Terry Pratchett - Johnny And The Dead

'No.'

'They're going to fade away. Oh, yes. You've put

ideas in their heads. They think they can go gadding about. But people who go gadding about and not staying where they're put... they don't come back. And that's an end to it. It could be Judgement Day tomorrow, and they won't be here. Hah! Serves them right.'

There was something about Mr Grimm that made Johnny want to hit him, except that it wouldn't work anyway and, besides, hitting him would be like hitting mud. You'd get dirtier for doing it.

'I don't know where they've gone,' he said, 'but I don't think anything bad's happened to them.'

'Think what you like,' said Mr Grimm, turning back to the television.

'Did you know it's Halloween?' said Johnny.

'Is it?' said Mr Grimm, watching an advert for chocolate. 'I shall have to be careful tonight, then.'

When Johnny reached the bridge he looked back. Mr Grimm was still there, all alone.

The dead rode a radio signal over Wyoming ...

They were already changing. They were still recognizable, but only when they thought about it.

'You see, /told you it was possible,' said the person who was occasionally Mr Fletcher. 'We don't need wires!'

They ran into an electric storm high over the Rocky Mountains. That was fun.

And then they surfed down the radio waves to California.

'What time is it?' 'Midnight!'

Johnny was a sort of hero in school. The Blackbury Guardian had a front page story headed: COUNCIL

SLAMMED IN CEMETERY SALE RUMPUS. The

Guardian often used words like 'slammed' and 'rumpus'; you wondered how the editor talked at home.

Johnny was in the story with his name spelled wrong, and there was a quote which ran: 'War hero Arthur Atterbury, president of the newly formed "Blackbury Volunteers", told the Guardian: "There are young people in this town with more sense of history in their little fingers than some adults have in their entire committee-bound bodies". This is thought to be a reference to Cllr Miss Ethel Liberty, who was not available for comment last night.'

Even one or two of the teachers mentioned it; it was unusual for people from the school to appear in the paper, except very close to headlines like TWO

FINED AFTER JOYRIDE ESCAPADE.

Even the History master asked him about the Blackbury Pals. And then Johnny found himself telling the class about the Alderman and William Stickers and Mrs Sylvia Liberty, although he said he'd got the information out of the library. One of the girls said she was definitely going to do a project on Mrs Liberty, Champion of Women's Rights, and Wobbler said, yes, champion of women's right to get things wrong, and that started a good argu- ment which lasted until the end of the lesson.

Even the headmaster took an interest - probably out of aforesaid relief that Johnny wasn't involved in one of those YOUTH GANG FINED FOR SHOP- LIFTING stories. Johnny had to find his way to his office. The recommended method was to tie one end of a piece of string to somewhere you knew and get your friends to come and look for you if you were away more than two days. He got a short speech about 'social awareness', and was out again a minute later.

He met the other three in the lunch break.

'Come on,' he said.

'Where to?'

'The cemetery. I think something's gone wrong.'

'I haven't had my lunch yet,' said Wobbler. 'It's very important for me to have regular meals. Otherwise my stomach acid plays up.'

'Oh, shut up.'

By the time they raced one another across the heart of Australia, they didn't even need the radio.

The dawn dragged its slow way across the Pacific after them, but they were running free.

'Do we ever need to stop?'

'No!'

'I always wanted to see the world before I died!'

'Well, then, it was just a matter of timing.'

'What time is it?'

'Midnight!'

The cemetery wasn't empty now. There were a

couple of photographers there, for one thing, in- cluding one from a Sunday newspaper. There was a film crew from Mid-Midlands Television. And the

dog-walking people had been joined by others, just walking around and looking.

In a neglected corner, Mrs Tachyon was in- dustriously Vim-ing a gravestone.

'Never seen so many people here,' said Johnny. He added, 'At least, ones who're breathing.'

Yo-less wandered over from where he'd been talking to a couple of enthusiastic people in woolly bobble hats, who were peering through the huge thicket behind Mrs Liberty's grave.

'They say we've not only got environment and ecology, but some habitat as well,' he said. 'They think they've seen a rare Scandinavian thrush.'

'Yeah, full of life, this place,' said Bigmac.

A Council lorry had driven a little way up the towpath. Some men in donkey jackets were har- vesting the old mattresses. The zombie television had already gone. Mr Grimm was nowhere to be seen, even by Johnny.

And a police car was parked just outside the gates. Sergeant Comely was working on the gen- eral assumption that where you got lots of people gathered together, something illegal was bound to happen sooner or later.

The cemetery was alive.

'They've gone,' said Johnny. 'I can feel them ... not here.'

The other three found that, quite by accident, they'd all moved closer together.

A rare Scandinavian thrush, unless it was a rook, cawed in the elms.

'Gone where?' said Wobbler.

'I don't know!'

'I knew it! I knew it!' said Wobbler. 'His eyes'11 start to glow any minute, you watch. You've let 'em out! There'll be lurchin' goin' on before this day's over, you wait and see!'

'Mr Grimm said that if they're away too long, they... they forget who they were ...' said Johnny, uncertainly.

'See? See?' said Wobbler. 'You laughed at me! Maybe they're OK when they're remembering who they were, but once they forget ...'

'Night of the Killer Zombies?' said Bigmac.

'We've been through all that,' said Johnny. 'They're not zombies!'

'Yeah, but maybe they've been eating voodoo fish and chips,' said Bigmac.

'They're just not here.'

'Then where are they?'

'I don't know\'

'And it's Halloween, too,' moaned Wobbler.

Johhny walked over to the fence around the old boot works. There were quite a few cars parked there. He could see the tall thin figure of Mr Atterbury, talking to a group of men in grey suits.

' I wanted to tell them,' he said.' I mean, we might win. Now. People are here. There's TV and every- thing. Last week it looked hopeless and now there's just a chance and last night I wanted to tell them and now they've gone! And this was their home!'

'Perhaps all these people have frightened them away,' said Yo-less.

'Day of the Living,' said Bigmac.

'I should have had my lunch!' said Wobbler. 'My stomach's definitely playing up!'

'They're probably waiting under your bed,' said Bigmac.

'I'm not scared,' said Wobbler. 'I've just got a stomach upset.'

'We ought to be getting back,' said Yo-less. 'I've got to do a project on projects.'

'What?' said Johnny.

'It's for Maths,' said Yo-less. 'How many people in the school are doing projects. That kind of stuff Statistics.'

'I'm going to look for them,' said Johnny.

'You'll get into trouble when they do the register.'

'I'll say I've been doing something ... social. That'll probably work. Anyone coming with me?'

Wobbler looked at his feet, or where his feet would be if Wobbler wasn't in the way.

'What about you, Bigmac? You've got your Everlasting Note, haven't you?'

'Yeah, but it's going a bit yellow now ...'

No-one knew when it had been written. Ru- mour had it that it had been handed down through the generations in Bigmac's family. It was in three pieces. But it generally worked. Although Bigmac kept tropical fish and generally out of trouble, there was something about the way he looked and the way he lived in the Joshua N'Clement block that