Terry Pratchett - Johnny And The Dead

Wobbler tapped Johnny on the shoulder.

'You knew something was going to happen,' he said.

'Yes. Don't know how.'

They watched the policemen peer into Mr Atterbury's car for a moment.

'He's reading my huff,' said Wobbler. 'That was lateral thinking, that was.'

Then Comely went back to the police car. They heard him speaking into the radio.

'No! I say again. That's H for Hirsute, W for Wagner - Wagner! Wagner! No! W as in Westphalia, A for Aardvark—'

Mr Atterbury appeared from the direction of the bulldozer, waving a pair of pliers.

'I don't think it's going to move again tonight,' he said.

'What's going to happen?' said Johnny.

'Not sure. We can probably trace the van. I think I've persuaded Sergeant Comely that we ought to deal with this quietly, for now. He '11 take statements from you, though. That might be enough.'

'Were they from United Consolidated?'

The old man shrugged.

'Perhaps someone thought everything might be a lot simpler if the cemetery wasn't worth saving,' he said. 'Perhaps a couple of likely lads were slipped a handful of notes to do ... er ... a Halloween prank—'

There was a burst of noise from the police radio.

'We've stopped a van on the East Slate Road,' the sergeant called out. 'Sounds like our lads.'

'Well Done, Said PC Plonk,' said Yo-less, in a hollow voice. 'You Have Captured The Whole Gang! Good Work, Fumbling Four! And They All Went Home For Tea And Cakes.'

'It would help if you'd come along to the police station, Bigmac,' said Mr Atterbury.

'No way!'

'I'll come along with you. And one of your friends could come, too.'

'It'd really help,' said Johnny.

'I'll go with you,' said Yo-less.

'And then,' said Mr Atterbury, 'I'm going to take considerable pleasure in ringing up the chairman of United Consolidated. Considerable pleasure.'

It was ten minutes later. Bigmac had gone to the police station, accompanied by Yo-less and Mr Atterbury and an assurance that he wasn't going to be asked any questions about certain other minor matters relating to things like cars not being where the owners had expected them to be, and other things of that nature.

The sodium lights of Blackbury glowed in the fog, which was thinning out a bit now. They made the darkness beyond the carpet warehouse a lot deeper and much darker.

'Well, that's it, then,' said Wobbler. 'Game over. Let's go home.'

The fog was being torn apart by the wind. It was even possible to see the moon through the flying streamers.

'Come on,' he repeated.

'It's still not right,' said Johnny. 'It can't end like this.'

'Best ending,' said Wobbler. 'Just like Yo-less

said. Nasty men foiled. Kids save the day. Everyone gets a bun.'

The abandoned bulldozer seemed a lot bigger in this pale light.

The air had a fizz to it.

'Something's going to happen,' said Johnny, run- ning towards the cemetery.

'Now, look—'

'Come on!'

'No! Not in there!'

Johnny turned around.

'And you're pretending to be a vampire?'

'But—'

'Come on, the railings have been knocked down.'

'But it's nearly midnight! And there's dead people in there!'

'Well? We're all dead, sooner or later.'

'Yeah, but me, I'd like it to be later, thank you!'

Johnny could feel it all around him — a squashed feel to things, like the air gets before a thunder- storm. It cracked off the buckled gravestones and tingled on the dusty shrubberies.

The fog was pouring away now, as if it was trying to escape from something. The moon shone out of a damp blue-black sky, casting darker shadows on the ground.

North Drive and East Way ... they were still there, but they didn't look

the same now. They be- longed somewhere else — somewhere where people didn't take the roads of the dead and give them the names of the streets of the living ...

'Wobbler?' said Johnny, without looking around.

'Yeah?'

'You there?'

'Yeah.'

'Thanks.'

He could feel something lifting off him, like a heavy blanket. He was amazed his feet still touched the ground.

He ran along North Drive, to the little area where all the dead roads met.

There was someone already there.

She spun around with her arms out and her eyes blissfully shut, the gravel crunching under her feet, the moonlight glinting off her ancient hat. All alone, twirling and twirling, Mrs Tachyon danced in the night.

Not all alone ...

The air sparkled. Glowing lines, blue as elec- tricity, thin as smoke, poured out of the clear sky. Where they touched the fingers of the danc- ing woman they stretched out and broke, then re-formed.

They crawled over the grass. They whirred through the air. The whole cemetery was alive with pale blue comets.

Alive ...

Mrs Tachyon's feet were off the ground.

Johnny looked at his own fingers. There was a blue glow crackling over his right hand, like St Elmo's Fire. It sparkled as he waved it towards the stars and felt his feet leave the gravel path.

' Ooowwwwwah!'

The lights spun him around and let him drift gently back down.

'Who are you?'

A line of fire screamed across the night and then exploded. Sparks flew out and traced lines in the air, which took on, as though it was outlined in neon, a familiar shape.

'Well, until tonight,' it said, blue fire sizzling in his beard, 'I thought I was William Stickers. Watch this!'

Blue glows arched over the gravestones again and clustered around the dark bulk of the bulldozer, flowing across it so that it glowed.

The engine started.

There was a clash of gears.

It moved forward. The railings clanged and cart- wheeled away. The brick wall crumbled.

Lights orbited around the bulldozed as it ploughed onward.

'Hey! Stop!'

Metal groaned. The engine note dropped to a dull, insistent throbbing.

The lights turned to look at Johnny. He could feel their attention.

'What are you doing'?'

A light burst into a glittering diagram of the Alderman.

'Isn't this what people wanted?' he said. 'We don't need it any more. So if anyone's going to do it, it should be us. That's only right.'

'But you said this was your place!' said Johnny.

Mrs Sylvia Liberty outlined herself in the air.

'We have left Nothing there,' she said, 'of any Importance.'

'Force of habit,' said William Stickers, 'is what has subjugated the working man for too long. I was right about that, anyway.'

'The_ disgusting bolshevik, although he needs a shave, is Quite correct,' said Mrs Liberty. And then she laughed. 'It seems to me we've spent Far too long moping around because of what we're not, without any Consideration of what we might be.'

'Chronologically gifted,' said Mr Einstein, crack- ling into existence.

'Dimensionally advantaged,' said Mr Fletcher, sparkling like a flashbulb.

'Bodily unencumbered,' said the Alderman.

'Into Extra Time,' said Stanley Roundway.

'Enhanced,' said Mr Vicenti.

'We had to find it out,' said Mr Fletcher. 'You have to find it out. You have to forget who you were. That's the first step. And stop being frightened of old ghosts. Then you've got room to find out what you are. What you can be.'

'So we're off,' said the Alderman.

'Where to?'

'We don't know. It iss going to be very inter- esting to find out,' said Solomon Einstein.

'But ... but ... we've saved the cemetery!' said Johnny. 'We had a meeting! And Bigmac ... and I spoke up and ... there's been things on the television and people have really been talking about this place! No-one's going to build any- thing on it! There's been birdwatchers here and

everything! Turn the machine off! We've saved the cemetery.'

'But we don't need it any more,' said the Alderman.