The Hangry games; part nine

The Irish survivors are being towed down a river to safety by the ghost of Bob. With the exception of the child all others are dead, fleeing from the sound of a dragon who might eat their souls..

                Travelling down an A-road in an unimportant part of the kingdom is a lorry. It is the uch same as other lorries in the world. The large Mothercare logo on its side does not make it different. It makes it the same as any other brand bearing vehicle. The driver in the front with his unique hair style is no more different. He falls into the category of people trying too hard.

                The cargo area to the rear was made of metal.

                Half-afro dude did notice the lurch in his vehicle and how it seemed to speed up, but between his hangover and sleep deprivation he couldn’t quite work out what had happened.

              In fact no one would ever work it out. Who and and how a lorryload of Mothercare products could be stolen all at once was a mystery beyond the sciences of Earth.

*

                In another place in the world a dead ferry man was tugging three living humans down a river that was flooded with sea water. Niamh, Seamus and Nabila were the three humans. Seamus was wet and cold. Nabila the child was slightly chilly and enjoying the adventure.

                The third person barely felt human. Niamh was shivering uncontrollably fighting off nausea. She had swallowed some of the liquid that surrounded them and quite possibly put some of it into her lungs.

                “What’s the plan Bob?” Seamus asked the ghost dragging them.

                “I found a submarine. I think it belongs to SufoenO. Got a plan to board the vessel.”

                “That doesn’t seem like a good idea.” Seamus was sceptical. “SufoenO is the person who organised the games right? If we head up there won’t they see us? They’ve got cameras all over the place. The submarine has to be guarded. Are you sure it’s safe?”

                Bob looked slightly alarmed when he heard these words. This was mainly because he didn’t have the faintest idea what he had just listened to. Seamus’s accent was a little strong. He gave Niamh a desperate look. She gulped in a breath of air and joined the conversation.

                “Are you s-s-sure it’s s-s-s-safe, like?”

                “Should be okay.” Bob assured them (I think he believed it too) “there’s a tricky bit of river up ahead where the river is narrow, don’t forget I’ve got powers in the salt water so I should be able to deal with the sub.”

                The tricky bit was coming up but Bob was calmly explaining how he was going to get them through the narrow passage.

                The back section of a lorry appeared in a flash, dropping a few feet to wedge perfectly in with the width of the river.

*

Life had not been kind to Tan, Tan-the-Man, Anna, Dave, Amelia, Anna, Alicia or Angphu. They had all been kidnapped, forced to fight one another and then killed painfully.

                Death had failed to provide the normal blessed relief that it usually offers. The eight of them had lost their ability to touch the living world. Some of them had abilities that made things a bit easier; power over the male species for two, rage-fuelled telekinesis for one and some hidden powers as yet undiscovered. There’s is no denying however that being dead is an enormous handicap.

                Death is not the end. Heaven, hell or the belly of a beast seemed to be the end.

                They were all running from a dreadful sound. Wings of an enormous size were behind them. A flying monster that was sure to be the end of them was in pursuit.

                “I still don’t understand,” Angphu asked the group with hands clamped over his eyes. “Why are we running again? We’re dead right?”

                “The tiger and the dragon eat ... What was it the Santa-beast called it? Geist flesh?” Tan-the-man explained. No one was running out of breath. Death isn’t all bad.

                “Geist flesh?”

                “Our bodies.”

                “Oh blimey. I am running in the right direction aren’t I?” Tan-the-Man asked in fear. All the males of the group had concealed their eyes because Anna and Amelia had powers associated with Lorelai, and could not help putting the men under a kind of spell if they made eye contact.

                In fact the men kept wondering off in the wrong direction. While everyone was running about without running out of breath this caused a great deal of difficulty. In the end they all had to remove their impromptu blindfolds and Amelia and Anna had to lead them all away from the terror of the dragon’s coming.

*

                 Back at the river Niamh, Seamus and Nabila were almost capsized by a wave of displaced water from the cuboid of metal in front of them. Luckily Seamus managed to grab Nabila before she fell off the inflatable. Things looked precarious for Niamh too but Bob shoved her back into the lifeboat.

                “Th-th-thanks.”

                Ironically the storage unit had almost killed them all had the words “born to care” written in large letters in front of them.

                “Born to care? Are they taking the mickey?”

                “W-w-wait a m-m-m-minute.” Niamh ran out of breath halfway through her sentence. “M-m-mother-”

                 Bob was under the impression that she was trying to utter an unprintable word rhyming with mother ducker.

                “C-c-c”

                He raised an eyebrow, now under the impression she was trying to use a phrase that rhymes with “hunt”.

                “M-Mothercare.” Niamh finally managed to gasp out the word.

                They realised she was right. The thing blocking their voyage to the submarine was indeed a Mothercare freight. Through horse whisper and weak hand gesture Niamh managed to indicate that they should open the back of the cargo unit and see if there was anything useful inside.

                “I don’t understand, why is SufoenO giving us this stuff?” Seamus looked confused.

                “N-N-Nabila…”

                “She’s got a force-field and stuff, hasn’t she?” Bob mused. “Whoever SufoenO is, they must really care about Nabila.”

                “She is only little.”

                “Maybe it’s Sania? Tan’s sister?” Bob stroked his ghostly chin thoughtfully.

                Niamh wondered if Sania was close enough to the group to count as “one of us” but she couldn’t summon the breath to tell the other two. She didn’t even know if Bob and Seamus knew about the fact that SufoenO spelt one of us backwards.

                “Is her sister this evil though? SufoenO has basically put us all in a place where we will die one by one. What kind of person would be that horrible?”

                “She is a dentist.” Bob pointed out.

                “Oh. Maybe it is Sania.” Seamus conceded.

                Niamh’s interrupted them with another fit of coughing and they hastily got on with the business of trying to open the back of the lorry.

*

 

Meanwhile the crowd of ghosts had spotted the vessel waiting at the river mouth.

“What is that?”

“A boat?”

 “That’s one of the weirdest looking boats I’ve ever seen.” Tan scratched her chin thoughtfully. “What do you think Anna?”

 “Maybe it’s a hovercraft? We saw something similar on our round the world holiday.” Anna wasn’t really sure of herself but then all the male members of the group spoke.

 “We agree with Anna.”

 “Oh, I’m starting to see what you mean about that being creepy.” Amelia looked nervously at the group of blindfold-free men.

 “Sorry Amelia. We didn’t mean to creep you out.” The chorus of voices apologised together.

 “Never mind all that, where’s the dragon got to?” Alicia looked nervous

The sound of wings had indeed disappeared. It was almost a relief until they spotted the creature drifting down towards them on the air, like an enormous hang glider.

 “We need to run!” Alicia squeaked in fear,

“How, we can’t cross running water, remember?” Anna tried to float or stride into the sea as she said this but she was bound to the island as strongly as Bob was bound to the saltwater.

The dragon landed on the beach. The ground shuddered with its weight and the sound of its feet touching the earth was like thunder.

Whatever strange spell that had caused the men to fall under the thrall of Anna and Amelia snapped like a twig. A live dragon the size of a house (a Hitchin house that is, not some no-room-to-breath flat in London) will break most enchantments when it lands before you. Maybe it is the ancient magic that saturates its form.

Perhaps it is the absolute certainty that you are about to be devoured that does it.

The dragon roared a greeting and the friends all clustered close together fearfully. From the dragons back a tall black man’s ghost dismounted.

“Who is that?” Alicia whispered.

“I don’t know,” Tan murmured back fearfully. “If the dragon obeys it then it must be one of the bad guys.”

“Hey guys!” The tall black man greeted them all cheerfully. “I made a new friend!”

“Robert?”

“Oh my god, Robert, we’re so happy to see you!” Tan was indeed delighted. If the dragon belonged to Robert then they were probably all quite safe.

“Oh sure,” Anna muttered. “Robert turns up riding the dragon and we’re all happy to see him. If Dave or I did that that everyone would think we’re SufoenO.”

“It does seem a little unfair, doesn’t it?” Dave was the only one that had heard her say this.

“Robert,” Alicia asked nervously. “How come you have a dragon?”

 “I was attacked by it when my ghost came back. Turns out he was just hungry, weren’t you boy?”

Robert tickled beneath the dragon’s enormous head and the giant creature wagged its tail. The tale was so huge it sounded like a helicopter blade as it swished through the air.

“What did you feed it?”

“Do you remember that giant thing that looked like Santa Claus?” Robert continued petting his new animal.

“You fed Santa Claus to the dragon?”

“That’s a genius move!” Tan-the-Man grinned in admiration.

Most of ghosts agreed that Robert has done a very clever thing. A round of applause ensued and Robert grinned, trying not to look too pleased with himself.

“How is he getting praise for this?” Anna was still speaking at a volume only Dave could hear. “If we fed Father Christmas to dragon we’d for sure be suspects.”

“Do you think Robert might be SufoenO?” Dave replied in a worried tone.

“You think he was the man who tried to do Mel and Sue’s voices in the bake-off?” 

“There was a bake off?” A very convincing look of surprise came onto Dave’s face.

“Yes. It wasn’t great.” Anna remembered the meing shot at her helmeted head.

“I’m so annoyed I missed the bake-off.” Dave looked genuinely upset. “I love bake-off.”

“Yeah well I’m not sure the person running it has even seen bake off.” Anna replied “The voice was just a recording. Not like in the dance-off.”

“There was a dance-off?” Dave’s disappointment at missing out was written clearly on his face.

“People died David.” Anna said disapprovingly.

Dave opened his mouth for a witty retort but he was distracted by the dragon belching loudly.

“Hey Robert,” Tan asked nervously. “Do you know when the dragon will be hungry again?”

“Not really” Robert was lovingly patting the neck of the mighty beast. Its neck was as thick as a car. “But he wouldn’t hurt us, would you boy?”

The creatures giant tongue flopped out of its mouth as it panted and gazed lovingly at its new master.

“You know what,” Tan-the-Man stroked his chin thoughtfully. “There is a way we could use this to our advantage.”

Tan-the-Man was well known in the group as having a strong head for strategy. Dave saw what he was thinking immediately.

“We can use the dragon to take down SufoenO! That we can save everyone who is still alive. Then we can make sure Nabila gets home to her family safely.”

“That’s a great idea.” Robert agreed.

“Well, I am basically Nabila’s godfather, I have to think of her welfare.” Dave said.

“I thought I was her godfather?” Robert looked hurt.

Tan rolled her eyes. Neither of them were godparent to Nabila.

“How are we going to attack SufoenO then?” Amelia asked.

Everyone looked at the submarine. There were all thinking similar thoughts. It looked large enough to house the teleportation device that had sent them all to the island. It was close enough that SufoenO could have been remotely controlling the robots from the stadium and the bake-off.

“He won’t stand a chance against a fire breathing flyer!” Tan grinned.

“He or she.” Anna corrected the gender assumption under her breath.

As if in answer to this over confidence a hatch opened on the submarine. A large transparent gun turret rose from within the vessel. The barrels of that translucent device pointed at the crowd of spirits.

A cool calm voice spoke robotically from the boat.

“Anti-ghost defences engaged. Ethereal cannon preparing to fire.”

                Smoked erupted from the turret as some kind of projectile was fired. This would surely have spelt the end for our band of deceased heroes had the dragon not recognised the danger. With a series of roars that sounded oddly like angry barks it leapt into the path of the projectile.

The poor animal howled in pain as it was struck. Purple lightning leaked from the wound that the weapon had caused. It tried to stand tall on its four legs to continue to defend the human souls but the wound was so bad its leg trembled and folded.

                Everyone stared in horror as it fell onto the beach panting weakly.

                The cannon made a sound that sounded suspiciously similar to a shotgun reloading.

Everybody panicked. There was an unmanly quantity of screaming and frankly the women didn’t handle the situation with much decorum either. This seemed like the very end, while nowhere near heaven or hell the group was going to be destroyed utterly.

This was the moment a wave of water came crashing into the bow of the sub. The machine was pushed back and tilted by the water, with the gun turret flailing about like a blind man trying to pierce the dark.

There was some unbridled whooping for joy, along with some sighs of relief.

Bob was visible in the water, his face screwed up in intense concentration. He was waving his arms in what looked like the most ridiculous and angry dance.

The submarine was rocking and shuddering in response to his bizarre movements.

“What is going on?”

The bright orange inflatable came shooting out of the river mouth. Niamha and Seamus were clinging to the edges for dear life. Between the two of them was Nabila, warmly dressed in so much Mothercare merchandise that she resembled a ball of cloth more than an actual human being.

“That’s my baby!” Tan screamed, losing all sense of decorum.

She ran into the water and the liquid parted about her desperate charge towards her daughter.

No one had realised it but Tan was not an ordinary ghost. From the moment she died her only real concern had been seeing her daughter safe. Just like Oscar she was an Unvollendetgeist. Oscar would pass on to the afterlife the moment he achieved the last focus of his life; finding the badger he had seen.

Oscar had managed to convince himself he could get to the badger by sticking with his friends and convincing them to join him on a badger expedition. This kind of procrastinating self-trickery was keeping him in from moving on. Tan had nothing keeping her safe.

The moment she knew that Nabilia was healthy and out of danger she was going to vanish into the afterlife for all eternity.

At this point in time Nabila was rather enjoying herself. Lots of water surrounded the lifeboat and she was a big fan of splashing. As far as she was concerned the look of paralysing terror on the faces of Niamh and Seamus meant that they were clearly cowards.

Cowards or no Bob was concentrating to much on rocking the boat to steer the lifeboat. The current of the river began pushing the boat out into the sea.

“Oh no you don’t.” Tan made a grab for the boat and was surprised to learn she could touch it. (In actual fact she had many powers as a ghost with unfinished business. This included but was not limited to illusions, banshee screams and raising a hoard of zombies. It was a shame no one had read the Unvollendetgeist section of the Book of Death a bit more thoroughly. Ironic how much useful information gets overlooked. Such is life (well, such is death in this example))

The lifeboat jerked to a halt.

While Tan tugged the boat towards the beach Bob had floated as close to the shore as a soul damned to roam the seas is able to. His friends stood by him as he waved his arms around.

“Bob, why are you flailing around like that?” Amelia asked in a concerned tone of voice.

“If you’d read the book,” Bob explained whilst switching to a weird pelvic thrust dance. “You’d realise that I can cast spells on anything that goes into the sea.”

“If you can cast spells why aren’t you saying magic words?” Anna questioned.

“This isn’t word magic. You cast these spells through the medium of dance.”

Bob started doing the funky chicken and the submarine began to spin in circles.

                “That’s cool, does this mean you just keep dancing while we all run away?” Alicia nervously watched the boat try and adjust its targeting to compensate for spinning in a circle.

                 “No, my plan was to beach the submarine so we could all get on board and steal it.”

                “Why aren’t you doing that?” Oscar asked.

                “Can’t remember the right dance moves.” Bob switched to the macarena and the boat started bouncing up and down life a giant submarine-shaped basketball. “Can someone look it up for me?”

                Dave was first to find the right page in the book of death.

                “Says here you have to do a s**t drop.”

                Bob sighed.

                “Alright but I’m only doing this to save everyone lives.”

                Bob did the best s**t drop he could. The sub stopped bouncing. Then nothing happened.

                “Sorry,” Dave grinned “I just thought it would be funny to make you do a s**t drop.”

                The anti-ghost gun fired off a shot that sailed over the heads of crowd of ghosts.

                “Not that funny actually Dave.” Anna pointed out as they all ducked.

                “Ah, yes.” Dave adjusted his glasses and looked at the page again. “So, the actual dance move you need is to “bump and grind”.”

                “I swear to God Dave, if this is another joke-” Bob started saying threateningly.

                “Okay, okay.” Dave once again looked apologetic. “You have to do an Irish dance.”

                “Ah crap.” Bob went back to the macarena to buy everyone some time. “I don’t know how to do that. Where’s Niamh, she might know?”

                “I’m here,” She gasped. The lifeboat had been dragged to the shore and Seamus, Nabila and Niamh had climbed out.

                Niamh had changed her clothes and used some Mothercare towels to get dry but she still looked like she was struggling to breath properly.

                “Irish dancing is easy.” She explained. “Hold your hands loosely at your sides, and watch what I do with my feet.”

                While Bob took a very dumbed down lesson on and ancient and beautiful form of dance the Tans were busy catching up with their daughter.

                “Are you okay sweetie, did you miss your mummy and daddy?” Tan asked.

                Nabila struck a pose that seemed to convey that she was thinking deeply about the answer to the question.

                “Didn’t miss us at all did you Blob?” Tan-the-Man smiled at his daughter, glad to see that she was safe and happy.

                “Ow!” Tan exclaimed. She appeared to be disappearing. I’m not talking about the Cheshire cat fade away smiling phenomenon, Tan looked like someone had tipped a bucket of acid over her head which was eating away at her soul and making it vanish.

                “What’s going on?” Her husband looked horrified.

                “Ow fudge!” Even while in excruciating pain Tan refused to swear in front of her child. “I am in so much mother-fudging pain right now. Sugar. Ace hole!”

                “Look at me Tan,” He grabbed his wife’s fading hand. “You’re going to be okay I promise.”

                “Bangers and mash! Mother flipping motor hooters!”

                Tan tried to look at her husband but when she turned to him her sockets were leaking and empty. The eyes had already passed on to the afterlife.

                “I think she’s one of those ghosts that only stays a ghost until she’s dealt with any unfinished business.” Angphu had seen her in pain and come over to offer assistance. “Must be horrible, I know what it’s like to be blinded.”

                “I’m not blind,” Tan managed to say. “I can see heaven.”

                “Angels and all that stuff?" They asked her.

                “No, but I think Stan Lee is singing karaoke with Elvis Presley. Can’t hear.”

                “What do you think her unfinished business is?” Dave and Anna had also come to join the group.

                Tan’s nose had vanished leaving a horrifying hole gaping in the centre of her sightless face.

                “I cam shmell ‘offee” She mumbled.

                “What?”

                “I think her tongue has gone to heaven too.” Alicia looked concerned.

                Tan-the-man had gone pale with shock. I’m talking about the lightest of light browns.

                “What does the book say about the unfinished business?”

                “Once the notion follows through to completion oblivion is the destination of the soul” Angphu remembered from before.

                “What’s Tan’s notion though?”

                It wasn’t hard to work out. Everyone shouted at the same time.

                “Nabila!”

                “What about Nabila?” By incredibly good fortune (let’s face it this band of involuntary adventures had been given a large helping of luck) Tan’s ears were not yet "on the other side”.

                Some nerve endings crept back into her face and enough jelly to house them and squint appraisingly at her daughter.

                “She loogs fime to me. I know you all cam tage care of ‘er.”

                All her sensory organs started fading out again. After all, who doesn’t want to see Elvis and Stan banging out We Will Rock You?

                “She’s clearly not safe.” Tan-the-Man insisted.

                Tan’s addled ghost brain wondered if it was worth ignoring her spouse’s advice. It had worked out well for her in the past on many notable occasions. Alicia saw what the man was trying to achieve and chipped in.

                “She is alone on an island with Niamh and Seamus against someone who has an army of robots.”

                Tan hesitated. A soul that has stepped partway into heaven has touched incredible joy.

                “You know, if she’s raised by those two on this island, she’ll never be an astronaut.” Angphu understood the rules of the new game.

                “Whu-?” What was left of Tan’s face seemed to be frowning.

                What followed next was near brutal. I don’t want to go into the detailed destruction of Tan’s personality. As they ploughed through various exaggerated arguments and blatant lies illustrating her daughter's danger her face reassembled with sickening crunches and pops to show a look of terror.

                It was hard to tell how much of a verbal bashing was required. Tan was almost completely back to the physical realm (still as a ghost) clutching her protesting child when Alicia dropped the A bomb that anchored her all the way.

                “I reckon if Seamus and Niamh were left to raise on the island they wouldn't even turn her into a high achiever. Just some run of the mill girl.

               

                 Having recovered from her near heaven experience Tan went marching over to her two Irish friends intending to give them a lengthy tutorial on Asian parenting. Nabila was towed along still pinned by her mother’s hand.

                To say that Bob had mastered his dance lesson would be an egregious lie. He had managed a selection of twitches, hops and kicks that were supposed to imitate the reels, slips and single jigs the book of death had prescribed.

The strength of his death day’s moon was still full enough to answer for what was lacking though and the giant machine was being dragged by irresistible forces towards the shore.

“Wait a minute-” Tan spotted an immediate peril but her daughter’s shield had already activated.

Bob accidently hit the small child with a submarine and she went bounding away in her sphere of protection. Screaming in alarm Tan tore off after her. Tan-the-Man followed. His screams were primally tucked away on the inside but it would gratify the observer who despises the power to remain calm against all circumstances to see that his distress was writ large upon his features.

Everyone else seemed to be so desensitised to the notion of the child being in any peril (after all the shield had held so far) they merely pulled mildly guilty expressions while shrugging at one another. It’s hard to invest in a sense of fear for a child who squeals in delight as she bounces along in a zorb made of energy on a faraway beach.

                Bob’s grasp on the foe was lost as the vessel crossed the water’s threshold. It came to a crashing landing upon the sand forcing the Irish folk to leap back and cringe as they were showered with pebbles and grit.

                The ghost destroying gun settling back in to the task of sighting its targets.