Fighting Pax

Eun-mi stared at the doctor incredulously.

“What is that?” she demanded, shaking her head in confusion at the shape that walked beside her. “What is it?”

“A wondrous beast from the true Realm,” the doctor answered. “It has come to guide you, to guide us all there. This is but a dream and we have tarried here too long. Nabi has seen the blessed truth, now you shall also.”

The doctor began reading the familiar opening paragraph of Dancing Jax.

“Oh, God,” Maggie uttered. “DJ’s here. It’s got her.”

“Don’t let her read to you!” Gerald shouted to the girl in the doorway. “Stop her!”

“Put book down!” Eun-mi ordered fiercely. “Down or I fire!”

The doctor ignored her and the guards and technicians joined in, their voices filling the corridor. Little Nabi added to the intoning chorus.

Maggie and the others looked at Eun-mi anxiously. How long could she hold out against the power of Austerly Fellows’ infernal words?

“Do not make me do this!” Eun-mi warned.

The chanting and the menacing advance of the hooves continued. Eun-mi closed one eye and fired the gun. The shot thundered throughout the corridor, followed by a weird, unearthly bellow that made every heart thump faster.

Unable to sit still any longer, Gerald leaped up and ran to the door. He had to see what was happening out there. Maggie tried to call him back, but the old man joined Eun-mi and gasped at what he saw. Another bestial cry trumpeted and the other refugees scrambled to the furthest corner of the refectory and hid beneath the tables. With her heart in her mouth, Maggie edged to the doorway.

Gerald was reaching down for one of the rifles. Eun-mi didn’t stop him. Peering past them, Maggie had to fight to stop herself screaming.

“The Ismus said Malinda’s wand wouldn’t work in this world,” she cried fretfully. “‘Just a pretty stick,’ he said.”

“Austerly Fellows and the truth don’t mix,” Gerald told her, grimly flicking up the safety catch as he took aim.

At that moment there came a roar of engines, and four military jeeps sped in from the main tunnel. Their headlights flooded the corridor with harsh light and General Chung Kang-dae jumped out, pistol at the ready. Yet the orders to his men died in his throat when he beheld the scene before him and he struggled to take it in.

There was Eun-mi, pointing a gun at her own people. The white-haired Englishman was next to her, an automatic rifle in his hands. Beyond them, in the line of fire, were his beloved six-year-old daughter, Doctor Choe Soo-jin and five base personnel. Had Eun-mi gone mad?

He was about to scream at her when another bellowing screech resounded and he finally realised what the strange shape next to the doctor actually was. At first he’d thought it was merely the peculiar skull on the stick, but now he realised it was more than that, much more.

Caught in the dazzle of the headlights, every shiny bone was gleaming. Vertebrae had replaced the stick.

“Kirin,” he whispered.

Behind him, the General’s men uttered cries of dismay when they too saw the unicorn’s complete skeleton pawing at the ground with dainty, bony hooves. The dark, empty sockets of the grinning skull angled round to gaze at them and the teeth champed together, causing the tuft of reddish beard still attached to the jaw to flick and swish.

Then it bellowed again.

Gerald opened fire.

The rifle sprayed light and noise. Eun-mi rushed to drag her sister to safety against the wall, swiping the dead Doggy-Long-Legs off her head with the back of her hand and wrapping her arms round her.

The horned skeleton reared, paddling the air with slender forelegs. The bullets bounced off the white bones like dried peas. Then it stamped and kicked and gave an unearthly scream as it charged. Gerald leaped aside, but he wasn’t quick enough. The unnatural creature crashed into him. The old man was flung into the air, as easily as one of Maggie’s stuffed toys, and hit his head on the concrete when he fell. The unicorn galloped over him, stampeding towards the General’s stupefied troops.

With its macabre head lowered, it rampaged into their midst. Screams and shots erupted as the unicorn slaughtered every soldier in its path. The single, tapering horn went slashing through the uniform of the People’s Army, impaling hearts and ripping out lungs.

The bravest tried to surround it. They wrenched at the exposed ribcage, shoving their rifles inside, using them as levers to try and snap it apart. But the ferocious skeleton was too strong for them. Its limbs lashed out and it spun round wildly. Moments later, those men were on the floor, their heads torn from their shoulders. Hooves kicked out and headlights smashed. The corridor collapsed back into gloom and Doctor Choe Soo-jin continued reading aloud.

The surviving soldiers drew away from the unicorn, retreating between the jeeps. It went stalking after them. Then, one by one, they dropped their weapons and began rocking backwards and forwards, their lips mumbling in time with the doctor’s. The skeleton tossed its blood-dripping head and tapped the ground as if applauding.

Standing in the centre of all this, General Chung stared around, aghast. He saw the dismembered bodies of his men and the nightmare apparition now dancing over them. He saw the entranced, smiling faces of the doctor and those with her. Then his dumbfounded gaze took in the old Englishman, lying deathly still, with Maggie crouched at his side, tearfully calling his name. Finally he saw Eun-mi, shielding her sister from the surrounding horrors.

Shakily, the General stepped towards them. His head was buzzing and felt light and giddy. A cold breath blew on the back of his neck and the corridor seemed to peel away, revealing the blue sky of a summer day where the towers of a white castle rose tall and majestic.

General Chung yelled in protest and he was in the corridor once more. The words of the book were burning inside his mind, consuming his will and strength. He clenched his teeth and swayed unsteadily. He had to fight it, he had to resist. He had to stop the destruction of everything he was, stop that overwhelming, leaching force.

Raising a quaking hand, he shot Doctor Choe Soo-jin through the head. She dropped like a stone. At once, and without blinking, one of the guards with her picked up the accursed book and continued reading from where she had left off.

Shafts of sunlight came breaking through the crackled paint of the ceiling. Birds were singing in the trees. The General’s shoulders sagged and his legs bowed. The infernal words were raging through his brain.

His thick eyebrows clashed and he snarled in agony. The torment of resisting was unbearable. Shrieking, he snatched up Gerald’s discarded rifle and emptied the magazine into the guards and technicians. He had to silence the words. He had to save the Republic from the contagion of this foul, Western disease.

Breathing hard, he let the AK-47 fall. But the words had not been silenced. A single voice was still reciting the opening passage from Dancing Jax.

Once more the paint flaked from above and sunlight came streaming in. He heard a lute playing and happy voices singing.

“No!” he raged.

The General threw off his hat and clawed his scalp. He would not be able to resist much longer. Desperate and driven half mad, he turned to that one remaining voice and raised his pistol to silence it.

Still held tightly in Eun-mi’s arms, Little Nabi’s glassy, doll-like eyes stared back at her father as she chanted Austerly Fellows’ bewitching words.

General Chung lurched forward and pressed the gun to her young forehead.

“Stop!” he ordered. “Stop!”

Eun-mi could not believe what he was doing.

“No, Father!” she begged.

“Stop!” he repeated when the six-year-old continued as if he was not there.

Terrified by his insane, murderous expression, Eun-mi covered her sister’s mouth and implored him to put the pistol down.

The General glared at her. There was a demented light in his eyes and she hardly recognised him. His nostrils quivered and he sniffed her suspiciously. Why was she not affected? Why was she still in control? Couldn’t she hear the songbirds? Couldn’t she feel the sunshine beating down? How could she stop her feet from skipping to the merry tune of the minstrels? All the other young maidens were cavorting on the green with their gallants. What was she? Why was she different?

“Ab… b… aberrant,” he stuttered thickly and he began to growl.

“Father!” Eun-mi wept.

“I am the Six of Clubs – head bowman of the outer wall!”

“No, Father! Come back to us!”

The sunlight dimmed and the man shivered. He moved the gun from Nabi’s head and put it against his own. This was the only escape for him.

“Don’t!” Eun-mi yelled.

Reaching out to him, her other hand slipped from Nabi’s mouth. The six-year-old instantly resumed spouting Dancing Jax.

General Chung’s face contorted. In an unhinged fury, he rounded on Nabi again. The barrel of the gun pushed against her temple and his finger closed over the trigger.

“Father!” Eun-mi screamed.

A single shot blasted out.

Cowering with terror and filled with despair, Maggie was nursing Gerald’s head in her lap. He was deathly pale and it was too dark to tell if he was breathing. With jittery fingers, she fumbled for a pulse, but couldn’t find one. The gunshot cut through her desolate sobbing and she turned to see General Chung Kang-dae slump lifeless to the floor. A thin wisp of smoke was rising from Eun-mi’s own pistol.

Eun-mi’s eyes were wet and sparkling, but she appeared frozen and unaware of what she had done. Then, slowly, she tilted her head and stared at the weapon in her hand. At that moment nothing else existed for her, just the gun and the painful scratch of her own voice as it tried to howl.

Nabi disentangled herself from her grasp and stepped casually over their father’s body.

“I am the Five of Spades,” she chirped dreamily. “I am naughty Posy, the Constable’s daughter. I spy on everyone in the castle and know all their secrets. Blessed be.”

The six-year-old retrieved the copy of Dancing Jax from the dead guard then strode past her trembling sister, to join the unicorn and the soldiers who were anxious to hear more of the sacred text. Little Nabi greeted them with a gurgling laugh. Cheering, they lifted her on to the skeleton’s back and she rode haughtily through the tunnels – towards the main concourse and the booth that housed the microphone for the tannoy system.

In the refectory, the other refugees finally dared to creep from under the tables and ventured to the doorway. With horrified faces, they looked out at the carnage in the corridor.

Maggie was huddled over Gerald, stroking his forehead – bereft and grieving.

“In fields where they lay,” she sang in a halting, tuneless whisper, “keeping their sheep. On a cold winter’s night that was so deep.”

The girl wiped her streaming eyes.

“Goodbye, Gerald,” she sniffled. “You’re safe now. Safe from DJ. Reckon I’ll be seeing you soon. We’ll have a merry Christmas then, won’t we, eh? Me, you, my Marcus and Charm. Give them my love and don’t start on those chocolate mincies till I get there. Promise me now.”

Throughout the mountain base the tannoy crackled into life and little Nabi’s voice began to read…

9

LEE WAS JOLTED AWAKE. His four guards were yelling and shaking him roughly. He looked up and found himself lying on the ground, with them standing over him. Their young faces were angry, fearful and wrought with panic. Shouting at him in Korean, they pulled on the chains attached to his wrists and forced him to sit upright.

“Quit that!” the boy barked at them, giving the chains a vicious tug back that almost wrenched the nearest guard off balance. “Give me a second to wake the hell up. I feel like crap.”

Ignoring their continued cries, he looked about. It was a deliciously warm afternoon and they were in a forest. All around them, the leaves were intense shades of gold, red and orange and the sky was an unbelievable blue. Beneath the branches, fallen chestnut casings were in abundance, split open – displaying cream-coloured flesh and the fattest, shiniest, chocolaty-brown fruits. A faint and delicate scent of sweet-smelling woodsmoke laced the air, combining with the damp must of rich, fertile earth. Early autumn in Mooncaster was a ravishing feast for the senses, just like every season here.

Lee felt nauseous. This time the crossing had been different. He still felt groggy and exhausted and bile burned the back of his throat. Remaining seated, he shifted around and saw that the trees stretched far into the distance in every direction. Whatever forest this was, they were deep in the middle of it. He had no idea exactly whereabouts in Mooncaster they were. There was no landmark in sight to help him.

“Don’t matter,” he told himself. “We ain’t hangin’ here longer than we have to.” But he wasn’t looking forward to the trip back if it was as rough as the journey getting here. His innards felt like they’d been put through a blender.

Looking up at the guards’ rifles, he hoped Gerald had removed the real versions from their sleeping selves back in North Korea and was making good use of them this very minute.

“Tough if he ain’t,” Lee said aloud. “Cos we is outta here.”

Rising to his feet, he tried to get the guards to calm down.

“Hey, Sporty!” he said, calling them by their Spice Girl nicknames. “Enough with the whinin’, and Scary, if you nudge me with that rifle butt one more time, I is gonna leave you here, I swear to God.”

The guards waved their arms and continued to shout.

“Yeah – yeah,” Lee said. “It’s mad, it’s off the hook, but stressin’ out and boohoos won’t do no good, ladies.”

Suddenly, close by, there was a furtive rustling. The guards leaped around in alarm and ‘Baby Spice’ opened fire. The autumnal peace erupted with a blizzard of bullets that went ripping through the undergrowth and a tree trunk splintered as lead hammered into it. A red squirrel fell from a branch and another half-dozen shots made it jump and twitch before the nervous guard realised what it was and ceased firing.

The others stared across at the thoroughly dead animal, then began to snigger in embarrassment. Their shared tension had been released and they gave Baby teasing punches on his arm.

Lee shook his head at them. “You all got that outta your systems now, yeah?” he asked warily. “That weren’t cool, you assholes. That furry bullet bag coulda had somethin’ to say – you have no idea what the zoo life is like round here. That coulda been anythin’. That was dumb, guys – real baseline dumb! Trigger-happy ain’t the word; trigger-hysterical is what you is. You need to frost up, right now, ’fore one of us gets capped the same way.”

The guards had no idea what he was saying. They pointed at the squirrel and laughed. It was the only time Lee had ever seen them display any jubilant emotion. Their relieved, joking chatter sounded weird in this place. One of them, the thinnest, and usually the surliest, was the first to become grave once more and lifted the chain that tethered him to Lee’s wrist. Then, with urgent gestures, he mimed the boy taking them away from here.

“You got it, Posh,” Lee agreed. “That’s what I is ’bout to do – take us back over that rainbow. This messed-up Oz has got enough crazy muthas in it already; it don’t need four more with guns, what don’t speak local.”

After several frustrating minutes in which he tried to indicate what he was going to do, he finally had them lined up on either side of him. They were on an overgrown forest path and, by scissoring his forefingers, managed to demonstrate that they were going to run along it a little way and wake up back in the medical room.

“In North Korea,” he said, nodding his head slowly. “DPRK – yeah? That crap heap, ass end of nowhere. We go back there, mkay?”

“Kay!” affirmed Scary and Posh Spice on his right.

“Kay!” chimed in Sporty and Baby on his left.

Lee took a moment to compose himself and crunched his neck muscles a few times. Glancing along the forest path, he reckoned they’d be back in the mountain base before they made it past three trees. What they’d find waiting for them back there, however, was an entirely different matter.

“You’d best be long gone when we get back, old man,” he muttered. “These ladies is burnin’ to shoot something bigger than squirrels.”

Closing his eyes, he tensed and then ran forward. The chains rattled and the four guards ran with him.

After passing at least ten trees, Lee slowed to a stop and took deep breaths as he gazed about, frowning. Why were they still here? What had he done wrong? He didn’t understand it.

The guards looked at one another uncertainly and voiced their confusion.

“I know, I know,” the boy said. “I got me no idea neither. We go again, yeah?”

“Kay!” they said in military unison.

Lee closed his eyes again and concentrated harder than before. He thought of the familiar room, with its monitors, wall mirror and hospital bed. That’s where he was going to find himself this time. No doubt about it.

With a grunt, he ran along the path, leading the eager guards.

When that attempt also failed, followed by a third, fourth and then a fifth, during which they’d held hands, the guards’ keen anticipation had gone and they had reverted to shouting at him angrily.

“We should be gone by now!” Lee declared, holding his hands up. “We should be back in that dump you call home. This is not my fault.”

Posh Spice had run out of patience and he turned his rifle on the boy, prodding him in the stomach to get this most basic threat across in no uncertain terms.

“Hey!” Lee yelled. “You do somethin’ crazy an’ there’s no way you’re gonna get back, stupid.”

The others seemed to agree with him and they shouted at Posh in Korean, pushing the barrel of the Kalashnikov away.

Posh railed back at them and Lee let them bawl at each other. He tried to work out what he was doing differently. There’d never been any trouble getting back to the real world. He had flitted in and out of this twisted place at will. Mind you, he’d never had to take four adults with him, but there hadn’t been a problem bringing them here in the first place.

“Yeah, but that weren’t down to me,” he told himself. “I was dragged here, like when I brought Spencer and Maggie back in the camp. Maybe I got me a two-person max limit?”

“Hey, ladies,” he called, interrupting their argument. “Let’s try this again, but different this time. Just two of you come with me. I’ll bounce straight back for the others, yeah?”

He tried to show them this new idea by pretending to remove one of the cuffs from his wrists and leaving with just two guards. The four men scowled at him, perplexed, as he repeated the actions again and again. It was Scary who grasped his meaning first and he rapidly explained it to the other three. The proposal was not met with joyous approval and they shouted at Lee louder than before. None of them wanted to be left here, even for a short while.

“Then we is stuck!” he told them fiercely. “I can’t think of no other way.”

Lee kicked the top off a toadstool that was growing at the side of the path. Perhaps he was just too damn tired. Maybe, if he gave it a bit more time, his mojo, or whatever it was that made him the Castle Creeper, would be back to full strength and there’d be no problem. He hoped that’s all it was.

“Listen up,” he announced. “We need a time out. I gotta park and recharge.”

But the guards wouldn’t let him sit down. They had got it into their heads that the only way to get home was to keep moving and he couldn’t make them understand that wasn’t how it worked. They were determined to march down the track and see where it led to. Chained to them the way he was, there was nothing Lee could do except be pulled along.

“This won’t get you no place,” he objected, trudging along unwillingly, “’cept mebbe dead. This neighbourhood is full of monsters you never dreamed of. We’re gonna end up toasted if you don’t stop – right now!”

They refused to listen. He had had his chance and failed. Seeking refuge in the familiar, they started singing ‘No Motherland Without You’, the signature song of Kim Jong-il, at the top of their voices in Korean.

“You pushed away the severe storm.

You made us believe, General Kim Jong-il.

We cannot live without you.

Our country cannot exist without you!”

They marched as if they were on parade and Lee groaned. He hadn’t realised just how accurate he had been, referring to this place as a messed-up Oz. Here they were, prancing through the forest, singing and looking for a way home. All they lacked was a yellow brick road. Even their number tallied with the characters in that old movie.

“As long as I’m the dog,” the boy grumbled. “No way am I one of them other suckers. Woah, am I glad no one I know can see me right now.”

When the guards had finished that song, they began another. It bolstered their confidence in this strange place, but Lee’s unease mounted. Whatever lived in this wooded corner of Mooncaster was more than aware of their presence. He was sure they were being watched, but by what?

The third stirring, patriotic song came to an end. The North Koreans were in a better humour and they debated what to sing next. Scary Spice turned to Lee and invited him to start one, signalling that they would join in. The boy shook his head in disbelief.

“You yankin’ me?” he cried. “Ain’t no way…”

Then, in spite of their predicament, or maybe because of it, he was struck by a sudden notion and a slow, mischievous grin spread across his face. He wondered if he could remember the words…

Presently he was leading the guards in an excruciating, out-of-tune rendition of the old Spice Girls song, ‘Wannabe’.

“You wann be ma lovah, you got get wi’ ma frenn,” the guards sang heroically, repeating what he had taught them, but not understanding any of the words. “I wann-ah, I wann-ah, I really really really wann-ah zig ah zig hah!”

Lee was in creases. He couldn’t believe he had got them to do it. It was so surreal and he wished Maggie had been able to share this; she would have got such a kick out of it, seeing them march in their uniforms, mangling those lyrics. No one would ever take his word for it. But then he probably would never see any of the other refugees again. For all he knew, they might be dead by now. Gerald’s pathetic escape plan never had a chance.

“Hell,” he hissed, pushing that thought away and returning his attention to the guards. “This makes me Geri, don’t it? Man, that blows!”

The meandering path gradually began to take a steady downward course as the land dipped into a valley. Lee guessed they were skirting round one of the thirteen hills, but he was completely lost. Along the edge of the track, the toadstools now grew in dense clusters. They were large and ugly, with greyish-brown, leathery caps, dotted with pale spots, and, as the terrain sank lower, the toadstools grew taller.

A glimmer of recognition sparked in the back of Lee’s mind. He was sure he had read about this in Austerly Fellows’ book. This exact place was mentioned – but he couldn’t recall why or what happened here.

“Where is you when I needs you, Sheriff Woody?” he muttered, knowing that Spencer would have remembered without hesitation. Geeks really had their uses. But Spencer was probably lying face down on the mountainside back in the real world, his body peppered with bullet holes. Lee ground his teeth together. There was nothing he could have done to stop that. He just had to keep focused on what he wanted.

Some of the toadstools were as high as his waist now. Up ahead, they loomed over the pathway. The afternoon was slipping into evening and, beneath the trees, the shadows deepened.