Читать книгу: «Fighting Pax»

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Copyright

About the Publisher

“All this – this insanity, the terror and the hellish creatures everywhere – it’s all because of a book, a kids’ book, called Dancing Jax. It was written back in 1936 by… I don’t know what you’d call him there, but I’d say ‘occultist’. Do you know what that is? But he was and is much more than that: Austerly Fellows – the most dangerous and evil man to have ever lived – and he’s still very much alive. The book wasn’t published until late last year, by a man who Austerly Fellows has completely taken over. The guy was just some layabout chancer who broke into the wrong place and that was the end of him. He goes by the name of the Ismus now, after the main character in the story, and the world hangs on his every word.

“So many people have died, so many lives torn apart, so many more are suffering right now, but what really scares me, what keeps me wide awake, well into the night, is not the fear of him and his foul creatures finding me: it’s wondering what he’s got planned. What next? This isn’t it – this won’t be enough. Austerly Fellows is working to a plan, something even more terrible than what we’ve already seen. No, I have no idea what it is. How could I?

“Look, I’m nothing, a nobody – this isn’t political. That – all that – is history now; it doesn’t exist any more. I’m just a maths teacher from a tiny place in England called Felixstowe, and I’m tired and desperate. Why else would I be here, begging for your help? You’ve got to believe me, Dancing Jax is coming – and not even you can shut it out. You’ve been cut off from the rest of the world for a long time, but that won’t help you now. Nothing can stop it! Nothing… except just maybe… one of those kids back in the UK. He just might be the answer to our prayers and that’s why you have to help. It’s the only hope we have.”

The video message ended and the TV screen went blank. The Marshals turned to the figure in black seated between them.

“Do what he asks,” their Supreme Leader said quietly. “Instigate the rescue – immediately.”

1

ACROSS LONDON, COLUMNS of dark, oily smoke rose high in the still air. There were always fires now: cars, homes, people. There was always something to burn. The mirrored towers of Canary Wharf flashed with the apricot light of an evening in late summer. Although many of those windows were now shattered or smeared with the filthy trails of bloated creatures that crawled down at night, there were enough panes left for the setting sun to dazzle and flare in.

The Thames was high. Its surface was unmarred by river traffic, but fouled by scum, creeping weeds and long waving chains of jelly-like spawn. The water moved thickly around half-submerged wrecks of lorries and buses. They had been torn from the bridges by things that made their nests in the shadowy arches beneath, where great clusters of leathery eggs hung in webbed nets.

A teenage couple strolled along the deserted South Bank, heedless of the ruined city, eyes only for each other and the occupant of the buggy pushed by the boy. It was one of those overdesigned three-wheelers that looked like it should be roving the surface of Mars. But garlands of fluffy pink feathers had been twined about the handles to soften and personalise it and a foil Garfield balloon bobbed above.

Lee Charles smiled down at the infant secured safely in the seat. A knitted hat, shaped like a cupcake, with pink woolly icing and a glittery cherry on top, sat lightly on her small sleeping head. The biggest grin in the world lit up Lee’s face whenever he looked at her. She was the most precious and beautiful baby he had ever seen. He lived for her smiles, and her innocence lapped around her like a flame. He would surrender his life to keep it burning. By his side, arm linked through his, the girl called Charm rested her chin on his shoulder.

“Aww,” she said. “What is you like? What a softy. Some gangsta you is.”

Lee planted a chuckling kiss on her lips.

“You two’s my gang now, Sweets,” he told her, his nose pressing against hers.

The girl kissed him back then glanced across the river at the once grand buildings, now derelict and unsafe.

“Were it worth it though?” she murmured. “I mean… all that. All what went on. Were it worth what you did?”

Lee pushed his fingers through her long hair and guided her lovely face back to him.

“For you to be here with me, right now? For our little angel? You messin’ with me? It were worth it all. I’d do it again a million times over, babes. Don’t you never think otherwise. You hear?”

Charm lowered her gaze and nodded.

Lee gripped the handles of the buggy once more.

“Time we got back,” he announced. “Be gettin’ dark soon. We don’t wanna be out when the big things start movin’ and the sky gets busy.”

“Where we goin’?”

“Back to our place, babes. You know.”

“Our place?”

“Yeah, the rad warehouse makeover, with steel shutters, gun emplacements and trick flame-throwers – all that good stuff.”

The girl’s forehead puckered slightly as she struggled to remember.

“I don’t… is me ma there?”

“Let’s get goin’,” Lee urged softly.

“Well, is she or what?”

“She ain’t there.”

“Where then?”

“I told you, babes.”

“If you did, I forgot. Why ain’t me ma here to share this? Why ain’t she wiv her granddaughter? She’d go freakin’ mental for her she would.”

“Your mother ain’t around no more,” Lee said, walking off. “She’s gone. I told you.”

Charm hesitated and put a hand to her temple in confusion. “Gone?” she repeated. “Where’d she go? I can’t fink straight. When were this? When did you tell me?”

Lee halted, left the buggy and came back to her. Cupping her face in his hands, he looked into her eyes.

“She’s dead, hun,” he said gently. “When she found out what happened to you, it were too much. She couldn’t face it and had to bail. Man, I almost caved too. Your mother was strong and fierce – you should be proud. She got the rest of us outta that hellhole, but she couldn’t hack it out here without you. She thought you was dead forever. She didn’t know what I had planned, how I was gonna go fetch you from that Mooncaster place. I’m gonna make sure our angel don’t never forget she had a lioness for a grandma.”

Charm blinked her tears away. Lee stroked her cheek. She never remembered. Perhaps it was best that way. Perhaps he should stop reminding her. The horrors of that camp, where children immune to the effects of Dancing Jax had been interned, were best forgotten, especially by her. She moved away, towards the railing, and stared down at the cloudy river. Lee followed, drew the girl close and held her tightly. As long as they were together, nothing else mattered. He would do anything to keep her in his arms forever. Sometimes he couldn’t believe what he had already done.

And then that sudden sense of dread tore at his stomach, as it did every night. Still wrapped in his embrace, Charm raised her eyes and screamed.

Running along the path towards them were a dozen hideous little hunchbacked men, with hooked noses that curved down to meet the upturned tips of equally grotesque chins. They were Punchinello Guards from the pages of that evil children’s book, ugly and brutal creatures that had crossed over into this world. They were dressed in the yellow and crimson livery of Mooncaster, with large velvet bicorn hats on their deformed heads and spears in their fists.

Lee grabbed the girl’s hand and the couple ran back towards the buggy. But the guards were already upon them.

A savage kick knocked Lee’s legs from under him. His knees crashed on to the concrete. Charm’s hand was torn from his fingers and his face slammed against the ground. He roared in pain and rage as a steel-heeled boot stamped on his shoulders. His arms were yanked up over his back until he thought they would snap or be ripped from the sockets. His joints felt on fire. He tried to struggle, but a brass knuckleduster crunched into his ribs and a pinched, nasal voice squawked in his ear.

“Goody goody!” it screeched. “Oh, goody goody! You twitch again, Creeper, and me smash bones. Me likey hear them splintery crack, splintery crack.”

The boy could only stare as three of the Punchinellos bounded after Charm, squealing and quacking with cruel delight.

“Get away from her!” he bawled. “Don’t you touch her!”

Even as he yelled those words, the girl was dragged to the floor by her hair and powerful hands clamped over her mouth, smothering her terrified shrieks.

Then two more guards came waddling up. Between them they carried a large leather suitcase. It was so long it required two handles and, when Lee saw it, his eyes widened in horror. The suitcase was shaped like a coffin.

“No!” he bellowed.

The guards set the macabre case down and skipped around it, flicking the catches open. Then they threw back the lid. Charm was hoisted into the air and flung inside.

“We had a deal!” Lee cried. “I did what your Ismus psycho wanted. We had a deal!”

The Punchinellos ignored him. They hopped and danced about the suitcase, tormenting the petrified girl within, jabbing and prodding her with the tips of their spears.

“You hurt her and I’ll kill you!” Lee thundered.

“Prick the squassage!” they taunted. “Prick it, poke it, make it spit, make it sing and squeal in the pan.”

“Girl no belong here,” the evil voice hissed in the boy’s ear. “You not done what Ismus want.”

“I did!” Lee protested. “I did it and damned myself to Hell. But I didn’t care! Don’t you take her from me now!”

“You liar. You no do it. Girl stay dead till you does.”

Lee watched them reach for the lid of the suitcase and looked on Charm’s stricken face one final time.

“Don’t you be scared now!” he shouted across to her. “I ain’t gonna lose you again! Wherever you is, I’ll find you! I promise! I promise!”

The lid snapped down and quick, dirty fingers locked it. Then the suitcase was snatched up and the two guards went scurrying away with it. Charm’s muffled screams faded in the distance.

The crushing weight of the boot lifted from Lee’s shoulder and the owner of the voice stepped before his eyes. There stood Captain Swazzle, chief warder of the castle guards. He was dressed in the same absurd outfit as the last time the boy had seen him, back at the camp. The pinstriped, 1920s, Al Capone-style suit, complete with pearl-grey spats and white fedora, was still in place and a stream of pale blue smoke curled up from the fat cigar in his mouth.

“You want see girl again?” he snarled, tapping ash down on to the boy’s face. “Do what Ismus say.”

“Big mistake messin’ with me!” Lee thundered back. “You know what I’m capable of. You know why your head guy is so scared o’ me. I am gonna make it my personal business to take you right outta this world and scrub you from that book forever – like you never was – an’ there ain’t nuthin’ could…”

The threat died on his lips. The other Punchinellos had started to squawk.

“Oohhhh, a baby! Look at the baby! Looky – looky!”

They gathered round the buggy and began pawing at the infant inside.

Lee roared at them to get away, but they paid no attention and fawned over the baby, distorting their misshapen features even more by pulling faces and sticking their dark tongues out. A moment later, the child was crying and the guards started squabbling.

“You woke the baby!”

“No, you woke the baby!”

“You did!”

“You!”

Bickering, they jostled for possession of the buggy, wrenching it from one another’s greedy grasp.

Lee bawled at them. The hands gripping his arms gave them a sudden, violent twist and his face smacked the ground.

“Please stop,” he begged fearfully. “Don’t do this. Don’t hurt my angel. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Captain Swazzle cackled and swaggered across to join the others.

“I make baby sleep,” he declared. Grabbing the buggy’s handles, he rocked it roughly from side to side. Leering down, he brought his hideous face close to the child’s and blew a smoke ring. Then he began to croon a foul Punchinello lullaby.

“Halt your wailing temper or you shall earn a clout,

only bitches whimper, only cats mew out.

I’ll pinch and pull your nose to grow,

I’ll give your chin a curl.

Dream of stunted legs that bow

and be a humpbacked girl.”

While he sang, another guard took hold of the front wheel and, together, they swung the buggy in ever-increasing arcs.

Lee tried to break loose, but every movement was rewarded with a vicious wrench on his arms and a violent stamp on his legs.

“Stop!” he pleaded. “Stop!”

“More!” Captain Swazzle squawked. “Up she goes!”

The swings became wilder. The buggy swept higher and higher into the air until it was level with the Punchinellos’ hats. If the baby hadn’t been secured in the seat, she would have fallen out. Then it went higher still. Captain Swazzle’s yellow eyes bulged in their sockets and he hooted repulsively.

“Up and down!” he screeched. “Up and down – up and down… that’s the way to do it.”

The rest of them joined in the familiar chant, stamped their feet and flourished their spears.

“That’s the way to do it, that’s the way to do it!”

Lee couldn’t bear it. Hot tears streaked his face. He prayed and he shouted, but there was nothing he could do.

“Aaaaaand… up she goes!” Captain Swazzle shrieked one last time. As the buggy went higher than ever, he let go of the handles and the other Punchinello released the front wheel. The buggy continued sailing through the air. It flew up and over the railings, then down again.

Lee squeezed his eyes tight shut. He heard the splash, followed by the trampling of the guards’ boots as they charged across to watch the buggy sink into the river.

“Oooooh, what a pity,” Captain Swazzle cried, staring down at the cloudy waters where a woollen hat, in the shape of a cupcake, floated on the scum. “Oh, what a pity.”

Lee’s scream ripped across the Thames.

The pain bit deeply into his wrists and he lurched upright.

His face was dripping, drenched in icy sweat that stung his eyes. He wrenched at his arms, but they were still held firm. His despairing yell filled the room.

“Mr Lee Charl,” a calm, female voice soothed. “You fine, you safe, you not worry, please.”

The boy’s frantic, heaving breaths continued and his heart pounded as his eyes stared blankly around. The river was gone. The Punchinellos had disappeared. He was in a dimly lit room with blank walls and no window. A hospital bed was before him, surrounded by monitoring equipment, and four men in smart olive uniforms, armed with AK-47 rifles, were standing impassively on either side. There was a figure on the bed, sitting bolt upright, with wires attached to his forehead. A petite woman, wearing a white lab coat over her army uniform, crossed to the door and snapped on the main light switch. Overhead, a fluorescent strip began to stutter. Lee now saw that the eyes of the patient were wide and the stark, traumatised expression on that face was painful to witness. Then something pink glinted under the clinical light. It was a diamanté stud in the patient’s ear. With a jolt, Lee remembered he was staring at a large mirror covering one entire wall and the pitiful figure on the bed was him.

Repulsed, he looked away and the calmly efficient female doctor consulted his case notes.

“You want sedative, Mr Lee Charl?” she asked with crisp politeness.

“Hell, no,” he answered thickly. “I slept plenty already – and they make the dreams worse.”

“Same dream, please?” she asked, ready to jot his words down.

“Pretty much.”

“Was Ismus in dream?”

“He’s never in them, Doctor Choe. They’re just dreams. It’s not like the other thing. I’m not sneakin’ off and going to Mooncaster, you know that. They’re just bad dreams. I ain’t havin’ no secret cosies with that mad son of a…”

“Detail of dream, please.”

He shook his head. “Laters – I’ll save it for the shrink session.”

“You might forget detail,” she said a little more forcefully, though the smile didn’t slip from her face. “Detail important.”

“Fat chance of that,” he uttered bitterly. “Now can I hit the shower and get me some dry clothes? Feels like I peed in these. Is there hot water today?”

Doctor Choe Soo-jin put the notes down and reached for a syringe.

“First I take bloods,” she told him.

“More? You supportin’ a family of vampires at home or somethin’? You’ve had enough juice outta me since I got here to fill a hot tub.”

“Not so much,” she said through her implacable smile. “We need to test, Mr Lee Charl. Test important.”

“So you says, but I can hardly find a vein no more. My arms are worse than a dead junkie’s. Gimme a break, yeah? If it ain’t the red stuff, you’re moochin’ every other damn thing I got.”

Doctor Choe Soo-jin proceeded to take the sample. Lee gazed around at the four young soldiers flanking the bed. They might have been shop-window dummies for all the expression on their features. None of them spoke English, or at least had never acknowledged that they could. Sometimes he wondered if they listened to what was said when he was in the company of his friends and then reported everything to Doctor Choe, or their commanding officer, afterwards.

Lee cast a piercing glance at the mirrored wall. He was sure it was one of those two-way numbers; probably a video camera behind there taping it all anyway.

He looked back at the two grim-faced men on his left. There were three different sets who ‘nannied’ him in rotation, with a changeover every four hours. He’d given each group a name to amuse himself. This quartet were the Sex and the City women, because his mother used to enjoy that show, and they’d taken over from Take That (minus Robbie) sometime during the night when he was asleep. His grandmother had been a big fan of “that nice Gary Barlow”. Soon it would be the turn of the Spice Girls (minus Geri). He didn’t know anyone who had liked them, but it cracked him up to call these stern guards Sporty, Posh, Baby and Scary.

His eyes dropped to the aluminium chain threaded through their belts. The pair on the right were joined in the same way. Both chains ended in a set of steel handcuffs, locked round Lee’s wrists. He blew on them gently. He’d been pulling on them in his sleep and the skin was raw and broken.

“Just another day chained up in North Korea,” he murmured. “Can my life blow any more? How the hell did it get to this?”

2

THE SECRET STRONGHOLD in the northern region of the Baekdudaegan Mountains had taken seventeen years to excavate. From the outside there was no evidence of the extensive tunnel system in which 7,500 members of the People’s Army were stationed at any one time. The largest terraces and balconies were built in the style of old temples, with sagging tiled roofs, artificially distressed to appear ancient and neglected, while others were simply cut horizontally into the slope and disguised with camouflage. The two helipads and missile silos were similarly obscured. The single road which zigzagged up to the main, but discreet, entrance was constantly monitored by sniper outposts.

Beneath the pagoda-like roof that sheltered one of the terraces, Maggie rested her elbows on the low wall and pulled the fur-lined collar of the greatcoat round her chin. The biting December air was sharp in the fifteen-year-old’s nostrils and she buried them in her mittened hands. She couldn’t remember ever being warm and, to make it worse, there was no hot water in the showers. The primitive plumbing had broken down again.

The usually breathtaking view was hidden today. Beyond the wall, the grey slopes of the mountain dropped steeply into a thick white mist that filled the valley, blotting out the dark forests and surrounding snowy peaks. It was like staring into a universe of nothing, an endless blank canvas waiting for the first mark or stroke of colour to be applied. It was almost hypnotic and Maggie’s mind drifted.

She thought back to that July night, when they escaped from the prison camp in England – how she and the other aberrant children had crowded into a military helicopter, with no idea where they were being taken. Through the darkness, they were flown across the Channel to a private airstrip in France, where a jet was waiting to whisk them on across the world.

At the time it felt so unreal, like an adventure happening to someone else. They didn’t question anything. The elation of having got out of that horrendous place alive, combined with the food provided on the journey, drove all other thoughts out of their heads. They didn’t care where they were going. They were finally safe from Punchinello bullets and starvation. Each new day would no longer be a hopeless struggle for survival. Even when they touched down and sleepily discovered just where this sanctuary was, it didn’t really register.

North Korea, or ‘the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’ as they swiftly learned to call it, had shown them its most benign and welcoming face. The children of the camp had been fêted as honoured guests and, for the first week, enjoyed the best that this secretive and isolated corner of the world could offer. After the privations and sadistic treatment they had suffered back home, it was like a surreal holiday.

They were given grand tours of the capital city, Pyongyang, and the surrounding provinces. They were bussed to old Buddhist temples, imposing monuments and battle sites, and attended a banquet at which the Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un, was present, surrounded by an austere array of Generals and Grand Marshals. They were even ushered into the palatial mausoleum where the embalmed corpses of Kim Jong-un’s revered father and grandfather were ceremoniously displayed in glass cases. Maggie and the other refugees filed past them in disbelief: what sort of a country was this? A girl called Esther threw up on the steps afterwards.

A crew from Korean Central Television, the only news broadcaster, followed them everywhere. Just three channels were available to the people of Pyongyang and the rest of the country made do with one. There was no satellite TV or Internet for ordinary citizens: such things were forbidden. Every TV set was configured to receive only these official channels and regular checks were made to ensure they were not tampered with.

The rescued foreign children became instant celebrities. They were interviewed together, in small groups of three or four and individually. North Korea wanted to know the exact nature of the madness happening outside its borders. How could a mere book of European fairy tales be the cause of so much turmoil and confusion? Viewers watched with horrified fascination as the youngsters recounted frightening stories of the camp and the rejection by their own families.

Maggie lost track of the times she had repeated the same information.

“No, it’s not a normal book,” she had said, struggling to explain the unexplainable. “It sucks you in and you really believe you’re one of the characters in it and all this, the real world, is just a dream. Honest, that’s what it is – and you wear a playing card to show who you are in that story! No, it didn’t work on me, or any of the others here. We don’t know why, it just didn’t. That’s why they locked us up and treated us worse than animals. We were rejects. You wouldn’t believe what they did to us.”

The interviewer pressed for details and the interpreter had difficulty keeping up with the barrage of questions. Maggie was shown footage, gathered by the Research Department for External Intelligence, of foreign cities where protests against Dancing Jax had escalated into violent riots. Bookshops and publishers were firebombed. Civil war had burned fiercely but briefly until everyone was under the book’s spell.

“Same happened in Britain,” she said, watching a pitched battle storm through the streets of Moscow, between those who had read it and those who hadn’t. “We went through all that. You can’t fight it. It’s too strong. Then there are the… things.”

The microphone almost poked her in the nose as it was pushed closer.

“Somehow things are coming through, from the book,” she said. “It sounds mad, but it’s true. Nightmares, monsters in those fairy tales, are becoming real. I’ve seen them, I’ve fought them. I thought the Punchinello Guards were bad enough, but then there were… I dunno what they really are, but they’re called Doggy-Long-Legs in the book and all they want to do is eat your face. One of the guards had his nose chewed right off. Then there was the… we never found out what it was – all giant worms and tentacles. It killed my… a friend of mine. It got him – it got my Marcus.”

Maggie fell silent. The interview had then cut to a segment of an American news report from several months ago, back when America was wondering what was happening in the UK. It was second- or third-generation video, again acquired by the intelligence department. The reporter was Kate Kryzewski, speaking from Kew Gardens, investigating a previously unknown invasive shrub with pulpy grey fruit, called minchet. Eventually she too had fallen victim to the power of the book.

When the news cut back, Maggie had been replaced by a self-conscious, bespectacled boy wearing a cowboy hat. “Er… yes,” he said. “That stuff grows everywhere now and it stinks. The creatures from the book eat it, as well as other things… and the Jaxers use it to heighten the reading experience. Makes it better… sharper somehow. It tastes worse than it smells though and gives you gut ache.”

“Gives you the trots!” Maggie’s voice shouted off camera.

The picture cut to an army scientist holding a single horned skull, fixed to a stout stick. The austere, shouting voice-over told the audience it had been thoroughly examined and undergone testing. It was not a hoax; this was a genuine unicorn skull. In North Korea they called it a kirin and its appearance was seen as an auspicious sign, for these mythical creatures only appeared during the reign of wise rulers. But where had it come from? None of the children seemed to know and the boy in the Stetson only admitted to bringing it from the camp. Another strange item was held up for the viewers. A long, crooked silver wand, tipped with an amber star. The interviewer waved it around, pulling comical faces. Maggie said it belonged to the retired Fairy Godmother character, but didn’t say how it came to be in the camp. Both it and the skull were confiscated.

“I don’t want my damn face on TV!” Lee had growled, among other things that didn’t get translated.

“What they do to you?” he was badgered. “What they do?”

“You really wanna know?” he snarled back. “They dragged my girlfriend to an abattoir and slaughtered her like a pig, that’s what. Then those sick bastards fed her to us. You got that? You comprende that? Yeah, you heard right – they fed her to us!”

And so the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea learned about Dancing Jax. For once the ceaseless, bombastic propaganda machine didn’t need to exaggerate the evils of the imperialist Western aggressors; in fact, it concentrated its efforts in downplaying the dangers to dampen the mounting sense of panic. Yes, it was a state of emergency and they stood alone against the entire world, but that was nothing new. Such a crisis is what their founder, Kim Il-sung, foresaw in his great wisdom and why they would survive even this. Whatever threatened their borders would be dealt with. They had no need to fear. Kim Jong-un, the founder’s grandson, would ensure no harm would come to his people. They would remain isolated from the world and stay safe.

But the presence of the foreign children was a constant reminder of the outside danger and so, when that first week was over, the special treatment, the visits, the interviews stopped. Then the only adult female, Mrs Benedict, was found dead in the bathroom of their hotel. She had killed herself and the euphoria of having escaped the camp died with her. Two nights later, they were all removed from Pyongyang.

Maggie recalled that less comfortable journey in the back of military trucks through rugged, hilly terrain and seemingly endless forests, along rudimentary roads until, finally, they reached this secret base built into the mountain. The holiday was over. They had swapped one prison for another.

“Your face will freeze and drop off out here,” a friendly voice declared.

The teenage girl blinked. She had stared into the fog too long and her eyes ached. Turning away from the blank void, she saw a neat, elderly gentleman approaching along the terrace.

“Morning, Gerald,” she called, glad to see him. “I was miles away.”

“A chon for your thoughts?”