Un Lun Dun

84. Across the Yard

There were noises from the factory.

“They must’ve heard the UnGun,” said Deeba.

“Quick,” said Jones. “Let’s get in before they get here.”

But before they were even halfway across the yard, the door flew open. With a waft of fumes, death, and rotting clothes, smombies began to stagger out of the building.

With Lectern and three binja, the rebels were a decent-sized little gang. But there were twice as many smombies.

Angry-looking corpses swayed and lurched in their direction. The wisps of smoke that curled from their mouths and ears and eyes made them look as if they were smoldering.

The binja stepped forward, twirling their nunchucks and their staffs. They somersaulted into action.

Within seconds they were spinning kicks and twirling blows into the smombies’ bodies. But despite the binja’s skills, the animated dead were tough with the Smog controlling them. They hacked and smashed and kept coming.

Jones joined the melee, but his current was ineffective. Skool swung enormous punches, but so slow even the sluggish smombies could evade them. Deeba leveled the UnGun, but she couldn’t get a shot clear of her friends.

Then, as the smombies seemed to be getting the upper hand, Hemi put his hands to his mouth, and shouted.

At least, it looked like he did. Deeba couldn’t hear a sound.

But in the air around him, faint shapes began to appear. The ghosts! Deeba had forgotten about them. They emerged out of invisibility. There were definitely more of them than there had been when they set out.

Some were in ancient costumes, some in fashions only a couple of years old. All looked stern and aggressive. They put up their hands like boxers and swept through the air towards the smombies.

“But they can’t touch nothing!” Deeba said.

“I told you we don’t take over bodies?” Hemi said. “There’s exceptions. If someone else has done it first, it’s only fair to take the bodies back.”

One by one, the ghosts stretched out their arms like divers and hurled themselves into the smombies. As the dead men and women were entered, they staggered to a stop and began to twitch. Here and there, ghost-hands emerged from the smombies’ chests or backs, and flew back in, pummeling. The smombies rocked on their feet.

“They’re fighting the Smog!” said Deeba. “To take back control!” She widened her eyes at the thought of the battle going on inside those poor, misused bodies, the Smog pouring through innards, chased by the ghosts’ ectoplasm, spectral juices and chemical fumes vying.

“Quick!” Jones ushered them towards the door.

A ghost flew out of a smombie and lay, dazed-looking and semitransparent, on the ground. But elsewhere, Smog was being expelled from smombies’ ears, and the dead bodies were shaking.

“Yes!” said Hemi. He grabbed at the Smog emerging from the nearest smombie, and flexed his hand into an ectoplasmic ghostly state. His spectral hand grabbed the smoke, and he whipped it out of the body and flung it away, dissipating it as it went.

The last Smog-controlled smombies began to hurl stones and lengths of iron past the binja, at the infiltrators.

“Stay down,” said Jones, crawling rapidly for the entrance. Scooching down, Deeba heard a horrible splintering. She turned.

Skool was slow, and could not crouch. A smombie had thrown a particularly heavy jag of iron, and it had landed right in the middle of Skool’s faceplate.

Deeba stared in horror at the asterisk of cracks spreading out in the glass.

“Skool!” shouted Obaday. “Go! Get back to the canal!”

There was no time. Skool reeled and leaned back against the wall, and the glass exploded.

Water burst out of the hole, as if from a broken main.

As the pressure dropped, the diving suit began to crumple and slide down the wall, wrinkling, its head drooping. It looked horribly like a body collapsing.

With wet slapping noises, fish began to gush out of the broken helmet. There were silver ones the size of Deeba’s arm, tiny multicolored ones, an eel, an urchin, a seahorse, a little octopus. They poured onto the lap of the suit and the concrete, and began to flop and gasp.

“Skool!” said Obaday. He crawled over and tried to pick up the fish. They were slippery and flapping frantically.

“Where Deeba shot, it’s still the sea!” he said. “Quick!” He scooped up handfuls of the fish that had worked together to be Skool, and threw them over the heads of the binja, ghosts, and smombies. One by one they landed in the brine. Deeba and the others fumbled to help him.

They worked as quickly as they could, but there were too many to save them all. Slowly, one by one, some fish stopped moving, by the wrinkled-up, emptied-out diving suit.

“Skool never did anyone any harm,” said Obaday, staring stricken at a cod that hadn’t made it. “They spent years refitting the suit, trudged all the way out of the sea to come and live with us, and this is what happens!”

“At least half of Skool made it, Obaday,” Jones said urgently. “I know you want to give the others a decent send-off, but we have to go now.” There were still smombies controlled by Smog, and they were regrouping. Obaday bit his lip, and nodded.

“We can’t let the smombies get back in,” said Lectern. “Or anyone else.” The ghosts were confused, shouting soundlessly, emerging from smombie mouths. Hemi watched.

He opened his mouth and yelled orders that Deeba couldn’t hear, gesturing commands with sudden authority. The ghosts listened, rallied, obeyed, and redoubled their attacks.

“Binja,” hissed Lectern. “Keep them out! Guard the door!”

“There’s only three. They need help,” said Hemi. He hesitated several seconds, and caught Deeba’s eye. “I…I’d better stay too. I can tell my lot what to do.”

“Hemi, no!” said Deeba.

“Look at them!” he said. The ghosts swept in little sorties into the smombie flesh, harassed the Smog inside, rushed out again in guerrilla raids. “They can win, but they need reinforcements and they need my help. And you need to go.

“I’ll be right here. I’ll see you afterwards.” He smiled at her as if he was sure there would be an afterwards.

Deeba was about to argue. Then she slumped, realizing there was no time, and that he was right, so instead she hugged him.

“Now go,” he said urgently, hugging her back hard. “All of you. You saw the unbrella: it’s going to tell Brokkenbroll we’re here, so go now.” He motioned to the door.

“See you soon,” Deeba said. “Soon.”

With one last look at him, Deeba turned, and leaving a little ocean, guards, a chaotic battle, and the bodies of half of one of their friends behind, she entered the darkness of Unstible’s factory.