Terry Pratchett - Johnny And The Dead

A skeleton opened the door. 'It's me, Johnny.'

'It's me, Bigmac. What're you, a gay ghost?' 'It's not that pink.' 'The flowers are good.'

'Come on, let me in, it's freezing out here.'

'Can you float and mince at the same time?'

'Bigmac!'

'Come on, then.'

Somehow, it looked as if Wobbler hadn't really put his heart into the decorations. There were a few streamers and some rubber spiders around the place, and a bowl of the dreadful punch you always get in these circumstances (the one with the brownish bits of orange in it) and bowls full of nibbles with names like Curly-Wigglies. And a vegetable marrow that looked as though it had walked into a combine harvester.

'It was sposed to be a Jack-o'-Lantern,' Wobbler kept telling everyone,

'but I couldn't find a pumpkin.'

'Met Hannibal Lecter in a dark alley, did it?' said Yo-less.

'The plastic bats are good, aren't they,' said Wobbler. 'They cost fifty-pence each. Have some more punch?'

There were other people there, too, although in the semi-darkness it was hard to make out who they thought they were. There was someone with a lot of stitches and a bolt through his neck, but that was only Nodj, who looked like that anyway. There were a bunch from Wobbler's computer group, who could get drunk on non-alcoholic alcohol and would then stagger around saying things like, 'I'm totally mad\' There were a couple of girls Wobbler vaguely knew. It was that sort of party. You just knew someone would put something daft in the

punch, and everyone would talk about school, and one of the girls' dads'd turn up at eleven o'clock and hang around looking determined and put a damper on things, as if they weren't soaking wet already.

'We could play a game,' said Bigmac.

'Not Dead Man's Hand,' said Wobbler. 'Not after last year. You're supposed to pass around grapes and stuff, not just anything you find in the fridge.'

'It wasn't what it was' said one of the girls. 'It was what he said it was.'

'All right,' said Johnny to Yo-less, 'I've been trying to work it out. Who are yew?'

Yo-less had covered half his face with white make-up. He wasn't wearing a shirt, just his or- dinary string vest, but he'd found a piece of fake leopard-skin-pattern material which he'd draped over his shoulders. And he had a black hat.

'Baron Samedi, the voodoo god,' said Yo-less. 'I got the idea out of James Bond.'

'That's racial stereotyping,' someone said.

'No, it's not,' said Yo-less. 'Not if I'm doing it.'

'I'm pretty sure Baron Samedi didn't wear a bowler hat,' said Johnny. 'I'm pretty sure it was a top hat. A bowler hat makes you look a bit like you're going to an office somewhere.'

'I can't help it, it was all I could get.'

'Maybe he's Baron Samedi, the voodoo god of chartered accountancy,' said Wobbler.

For a moment Johnny thought of Mr Grimm; his face was all one colour, but he looked like a

voodoo god of chartered accountancy if ever there was one.

'In the film he was all mixed up with tarot cards and stuff,' said Bigmac.

'Not really,' said Johnny, waking up. 'Tarot cards are European occult. Voodoo is African occult.'

'Don't be daft, it's American,' said Wobbler.

'No, American occult is Elvis Presley not being dead and that sort of thing,' said Yo-less. 'Voodoo is basically West African with a bit of Christian influence. I looked it up.'

'I've got some ordinary cards,' said Wobbler.

'No messing around with cards,' said Baron Yo- less severely. 'My mum'd go spare.'

'What about the thing with the letters and glasses?'

'The postman?'

'You know what I mean.'

'No. That could lead to dark forces taking over,' said Baron Yo-less. 'It's as bad as ouija boards.'

Someone put on a tape and started to dance.

Johnny stared into his glass of horrible punch. There was an orange pip floating in it.

Cards and boards, he thought. And the dead. That's not dark forces. Making a fuss about cards and heavy metal and going on about Dungeons and Dragons

stuff because it's got demon gods in it is like guarding the door when it is really coming up through the floorboards. Real dark forces... aren't dark. They're sort of grey, like Mr Grimm. They take all the colour out of life; they take a town like Blackbury and turn it into frightened streets and

plastic signs and Bright New Futures and towers where no-one wants to live and no-one really does live. The dead seem more alive than us. And every- one becomes grey and turns into numbers and then, somewhere, someone starts to do arithmetic ...

The Demon God Yoth-Ziggurat might want to chop your soul up into little pieces, but at least he doesn't tell you that you haven't got one.

And at least you've got half a chance of finding a magic sword.

He kept thinking about Mr Grimm. Even the dead kept away from him.

He woke up to hear Wobbler say, 'We could go Trick or Treating.'

'My mother says that's no better than begging,' said Yo-less.

'Hah, it's worse than that around Joshua N'Clement,' said Bigmac. 'It's called, "Giss five quid or kiss your tyres night-night".'

'We could do it around here,' said Wobbler. 'Or we could go down the mall.'

'That'll just be full of kids in costume running around screaming.'

'A few more won't hurt, then,' said Johnny.

'All right, then, everybody,' Wobbler said. 'Come on ...'

In fact Neil Armstrong Mall was full of all the other people who'd run out of ideas at Halloween parties. They wandered around in groups look- ing at one another's clothes and talking, which was pretty much what people did normally in

any case, except that tonight the mall looked like Transylvania on late-shopping night.

Zombies lurched under the sodium lights. Witches walked around in groups and giggled at the boys. Grinning pumpkins bobbed on the escalators. Vampires gibbered among the sad indoor trees, and kept fumbling their false fangs back in. Mrs Tachyon rummaged for tins in the litter bins.

Johnny's pink ghost outfit caused a lot of interest.

'Seen any dead around lately?' said Baron Yo- less, when Wobbler and Bigmac had gone off to buy some snacks.

'Hundreds,' said Johnny.

'You know what I mean.'

'No. Not them.'

'I'm worried something may have happened to them.'

'They're dead. If they exist, that is,' said Yo-less. 'It's not as though they could get run over or something. If you've saved their cemetery for them, they probably just aren't bothering to talk to you any more. That's probably what it is. I think—'

'Anyone want a raspberry snake?' said Wobbler, rustling a large paper bag. 'The skulls are good, too.'

'I'm going home,' said Johnny. 'There's some- thing wrong, and I don't know what it is.'

A ten-year-old Bride of Dracula flapped past.

'I've got to admit, this isn't big fun,' said Wobbler. 'Tell you what ... there's Night of the Vampire Nerds on TV. We could go and watch that.'

'What about everyone else?' said Bigmac. The rest of the party had drifted off.

'Oh, well, they know where I live,' said Wobbler philosophically, as a blood-streaked ghoul went by eating an ice cream.

'I don't believe in vampire nerds,' said Bigmac, as they stepped into the night air. It was a lot colder now, and the mist was coming back.

'Oh, I dunno,' said Wobbler. 'It's the sort we'd have round here.'

'They'd suck fruit juice,' said Yo-less.

'Their mum'd make them go to bed late,' said Bigmac, but they had to think about that.

'Why are we going this way?' said Wobbler. 'This isn't the way back.'

'It's foggy, too,' said Bigmac.

'It's just the mist off the canal,' said Johnny.

Wobbler stopped.

'Oh, no,' he said.

'It's quicker this way,' said Johnny.

'Oh, yes. Quicker. Oh, yes. Because I'm gonna raw!'