The Hangry games; part eight

To whom do the two cannon shots belong? Niamh, Sean, Anna and Anghphu have all fallen to the bottomf a ravine where rapid waters are running. Find out who will lie in this weeks installment.

                “-tery” A ghost in the Northern Sea was finishing a desperate sentance to a friend in danger.

                It turns out that in the wonder and mystery of the afterlife phones still run out of electricity. That poor ghost at sea stared at the screen, holding a heavy package of melancholy in his chest.

The spirit turned back to the book he had with him and tried to find something useful to learn.

 

When souls are lost at sea they must remain,

To roam the wicked worldly waves of pain

At sweet water sea souls must swiftly halt,

For they are the members of Neptune's cult

Forever and always bound to the salt.

 

                His name was Bob and he bobbed in the water as he read these words carefully. He was meticulous because he had misunderstood some instructions earlier in the Book of Death. Specifically, the one about illusions. “Controlling illusions is easy as it seems, like controlling ambitions or marshalling dreams.” He had done a test run and found that he could see through the eyes of his image. Even better, he could send the illusion inland to a freshwater river that drained the island of water.

                It felt like a stroke of genius when he’d sent an illusion to the aid of his friends. It quickly turned into a nightmare though; he found he couldn’t help himself from luring his friend Angphu into the water. He didn’t even know if Anghu was alive. He didn’t know anything at all about his friends.

                He was completely alone in the sea.

                His new plan was simpler though. All he had to do was wait on the changing of the tide and the river would be flooded with salt-water so he could go and see his friends.

                Then he would not so very feel alone. For a little while.

* 

               At the bottom of a steep incline three adult bodies were lying prone while a small child bounced around inside a spherical shield. Groaning, two of the adults appeared to wake.

                “Is everybody okay?” Seamus asked the other two.

                “I’m okay.” His girlfriend Niamh replied while sitting up. “Anna, are you okay?”

                They crawled painfully to Anna who had not sat up or replied. Anna was not awake. Nor did she appear to be breathing.

                They couldn’t really know why Anna was gone. Perhaps the helmet that was clamped to her head by a bullet dent had broken something important on the way down. Perhaps the brain could no longer cope with the stress of the fatigue and the bullet wounds. Maybe falling eight feet onto patch of sea weed isn’t as healthy as it sounds. In all events there was no breath fogging the shiny surface of Niamh’s armour when she held her wrist in front of her friend’s face.

                Niamh sat down and wept.

                Seamus held her consolingly as she tried to comprehend that she lived in a world where she could not sit down and chat with her friend who was witty and wise.

 *

                Five ghosts gathered around the body of Angphu. He had fallen with his armour on straight into the water and had been unconscious when he needed to save himself. The river within the ravine he had plummeted into had deposited his broken remains on a small sandy inlet. It had been flowing towards the sea but Alicia had become incredibly angry at the thought of her friend being claimed by that vast and uncaring graveyard. She had pushed his body onto the sand with a wave of the bloody stump were her hand used to be.

                It was now a place of mourning, ten departed eyes looking upon an object that was so still and empty that they could not begin to imagine it had once been the energetic man they had known and loved. It almost looked like a pillar of light fell upon him from above, like a fallen saint illuminated by a break in the cloud.

                “Well this is depressing.” Dave said in a very matter of fact tone of voice.

                “Let’s look on the bright side,” said the pragmatic Oscar. “His spirit has got to be out there somewhere.”

                They all sighed. This should be good news but finding Angphu only felt like more hard work. Life is after all a never-ending chorus of chores. It weighs heavily on the soul when you realise the afterlife is only more of the same.

                “Right, where should we look?”

                “Well, where did we appear?”

                “I don’t know, it seemed to be random.”

                “I can’t really remember you know, like in a dream?”

                “Okay. We’ve all got phones.” Dave took charge once again. “Let’s spread out, and as soon as we find someone, we can use this cave as a meeting point. Sound good?”

“Screw Angphu, let’s look for Nabila.” Tan interjected.

“Yeah. What she said” Tan-the-Man agreed. “But without screwing Angphu”

“Okay, let’s split up and use this cave as a meeting point once we’ve finished looking for Nabila, okay?”

No one could see any objections to this suggestion. After all, no one really understood how phone batteries work in the afterlife.

                “I’ll call Bob, tell him the plan.” Tan-the-Man dialled out and got nothing. “Oh.”

                “What?”

                “I’m just getting through to his voicemail. Which either means that there is no signal where he is, or he’s switched off his mobile.”

                “Bob would never switch his phone off.”

                “Guys,” Tan was looking in the corner of her mobile screen. “The battery life on this thing has changed. It’s gone down!”

                Now everyone started to freak out for real. 

                “That’s strange, mine shows the symbol for charging.” Dave looked thoughtfully at his screen while everyone panicked. “No wait, it’s stopped... started again... what’s going on here?”

                Everyone clustered around Dave who was the closest to Angphu’s body. Their phones started charging too. They all glanced at the fallen friend, with the beam of light resting on him.

                “What the…”

                “Where is that light coming from?”

                Everyone looked up directly underneath the hole. The sky could be seen.

                “How did that hole form?”

                Oscar had a theory.

                “Alicia, can you move the body to one side?”

                “I don’t know.” She looked at Angohu’s corpse doubtfully. “It’s not really something I can control.”

                “You’re probably right,” Tan-the-Man chipped in helpfully. “I doubt you’re capable of something like that.”

                Irritated, she shoved the body to one side with a subconscious gesture.

                “Nicely done, poltergeist.” Tan-the-Man grinned.

                Under the body and half buried in the sand were lumpy blobs of rock. There were no geologists among the ghosts but it after half an hour or so of discussion they came to form a theory. They just so happened to be correct so I am happy to share it here.

                When they were on a rocky ledge they were attacked by animated statues. These aggressors had attacked them with some form of power. The hypothesis posited that the stone from which the foes were carved had been melted into magma and once it had been fired from the statues those things could no longer mover. The power was spent, meaning the magic had to came from the rocks themselves.

                The molten rock had then eaten its way down through the ledge and dropped onto the sand where it was cool enough to rest. That Angphu’s body had ended up on top of it could have been a coincidence. They were all afraid though, when the rock was molten it had pulled them all towards it. In hindsight it had clearly been a cunning trap. It had forced them to jump into the gravity that the temple of The Evil one possessed while Angphu needed to be in there to breath real air while volcanic interactions turned the air into toxic smoke.

                Now it was charging the batteries of the phones. Like metal charged with static energy it had something still to give.

                “Do we really want to charge our phone’s this way?” Tan-the-Man looked trepid.

                “In all the films and stories, I’ve experienced,” Oscar mused. “Anything you use from hell comes with a price.”

                This theory happened to be kind of correct but sort of wrong. The phone charging was a freebie, a side effect of spent power just lying around. 

                “Right.” Dave said after they had all wrongly decided they were in danger. “Let’s split up and meet back here in a couple of hours or so.”

                “You want to meet up by the scary magic hell rock?” Tan-the-man raised his eyebrows in a manner that suggested he was not on board with the plan.

                Another half an hour was wasted choosing a meeting point. Then they all decided that they didn’t want to split up (a decision that took an impressive twenty minutes to arrive at).

                The ghost squad moved out. The plan had been to cross the river, however it seemed that the ghosts could not cross running water.

                It is a shame that they could not. Just around the river bend from them were three and a half friends. Admittedly one of them was a dead body in the shape of Anna but still, the sight of friends is comforting.

*

                “What do we do now?” Seamus asked Niamh.

                Niamh wanted to sit a while longer and hold Anna’s cold hand. She wasn’t really in the mood to discuss planning. Seamus had a look around them to try and work out a plan.

                Eight feet above them was the ledge they had fallen from. Far above that the sky was visible. There was no way up. His next observation was a more concerning one.

                “Niamh,” Seamus said quietly.

                “Yes?” She wasn’t really listening. She was thinking about if she should braid Niamh’s hair.

                “I think you should take your armour off.”

                “Why?” She was thinking perhaps she should cover Anna in flowers like Katniss and Rue from the Hunger games?

                 “Look.” Seamus pointed at the rock-face.

                She looked at the point where the rock turned from green to brown six feet about them but she didn’t really think about it.

                “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

                “I think that’s the watermark.”

                “Watermark?”

                “Get your armour off. The tide’s coming in.”

                If you think wrenching and squeezing your way into a suit of armour that is actually a seamless body piece for a robot is easy, you’re wrong. If you believe that climbing out of it in a state of panic when the tides coming in is effortless then you might as well make yourself a dunce’s cap and find a corner to stand in.

                The tide was at her ankles when she had her shoes and shin pads off. The arms and gauntlets came off when the tide was lapping at her shins. The torso piece was the real nightmare though. To get it on she had laid it on the ground and wiggled in. This was no longer an option though, addicted as she was to oxygen. She was also rather fussy about getting her hair and face covered in the salty water of the river.

                They managed it though.

                “Does Nabila know how to swim?”

*

                Bob was getting bored. No phone, no friends and no fencing fun. Flicking through the Book of Death was losing its appeal as well. Staring aimlessly at the empty sea is also dull.

                Unless of course there is a large and mysterious vessel directly behind you, like a tarantula waiting at the edge of its thread.

                When he saw it, it frightened the death out of him. He had been gazing in the other direction at the river mouth for half an hour or so, lost in thought. The boat was sleek and black. It was incredibly long and wide enough for at least three lanes of traffic.  A few birds were covered gathered on the deck but they did not have much flat space. Most of the ship was a dome shaped.

                “Submarine.” Bob found himself saying out loud. The Book of Death told him that he could not board the vessel unless invited. He wasn’t in the mood to tap menacingly on the sides metal hull. Apparently, he could drag the entire thing towards rocks or dangerous places though.

                That sounded like good fun. Especially if the submarine belonged to SufoenO. He approached, in an eerie smoky kind of way (he’d been practising his ghostly movements. As I said before he was rather bored).

                Strapped to the exterior of the sub was a metal box. The label on box read “lifeboat.” A thoughtful look came upon Bob’s face. It was rather similar to the look on the face of a serial killer in a film.

                Stealing lifeboats and leaving lost souls to perish in a watery grave does require a certain amount of forethought.

*

                The ghost squad were currently passing through rock, in the hope of finding a way out.

                It’s a tricky business, moving through rock. Can’t see anything. That’s the problem.

                “I suppose this what it feels like to be a badger inside his set.”

                “I wish it wasn’t so BLOODY DARK”

                “Tan, hold my hand. That way we won’t get lost.”

                “Okay.” His wife replied

                “That’s not my hand.”

                “I know.”

                “You going to let it go?”

                “Do I have to?”

                “I feel like you should. You have a really tight grip when you’re anxious.”

                The five emerged from the rocks onto a wide and sandy beach.  They had been walking for quite some time and covered a lot of distance. About a mile to their left was a large black submarine in the water. No one really noticed though. There were three spirits upon the beech.

                It was an astonishing sight. The shade of a woman who in life must have been extraordinarily beautiful. From the tips of her toes to her confident cleavage she was appeal and beauty tightly bound together.

                As for her face. Well the face-

                “Amelia?”

                “What happened to you Amelia?”

                “Oh you know…” She flicked her hair casually to one side in a super model kind of way. “Died. Everything went bright.”

                Oscar, Tan-the-Man and Tan were staring open mouthed at her.

                “You look nice, Amelia.” They said in unison. The three stared at her unblinkingly.

                “Oh that’s really creepy.” Alicia looked worried. She waved her hand in front of their faces. No reaction.

                A little drool seemed to be leaking out of Oscar’s mouth as he stared at Amelia. Tan tried shaking her husband in order to get a reaction, nothing happened. She tried licking his cheek too, but that didn’t much help.

                Tan was angry. Sure, something was happening that was happening that probably wasn’t her husband’s fault, but it wasn’t her fault either so being angry seemed like a good idea.

                Hastily Tan turned to her Book of Death. Where do you look for three men stuck in a trance?

                Alicia was looking behind Amelia. Angphu and Anna were there. Angphu was wearing some white robes and was staring at Anna who was looking like a super model of a kind completely different to Amelia.

                Amelia looked like the kind of model you see advertising chocolates and expensive perfumes. Anna was closer to the kind of model who advertises sport equipment and proactive holidays. A Lara Croft look, just as dealy and alluring as Amelia.

                Anna walked up to Dave, accidentally looking purposeful and sexy while she did so. Supermodels can’t help that kind of thing.

                “Dave, stop staring at Amelia.”

                Dave managed to turn his slack jawed attention away from Amelia.

                “Oh.” He started starring at Anna instead. “Hi.”

"What is wrong with the guys?" Anna stared at husband, disconcerted.

                “I think I found it!” Tan jabbed her finger at a page in the book.

*

                Nabila cannot swim. She did not like the water floating around stomach. Lapping to an adult is a strong current to a child. A wave came in that toppled her over and she fell.

                Her shield activated and she found herself floating in the middle of her bubble again. She was the wrong way up and the water was disorientating her all around. She started to cry desperately.

                “Don’t worry sweetie, I’ve got you. Come here baby.” Niamh tried to pick her up but the shield held. Touching the shield came with some kind of electric shock, the low-key kind you get when you touch a metal chair that’s charged.

                 “How much air is in there?” Seamus asked as water level crept up past his thighs.

                The shield around Nabila flickered, allowing a little water and a lot of air in at the same time.

                Nabila managed to get to the right way up. By making a motion that was halfway between walking and paddling she could actually slowly move her bubble in a direction of her choice. It was slightly bumpy travelling over moving waves but that didn’t bother her.

                It bothered Niamh and Seamus. Like a gerbil in a running ball she was making her way towards the centre of the river.

                “What are we going to do?”

                The two of them waded towards Nabila but the water became fell away beneath Niamh’s front foot. She lurched forward and it was only through Sean’s quick reactions that she managed to fall over backwards rather than forwards.

                Flat on her back she got water in her eyes and into her lungs.

*

                On the beach Alicia and Anna peered over Tan’s shoulder at the book. Alicia tried to stop the ghost blood dripping out of her wrist onto the book.

“Die Schwestern von Lorelai- When beautiful women die on islands, they sometimes join the ranks of Lorelai’s sisters. Like the sirens of Greek myth they are beautiful and dangerous. They are usually trapped on the island upon which they perished, no lover of women may gaze upon them without falling under their spell.”

“Damn it, why aren’t I a Schwestern? I’m beautiful and I died on the island!” Tan complained crossly.

“It says sometimes Tan.” Anna read. “Trust me, it’s not as fun as it sounds.”

Dave’s glasses were sliding down his nose as he stared vacantly at his wife’s backside.

“I think it’s kind of fun.” Amelia giggled as she stepped from side watching their heads follow her. “Am I the sexiest girl in the world?” She jumped up and down to make them nod yes.

“It says “gaze upon them” perhaps that means they should close their eyes?”

“Can you close your eyes for me?” Amelia was the first to try and use her mesmeric power.

“But-“ Oscar was still dedicating more of his brain to staring than to speaking. A smaller section at the back of his head was dedicated to curse of his badger quest. Other than that, the head was unusually empty for the man who is always thinking. “How will is see your b***s?”

Social taboos had vanished alongside the rest of his higher brain function.

“Um.” Amelia struggled. “I’ll describe them to you?”

Anna wasn’t fond of the idea of using sexual manipulation in front of her friends but needs must. She whispered something seductive into Dave’s ear.

“Oh. That’s my favourite.” Dave immediately began pulling his clothes off. This was part of the plan, when his jumper was over his head Anna shouted a command.

“Stop!”

“Why? Oh, hang on, what’s going on here?” His voice was muffled.

“You’re standing in your boxers in front of your friends.”

“Oh. Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know but I’m going to kill SufoenO when I find him.” Tan was staring pointedly away. “Dave in his boxer shorts was not a mental image I wanted.”

“What makes you think SufoenO is a man? Could be a girl.” Anna said.

While this conversation was going on Amelia was persuading the men to wrap their jumpers around their heads.

“Nah, it’s got to be a man.” Tan said. “The plan is just to evil.”

“Women can be evil too!” Anna said crossly.

“Something you want to tell us Anna?” Tan-the-Man asked from behind his jumper.

“What do you mean?”

“You seem pretty angry at the idea that the mastermind has to be male. Does that mean you’re SufoenO?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Anna said. “Why would I make games in which I get killed?”

“A game of this size would take some organising, you are quite an organised person.”

“I’m not a killer though.” Anna said desperately. If her friends decided she was SufoenO then she was screwed.

“Think about it though.” Tan-the-Man’s voice came through his shirt. “SufoenO didn’t want us all to die. The Santa monster said SufoenO took us to this island because it was much more likely that our souls would linger. There was an altar for bringing us back to life.”

“I just want to take this moment to say that I do not think Anna is SufoenO.” Dave said. “She is my wife and I love her and believe in her.”

“Why are you saying that Dave, is there something you know?” Angphu had his large hands clamped over his glasses.

“Yeah,” Tan interjected. “Didn’t you say “This isn’t how it was supposed to go” when you were fading out?”

“That’s just something people say when they were dying” Dave pointed out. “Personally, I always imagined that I was supposed to die choking on a bacon sandwich. Maybe while receiving a blowjob.”

“I think we should stop arguing, don’t we need to find Nabila?” Anna changed the subject before anyone could accuse her again.

“Oh my God, Nabilia!” Tan realised she’d forgotten to worry about Nabila for a full forty seconds and felt horribly guilty. “Where is she?”

“I left her with Niamh and Sean.” Anna was pleased they weren’t talking about SufoenO anymore.

“Sean is here?”

“We got chased off the cliff by Mel Giedroyc”

“Mel Giedroyc is here?”

Some explaining ensued. From the description of where they had fallen into the river it became apparent that they needed to come back the way they had come. From everyone’s pieced together memories they worked out that they had been almost opposite Nabila, Sean and Niamh when they had been gathered around Angphu’s body.

“Where is Angphu, anyway?”

“No idea. Maybe he actually passed on? After all, we’re supposed to be quite close to the gravity of heaven.”

“It’s so hard to tell. The ghost thing just seems to be so random.” Dave mused. “I still don’t entirely remember what happened when I came back.”

“Hang on a second,” Anna frowned. “Didn’t I see you? Running around in your cape and your underwear?”

“Oh. Uh. Yeah. Didn’t realise anyone was around.”

“Didn’t realise you were real. I was having hallucinations at the time. I saw this purple tiger and a pink dragon. Those don’t exist though, do they?”

“The purple tiger is real,” Alicia waved her arm around and blood poured out of her wrist. It seemed the severed ghost wrist had a never-ending supply of blood to give. “It bit my hand off.”

Anna was about to point out that dragons are mythological creatures but a thrumming sound in the distance interrupted her.

“Oh no.”

It was a strange sound. Anyone who has heard a swan fly would recognise it and be afraid. It sounded similar but much, much bigger.

 Far to their right on the beach something large and pink could be seen among the gulls.

*

The strong hand of Seamus pulled Niamh to her feet. She spat out water and pulled wet weeds from her face.

“Are you okay?”

“Where’s-” Niamh interrupted her sentence with a fit of violent coughing. “Where’s Nabila?”

Nabila was in her gerbil ball of energy, moving slowly inland. Again, the shield flickered to allow air into the bubble. The water was at her waste now. She needed to come up with a plan of escape but she could not keep herself from coughing.

“How are we going to get Nabila back?” She gasped

“Don’t know, can’t swim.” Was the response.

It was at this moment that Bob came to the rescue. Having stolen the inflatable lifeboat, he had brought it up the river to seek his friends. In his heart of hearts, he was not a vengeance kind of guy. He had come up with an ambition where he would steal the submarine and make it his new home. He figured he would need his friends help.

Sean and Niamh were able to clamber on board the inflatable. They managed to get Nabila onto the boat as well. Bizarrely Bob was able to help them into the raft and tug the boat with incredible ease. He was incorporeal so this seemed strange. He was too pleased to try and work out why.

The reason why is that beneath his heart of hearts was the curse, that allowed him to do anything that lured the last two living friends towards the sea, where they were much more likely to die.