Terry Pratchett - Johnny And The Dead

'Don't be daft.'

'It's Halloween!'

' So what? You 're dressed up as Dracula - what 're you worried about!'

'I'm not going past there tonight!'

'It's no different than going past during the day.'

'All right, it's the same, but I'm different!'

' Scared?' said Bigmac.

'What? Me? Scared? Huh? Me? I'm not scared.'

'Actually, it is a bit risky,' said Baron Yo-less.

'Yes, risky,' said Wobbler hurriedly.

'I mean, you never know,' said Yo-less.

'Never know,' Wobbler echoed.

'Look, it's a street in our town. There's lights and a phone box and everything,' said Johnny. 'I just... I won't be happy until I've checked, OK? Anyway, there's four of us, after all.'

'That just means something bad can happen four times,' said Wobbler.

But they'd been walking as they talked; now the little light in the phone box loomed in the fog like a blurred star.

The other three went quiet. The fog hushed all sounds.

Johnny listened. There wasn'vt even that blotting- paper silence that the dead made.

'See?' he whispered. 'I said—'

Someone coughed, a long way off. All four boys suddenly tried to occupy the same spot.

'Dead people don't cough!' hissed Johnny.

'Then someone's in the cemetery!' said Yo-less.

'Body snatchers!' said Wobbler.

'Burke 'n Head!' said Bigmac.

'I've read about this in the papers!' whispered Wobbler. 'People digging up graves for satanic rites!'

'Shutup!' said Johnny. They sagged. 'Sounded to me like it came from the old boot factory,' he said.

'But it's the middle of the night,' said Yo-less.

They crept forward. There was a dim shape pulled on to the pavement where the streetlights barely shone.

'It's a van,' said Johnny. 'There. Count Dracula never drove a van.'

Bigmac tried to grin. 'Unless he was a Vanpire—'

There was a metallic clink somewhere in the fog.

'Wobbler?' said Johnny, in what he hoped was a calm voice.

'Yes?'

'You said you were going to run. Go round to Mr Atterbury's house right now and tell him to come here.'

'What? By myself?'

'You'll run faster if you're by yourself.'

'Right!'

Wobbler gave them a frightened look and vanished.

'What, exactly, are we doing?' said Yo-less, as the other three peered into the fog.

There was no mistaking the noise this time. It was wrapped about with fog, but it was definitely the sound of a big diesel engine starting up.

'Someone's nicking a bulldozer!' said Bigmac.

'I wish that's what they were doing,' said Johnny, 'but I don't think they are. Come on, will you?'

'Listen, if someone's driving a bulldozer without lights in the fog, I'm not hanging around!' said Yo-less.

Lights came on, fifty metres away. They didn't show much. They just lit up two cones of fog.

'Is that better?' said Johnny.

'No.'

The lights ground forward. The machine was bumping towards the cemetery railings. Old buddleia bushes and dead stinging nettles

smashed under the treads, and there was a clang as the blade hit the low wall.

Johnny ran alongside the machine and shouted, 'Oi!'

The engine stopped.

'Run away!' hissed Johnny to Yo-less. 'Go on! Tell someone what's happening!'

A man unfolded himself from the cab and jumped down. He advanced towards the boys, waving a finger.

'You kids,' he said, 'are in real trouble.'

Johnny backed away, and someone grabbed his shoulders.

'You heard the man,' said a voice by his ear. 'It's your fault, this. So you'd better not have seen anything, right? Because we know where you live— Oh, no you don't.' A hand shot out and grabbed Yo-less as he tried to back away.

'Know what I think?' said the man who had been driving the bulldozer. 7 think it's lucky we happened to be passing and found 'em messing around, eh? Shame they'd driven it right through the place already, eh? Kids today, eh?'

A half-brick sailed past Johnny's face and hit the man beside him on the shoulder.

'What the—'

Til smash your **** head in! I'll smash your **** head in!'

Bigmac emerged from the fog. He looked ter- rifying. He reached beside him, yanked a railing from the broken wall and started to whirl it round his head as he advanced.

'You what? You what? You what? I'm MENTAL, me!'

Then he started to run forward.

'Aaaaaaamrrr—'

And it dawned on all four people at once that he wasn't going to stop.

Bigmac bounded over the rubble, an enraged skin- head skeleton.

'Get him!'

'You get him!'

The railing smacked into the side of the bull- dozer, and Bigmac leapt.

Even fighting mad, he was still Bigmac, and the driver was a large man. But what Bigmac had going for him was that he was, just for a few seconds, unstoppable. If the man had managed to get one good punch in that would have been it, but there seemed to be too many arms and legs in the way, and also Bigmac was trying to bite his ear.

Even so—

But a pair of headlights appeared near the gate and started to bounce up and down in a way that suggested a car being driven at high speed across rough ground.

The man holding Johnny let go and vanished into the fog. The other one thumped Bigmac hard in the stomach and followed him.

The car skidded to a halt and a fat vampire leapt out, shouting 'Make my night, make my night!'

Mr Atterbury unfolded himself a little more sedately from the driver's seat.

'It's all right, they're gone,' said Johnny. 'We'll never find them in this fog.'

There was the sound of an engine starting some- where in the distance, and then wheels skidded out on to the unseen road.

'But I got the number!' shouted Wobbler, hop- ping from foot to foot.' I dint have a pen so I huffed on the window and wrote it in the huff!'

'They were going to drive the bulldozer into the cemetery!' said Yo-less.

'Right in the huff, look!'

'Dear me, I expect a bit more than this of United Consolidated,' said Mr Atterbury. 'Hadn't we better see to your friend?'

Bigmac was kneeling on the ground, making small 'oof, oof noises.

'I'll have to keep huffing on it to keep them there, mind!'

'You all right, Bigmac?'

They knelt down beside him. He was wheezing with his asthma.

'I ... I really frightened him ... yeah?' he managed.

'Right, right,' said Johnny. 'Come on, we'll give you a hand up ..."

'I jus' saw them there—'

'How do you feel?'

'Jus' winded.'

'Hang on, I've got to go and huff on it again—'

'Help him into the car.'

"S'all right—'

'I'll drive him to the hospital, just in case.'

'No!'

Bigmac pushed them away, and rose unsteadily to his feet.

' 'm all right,' he said. 'Tough as old boots, me.'

Red and blue lights bloomed in the fog and a police siren dee-dahed once or twice and then stopped out of embarrassment.

'Ah,' said Mr Atterbury. 'I rather think my wife got a bit excited about things and phoned the police. Er... Bigmac, isn't it? Would you recognize those men if you saw them again?'

'Sure. One of 'em's got teethmarks in his ear.' Bigmac suddenly had the hunted look of one who has never quite seen eye to eye with the constabulary. 'But I ain't going in any police station. No way.'

Mr Atterbury straightened up as the police car crunched to a halt.

'I think it might be a good idea if I do most of the talking,' he said, when Sergeant Comely stepped out into the night. 'Ah, Ray,' he said. 'Glad you could drop by. Can I have a word?'

The boys stood in a huddle, watching as the men walked over to the bulldozer, and then in- spected the remains of the wall.

'We're going to be in trouble,' said Bigmac. 'Old Comely's probably going to do me for ear-biting. Or pinching the bulldozer. You wait.'