somewhere in the darkness, and a clock began to strike.

Johnny listened. They were on the edge of town. There was no traffic in the dark streets. But there were no fires, either. There was the muffled sound of laughter from a nearby pub, and the chink of glasses.

The clock went on striking. The last note died away. A cat yowled.

"Eleven o'clock?" said Kirsty. "But we heard eleven o'clock when we ... were ... on the downs ... "

She turned and stared at Johnny.

"You took us back in time?"

"Not ... back, I think," said Johnny. "I think ... behind. Outside. Around. Across. I don't know!"

Tom had managed to get to his knees. What they could see of his face in the dusk said that here was a man to whom too much had happened, and whose brain was floating loose.

"We've got seven minutes," said Johnny.

"Huh?" said Tom.

"To get them to sound the siren!" shouted Kirsty.

"Huh? The bombs ... I saw the fires ... it wasn't my fault, the phone-"

"They didn't! But they will! Unless you do something! Right now! On your feet right now!" shouted Kirsty.

No-one could resist a voice like that. It went right through the brain and gave its commands directly to the muscles. Tom rose like a lift.

"Good! Now come on!"

The police station was at the end of the street. They reached the door in a group and fought one another to get through it.

There was an office inside, with a counter running across it to separate the public from the forces of Law and Order. A policeman was standing behind it. He had been writing in a large book, but now he was looking up with his mouth open.

"Hello, Tom," he said. "What's going on?"

"You've got to sound the siren!" said Johnny.

"Right now!" said Kirsty.

The sergeant looked from one to the other and then at Yoless, where his gaze lingered for a while. Then he turned and glanced at a man in military uniform who was sitting writing at a desk in the office. The sergeant was the sort of man who liked an audience if he thought he was going to be funny.

"Oh, yes?" he said. "And why should I do that, then?"

"They're right, sergeant," said Tom. "You've got to do it! We ... ran all the way!"

"What, off the down?" said the sergeant. "That's two miles, that is. Sounds a bit fishy to me, young man. Been round the back of the pub again, have you? Hah ... remember that Dormer 111 bomber you heard last week?" He turned and smirked at the officer again. "A lorry on the Slate road, that was!"

Kristy's patience, which in any case was only visible with special scientific equipment, came to an end.

"Don't you patronize us, you ridiculous buffoon!" she screamed.

The sergeant went red and took a deep breath. Then it was let out suddenly.

"Hey, where do you think You're going?"

Tom had scrambled over the desk. The soldier stood up but was pushed out of the way.

The young man reached the switch, and pulled it down.

You Want Fries With That?

Wobbler and Bigmac skulked behind the church.

"They've been gone a long time," said Bigmac.

"It's a long way up there," said Wobbler.

"I bet something's happened. They've been shot or something."

"Huh, I thought you liked guns," said Wobbler.

"I don't mind guns. I don't like bullets," said Bigmac. "And I don't want to get stuck here with you!"

"We've got the time trolley," said Wobbler. "But do you know how to work it? I reckon you've got to be half mental like Johnny to work it. I don't want to end up fighting Romans or something."

"You won't," said Bigmac.

He froze as he realized what he'd said. Wobbler homed in.

"What do you mean, stuck here with you? What does happen if I don't go home?" he said. "You lot went back to 1996. I wasn't there, right?"

"Oh, you don't want to know any stuff like that," said Bigmac.

"Oh, yeah?"

"You come in here and act cheeky-" the sergeant began.

"Be quiet!" snapped Captain Harris, standing up. "Why doesn't your siren work?"