Hangry Games; part ten

Niamh and Seamus, two Irish folk are left with the living Nabila and young orphan. Only one may yet win the hunger games a hoard of ghosts upon your side are ot enough to sway your fate.

Upon a shore on an obscure island eleven ghosts, a man, a woman and a child stood facing a submarine like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Wide and flat, the machine was quite enormous. It was beached in front of the group.

It had guns pointed at them all, guns that were designed to destroy both ghosts and humans alike.

“Everybody, move towards the boat!” Bob yelled.

“Are you mad?” Alicia shouted at him.

“Think about it, those guns can’t target the sub, they’re designed to point out not in.”

They all ran at the craft, some of them understanding the brilliance of what Bob had spotted, others just confused and under the influence of mob psychology (great things have been achieved under the drunken sway of mob pschology).

When everyone had huddled together around the turrets the group found that they could just about avoid the deadly fire. Niamh and Seamus couldn’t float up to the turret but the anti-ghost defences didn’t seem to be targeting them.

“So-” A streak of purple lightning burnt Angphu’s nose as the gun tried to get a tight enough angle against the flank of the vehicle to attack the edges of the group. “What now?”

“We need to get in, somehow.”

“How come we can’t float through the hull?”

“Ghosts can’t enter where they are not welcome. You know, sanctity of buildings, boats and sacred places” Bob yelled out in exasperation. “Gees guys, read the instructions.”

“Hey everyone, look at this.” Amelia pointed at a plaque on the side of the boat.

“The sapneya ka samosa welcomes all tourists and sightseers to enter and enjoy this historic and beautiful machine.” Alicia read out.

“Someone say samosa?” Bob was a known lover of samosas.

“Never mind samosas, as long as we all act like tourists we can float through the hull!”

“Alicia,” Bob said insistently. “Gimme dem samosas girl!”

“What do tourists do?” Tan wisely chose to ignore Bob, who was looking very keen for food.

“Selfies?” Anna suggested.

Selfies was indeed the solution. They plastered their faces with five smiles, four pouty faces, a yawn and what can only be described as bewildered arousal they passed into the craft.

Darkness awaited them.

*

“What should we do?” Seamus asked Niamh. The two of them had been left on the beach with Nabila, who was picking up sand and taste sampling it. The lunatic.

Niamh coughed in reply.

“We should try and get inside too, I guess.”

The submarine was beached with a tilt facing the Irish couple. They could see that there was a trapdoor on the top deck which seemed to be the most promising entrance. This might have proved to be difficult but a helpful ladder was mounted on the side. Niamh did not enjoy the slippery rungs or the precarious crawl across the small sloped deck but Nabila had great fun throwing her tiny form off the top and using her forcefield to bounce around like a giant beach ball.

The trapdoor opened to show pitch-black.

“How far down do you reckon it is?” Niamh sat on the edge of the hole holding on to the squirming toddler.

“I don’t know.”

“Hey guys, we’re down here, don’t worry it’s not too far.” Robert’s voice spoke up.

“How are is ‘not too far’?” Seamus asked suspiciously. It was a cloudy day but he would expect to see the floor if it wasn’t too far.

“Uh…”

“Don’t worry,” Dave assured them. “We’ll catch you!”

“Dave, we’re ghosts.” Anna pointed out. “How the hell is that going to work?”

“Yes, I’m going to vote against jumping in.” Alicia said.

“Gimme dem samosas gurl!”

“Blimey Bob,” Tan snapped. “Will you give it a rest about samosas? There aren’t any samosas here”

“You don’t know that.” Bob replied stubbornly. He was done playing the sensible leader, it was far too stressful. “It’s dark. Samosa's are invisible in the black, Tan.”

The conversation could have gone on for a long while but Nabila managed to squirm free of Niamh’s arms and jump into the hole.

Her shield triggered and after falling a bit further than “not that far” she bounced up and down on the floor. The energy surrounding her had illuminated a room with some large black machinery in it. When Tan became afraid that her child could not see in the unlit room her unvollendegeist powers kicked it and she flicked the switch without even thinking about it. Once she had let there be light it became obvious that a retractable ladder was tucked away under the ceiling trap door.

There were also hundreds of guns and bombs stacked on shelves on the wall but as there was no enemy in sight they ignored that.

                Once they had all gathered together on the floor, they stared at the machinery the room contained.

                It almost looked like a separate submarine; a metal sphere mounted on stilts covered in rivets with a steel door big enough to admit a person.

                “Oh, my goodness, I know what this is,” Alicia said excitedly. “It’s a lazerus machine!”

                “Like in Doctor Who?” Amelia frowned. It didn’t look like that to her.

                “No, like in Casper the Friendly ghost.” Alicia replied. “It looks exactly like it. There’s the levers and there’s a giant bottle of red liquid.”

                “Yet another example of lazy storytelling.” Dave tutted. “Probably in breach of copyright too.”

                “Dave what are you on about?” Anna asked

                “Just breaking the fourth wall dear.” Dave explained.

                “In the film,” Alicia ignored them and continued her explanation. “One bottle only contained enough to bring one ghost back to life.”

                Everyone stared at the bottle containing life before them.

                “Dibs.” Bob was the first to speak.

                Everyone glared at him.

                “I’m joking of course.” He said hastily. “Seriously though, how we decide who gets to come back to life?”

An incredibly awkward silence ensued. Dave was the first to break the silence.

“I would like to put my name forward to be reanimated.”

Loud protests were voiced all around.

“No guys,” He tried to argue. “Think about it. We all agreed that we should do everything we can to protect the living. I don’t have any powers (unless you count breaking the fourth wall) so I need to come back to life.”

“You’re not the only one without powers, ” Tan-the-man pointed out. He shrugged and added “(unless you count a can-do attitude and a firm grasp of strategy)”

“But you forget,” Dave put on a mysterious brooding look. “I am the night.”

Without his black cape no one really got the joke.

The discussion quickly progressed into a furious babble of voices. Some people put their names forward while other were too timid to suggest themselves. For every argument someone else seemed to have a counter-argument.

“Guys.” Bob had to shout to bring order to the room. “This is clearly getting us nowhere. We should vote.”

“Good idea.” Dave agreed.

“I think it should be the people who are living who vote, they’re the ones who need protecting.”

“Bad idea.” Dave could not see himself winning that vote.

“You know while we’re on the subject of voting,” Oscar said. “Has anyone been keeping up with American politics? It’s my opinion that-”

“Oscar, now is really not the time.” Anna said in a tired voice.

“So.” Bob turned to Niamh and Seamus who were both holding Nabila’s hands. “You two need to vote who is coming back. Do it quickly, I can’t imagine SufoenO is unaware of our presence here.”

“Do you think we should vote for you?” Niamha asked.

“No,” Bob’s voice sounded dead and resigned. “I’m too useful to you dead, remember?”

“What do you think we should do?” Niamh asked Seamus uncertainly.

“Well,” Seamus mused. “It seems unfair that Nabila grows up without any parents…”

“Yes!” Tan and Tan-the-man agreed enthusiastically.

“Surely a god-parent would be just as good as a parent?” Dave suggested cheekily. 

“Shut up Dave.” Anna said.

Dave stuck his tongue out. He never really thought he'd win the vote, if anyone had actually insisted he take life over all others he would probably have felt extremely uncomfortable. 

“I think you’re right.” Niamh chewed her hair thoughtfully. “We should bring Tan back. Nabila needs a mum.”

“Actually, I was thinking Tan-the-man.” Seamus disagreed. “Tan has seems to have powers as a ghost.”

 “Powers don't buy happiness Seamus.” Niamh countered. “Plus,Tan is really good with guns when she’s alive.”

Everyone glanced round at the racks of rifles and round shiny black bombs.

The two of them could not agree on which of the two parents to elect. The ghosts tried to help out, but they also didn’t agree on who to raise from the dead.

“Come on guys, you have to pick me, think of all the baking I’ve done for everyone.” Tan urged.

Tan-the-Man began to speak but before he could Bob spoke again.

“There are actually three living people who can cast a vote.”

“Oh, come one, Nabila is way too young to vote.”

“If you can think of a better way to decide I’m all ears.” Bob shrugged.

“Nabila sweetie,” Amelia in her nicest talking to children voice. “Do you want your mummy to be dead or your daddy?”

“Maybe not the best way to phrase it.” Alicia winced.

“Just ask her who her favourite is, her mummy or her daddy.” Robert suggested. He opened his mouth to speak again but he closed it when the two Tans glared at him. Lady Tan was particularly happy, she'd always suspected her little toddler loved one parent more than the other.

“Nabila,” Bob asked the child. “Who do you think should go into the machine?”

The toddler looked at her two parents thoughtfully.

It was not clear if the small one understood the gravity of the situation. The held her chin and made a “hmmm” sound.

Then she pointed at Tan-the-Man.

“You little traitor!” Tan yelled angrily.

“I think that it’s moments like this that make me the favourite.” Tan-the-Man grinned. “I have never yelled at our daughter that she's a traitor.”

To say than Tan accepted the outcome graciously would be an outrageous lie. Even as her husband walked through the door to the machine and everyone started reading the helpful instructions written on the control panel, she was swearing at everyone and trying to change their minds. Several people’s feelings got hurt.

The enormous bottle of red liquid was placed in the machine and turned upside down. Niamh pulled the lever that activated the device and steam poured out of the top.

“Oh, screw this!” Tan jumped into the machine and shoved Tan-the-Man out.

Pumps on the machine started operating and bright lights shone from within.

“Aren’t you going to go back in there?” Bob asked Tan. “You did win the vote after all.”

“To be honest with you Bob,” Tan-the-Man replied. “I don’t really see the point of coming back to life if Tan isn’t around.”

The reanimation device finished moving and making noise. Everyone stared at the door wondering if it had worked.

The door to the machine opened to a surprising sight. The thing had done its job, it had brought Tan back to life. She was breathing and solid and she no longer had any of her unvollendegeist powers. There was one unexpected aspect though.

There seemed to be thirteen of her.

Visually speaking they were all exact copies of the original. Some stared at each other curiously or aggressively. One of them licked the cheek of another experimentally.

“Oh no.” Bob looked troubled.

“Which one is the real Tan?” Tan-the-Man looked confused.

“Never mind that,” Bob said unhappily. “You realise that bottle had enough juice in it to make thirteen bodies? It could have brought all of us back to life!”

 “I’m the real Tan everyone.” One of the Tan-clones spoke. “Don’t trust any of the others.”

“You’re not real, I’m the real one you b***h!” Another copy shouted.

“There can be only one!” One of the Tans shouted as she made a grab for an automatic rifle.

There was a mad scrabble as most of the newly living raced for the guns while two of the Tans picked up Nabila and legged it for the door. Niamh and Seamus followed which was lucky because gunfire was loudly audible behind them.

Several clones died.

“Where should we go?” Niamh sounded scared, there was another door to the left and one straight ahead of them.

“We need to keep Nabila safe.” The two clones answered simultaneously. “We should get behind a door. If those clones are as good with a gun as I am then we need cover.”

To demonstrate this point, one of the Tan-clones that said this got her head blown off by a bullet fired from the room they had just vacated. The other one shuddered.

“Oh, that felt weird.” She said. “Like I can remember being her and having my head shot.”

"How was it?"

"Not fun."

Niamh, Seamus and Tan ran to the door straight ahead, vaguely aware that they must be travelling around the port edge of the vessel heading towards the aft of the craft.

All the ghosts followed. A pair of the clones tried to pursue but Alicia the poltergeist picked them up like ragdolls and tossed them against the far wall. Some nasty bone crunches and ugly language was audible.

And iron door closed behind them and pinged as bullets struck it.

“Where do we go now?” Seamus asked in panic.

“Wait a minute,” The ghost of Anna recognised her surroundings. “I think I’ve been here before.”

“Is that because you’re the one who organised the hangry games?” Angphu asked suspiciously.

She rolled her eyes in response to the accusation.

“No, Niamh and I came here when we worked out how to beat the teleporter. Look, there’s the door we came through and here’s the camera that saw us.”

“You’re right.” Niamh could remember the corridor too. “We can’t go through that door otherwise we’ll get fried by the teleporter.”

Everyone looked in that direction and they were all startled when a spirit walked through the door. No one recognised him. He was the ghost of a cheerful looking chap who wore glasses and had black hair.

“Hello everyone.” He spoke with an American accent.

“Are you SufoenO?” Bob asked.

“What? No.” The stranger shook his head. “I’m just a delivery person. I work for Uber eats. Someone ordered pizza a couple of days ago, next thing I know I’m a dead man.”

Dave was about to reply that the newcomer didn’t look like an uber eats delivery man. If anything, he looked like the kind of chap who would be employed as a manager for Yorkshire's own internet service provider. He was interrupted by Tan who was looking at the banks of computers in the corridor.

“Holy crap I think this where the sub is controlled from.”

“Then why is it empty?” Alicia wondered.

“How do you know this is where they control the sub from?” Bob squinted at Tan suspiciously. “Tan never knew that. Are you a clone designed to trick us?”

“No, I’m not. I’m the real Tan.” She protested.

“That’s exactly what a copy spy would say.” Dave pointed out.

“I hate to interrupt but don’t you think we should have a look at this?” Angphu was frowning at a computer screen.

Everyone clustered around the black and green screen.

WARNING. ARMY OF ANGELS APPROACHING FROM ABOVE. FIFTEEN DRAGONS APPROACHING FROM BELOW. RECOMMENDED RESPONSE: RETREAT. WOULD YOU LIKE TO RETREAT? Y/N

Seamus tapped the Y key hoping that the submarine would retreat. One dragon had been bad enough.

RETREAT NOT POSSIBLE. PROPELLER REQUIRES REPAIR. WOULD YOU LIKE TO REPAIR PROPELLER? Y/N

Seamus tapped the Y key again.

PROPELLER HAS NO POWER CABLES. AUTOMATED REPAIR NOT POSSIBLE. RECOMMENDED RESPONSE: FIX POWER CABLES.

“I think we need to find this propeller and see if we can fix it.” Niamh said “We don’t want to have to deal with fifteen dragons, do we?”

“What about the army of angels?” Amelia asked, thinking that angels are generally the good guys.

“Depends which religion they come from, I guess.” Bob didn’t really want to find out what an army of angels would have to say to an atheist. “Where’s the propeller cables?”

“Follow me.” The friendly American said “I’ve been hanging around here for quite a while, I know the layout. You know how it is.  A ghost dead inside may not step outside.”

"You read the instructions!" Bob was delighted.

The stranger walked though the wall opposite from the bullet dented door they had entered by.

“Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?” The human being that looked like Tan stared at the wall the spirit had just passed through.

The door behind them was suddenly blasted off of its hinges.

“Down there.” Alicia pointed at the bottom wall the needed to get through. “There’s a gap through to the other side.”

“There can be only one, b*****s!” A voice like Tan’s screamed from behind them.

A strange black sphere bounced into the room like a basketball. It had a rope attached to it that was burning like a sparkler.

“What on earth is that?” Amelia asked.

“Everyone, get into the tunnel.” Bob shouted. He had been raised on the game Bomberman, he knew exactly what they were looking at. It was about to explode.

Alicia tried to kick the ball away but she wasn’t feeling particularly angry so her foot passed right through. Nabila had already run into the tunnel underneath the gap int the wall and the three adults were crawling after her when the thing went off, showering the room in hot shattered metal.

“Anyone hurt?” Seamus yelled from the front of the tunnel.

“I’m fine.” Niamh wheezed, meaning she was no worse off than before the explosion. She was still suffering from the river water she had inhaled.

“Nobody got shrapnel in their bum?” Seamus checked.

“Nope.” Came the reply.

They came to the end of the tunnel and were relieved to discover that the American had indeed led them to the what could well be the power cable meant for the propeller. It was spitting electric sparks all over the place. Behind the cable a torpedo was visible. The cable was about as thick as a human waist and was clearly meant to be attached to large hole in the wall. It seemed Bob’s attack on the sub had dislodged it.

If one of those sparks of electricity hit the torpedo everyone was going to be in a lot of trouble.

“You know,” Dave said thoughtfully. “I think we can fix this. It looks heavy but all it would take would be five of us to lift it up and get it back into place. Then we could escape.”

“Five of us?” Anna raised her eyebrows. There were only three people left alive who could actually lift the dislodged cable back to where it was meant to be.

“Well at least I’m coming up with ideas.” Dave protested.

“Oh sure, like that time in your life you came up with the idea that the flat earth and spherical earth theories were equally valid?”

“Hey,” Bob interjected. “That’s the oblate spheroid theory to you, pal.”

“I think the oblate ellipsoid theorem has a nicer ring to, don’t you?” Dave said with a straight face.

“Either way, we’ve only got three people.” Anna tried to bring a more serious note back to the conversation.

“We’re going to have to try and form a truce with those doppelgangers out there.” Tan-the-Man realised.

“Hey,” Tan’s clone said crossly. “We can’t trust those b*****s, I’m the only real Tan.”

“I’m pretty sure they said the same thing.” The ghost of her husband shrugged with a grin.

“Well they’re evil liars and I’m telling the truth.” She responded sulkily. “Tell me, you don’t think they’re prettier than me, do you?”

Tan-the-Man could think of no safe answer, so he shut up.

Just then another bouncing bomb entered the room. The instinct of the living was to jump out of its blast range but Robert shouted out.

“If that thing goes off, we’ll never fix the cable.”

Niamh jumped forward and kicked the ball shaped bomb back down the tunnel it came from. The tunnel shaped the explosion but the Seamus had already yanked Niamh back into safety.

“I told you they’re the evil ones.” The Tan copy said triumphantly.

“We’re not the bad ones, she is.” Voices from the other end of the tunnel shouted.

“Then why did you throw a bomb at us then?” Alicia yelled back at them.

Talking could be heard as the Tans consulted among themselves.

“We were trying to save you from her.” Came the unconvincing answer. “Just send her out and we promise we won’t harm anyone else.”

“I think you must be the real Tan.” Tan-the-Man said while looking at the copy of his wife that was in the room with him. “She’s only one who tried to save Nabila. That makes you twice as beautiful as the copies out there.”

“Did you just say that she’s prettier than we are?” The voice of one of the Tan-clones screamed furiously.

“Actually,” Bob pointed out. “Two of them tried to save Nabila. The other one just got killed is all.”

“D****t, this is worse than playing that mobster game.” Tan-the-Man sighed.

“As a show of good faith,” Anna called through the tunnel “Would you come in here and help us fix this cable?”

“No way,” Came the reply. “You’ll just kill us in there.”

“There’s nothing else for it, guys.” Robert said. “We’re going to have to go out there and talk to them.”

“We don’t negotiate with terrorists!” The Tan clone disagreed angrily.

“I’ll go first.” Alicia said. “I’ve still got my poltergeist powers, right?”

If running away from the clones had been scary it was nothing compared to how fearful it felt crawling down the tunnel knowing that they were all waiting on the other side.

Niamh, Seamus, Tan and Nabila stood up once they were through and faced the doppelgangers.

There were only five of them left, six if you included the clone that had joined Seamus, Niamh and Nabila. The two that Alicia had attacked looked pretty badly injured but the other three looked fierce. And when I say fierce, I don’t mean it in an “Oh-em-gee-gurlfriend-your-nails-look-fierce” kind of way, I mean it an “oh-em-Gee-gurlfriend-those-clones-all-have-submachine-guns-and-look-pretty-pissed-off-and-fierce” style of fashion.

(Which isn’t to say that they didn’t all look incredibly attractive holding their guns while power posing)

“Can you see how holding all those guns while we’re unarmed sends the wrong message?” Dave asked.

“Shut up ghost,” One of the Tans replied. “No one asked for your opinion.”

“Since when did someone have to ask for my opinion before I gave it?” Dave quipped.

“Stop arguing!” Alicia said. “We all need to help each other. Don’t you know there’s an army of dragons and a hoard of angels coming to attack us?”

“Yeah we know.” The leader of the Tan clones nodded. She was a dangerous looking lady with death in each hand. “That’s why we call a temporary truce. Notice we’re not killing each other anymore? I say we fix the sub, get away from this place where heaven and hell are so close to each other. The we can get on with other business.”

She gave the Tan with a broken leg a meaningful look. The girl with the broken leg whimpered, knowing that the “other business” would involve some kind of involuntary euthanasia.

“Excellent.” Dave smiled. “Then if you could all follow me down this tunnel…”

 “No one’s putting you in charge.” A Tan said scathingly.

“Alright then, follow me down the tunnel.” Anna stepped forward.

“We don’t trust you either. We reckon you and Dave organised the games together.”

Anna looked annoyed but before she could point out how ridiculous that sounded Alicia’s ghost volunteered.

“You can trust me, right?” She turned to lead them down the tunnel but stopped when everybody heard a whirring sound.

They all went through the tunnel on their hands and knees (“Damn, my bum looks cute!” one of the doppelgangers said loudly as she looked ahead.)

Fixing the cable was tricky, it had to be held up and kind of twisted into the hole in the wall. They might not have made it work but then the current flowing through the cable magnetised it and it slammed back into where the circuit was complete.

“Phew.” Amelia said. “That was a close one. Let’s have another look at this torpedo we almost set off.”

Written on the side of the torpedo in large red letter were the words NUCLEAR BOMB.

“Oh my God,” Alicia gasped. “They told us a nuke was going to be left in an inconvenient place, I didn’t realise that was here.”

“So,” Dave stroked his chin. “When we spent all that time worrying about the innocent people who were going to die, we were the innocent people? Interesting plot twist.”

“Wait a second.” Anna read the red lettering suspiciously. “I’ve been to a lot of escape rooms and they label props like this. Don’t you think a real-life bomb wouldn’t have this kind of writing?”

Underneath the word NUCLEAR BOMB was written. ‘This is a one hundred per cent genuine nuclear bomb. This is the most nuclear bomb in the world. No other bombs are as nuclear as this one, trust me.’

“Yeah, I think the threat of the nuclear bomb was fake right from the outset.” Tan-the-Man sighed. “This isn’t real.”

“Are you sure?” One of the Tans asked anxiously. In response Tan-the-Man pointed at the parody logo underneath the writing.

ACME NUKES AND TORPEDOES.

“Oh good.” Tan sighed in relief. “This means we’re safe now, yes?”

The walls of the submarine buckled as something enormous struck it. Terrible roars, war trumpets, battle cries and animal bellows on a primal scale could be heard.

“Safe is a relative term.” Bob said anxiously.

Dragons and angels had had risen and descended upon the impossible machine.

The ship and all it's occupants were now the enemies of heaven and hell.