Fighting Pax. Robin Jarvis

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СКАЧАТЬ at him in Korean, they pulled on the chains attached to his wrists and forced him to sit upright.

      “Quit that!” the boy barked at them, giving the chains a vicious tug back that almost wrenched the nearest guard off balance. “Give me a second to wake the hell up. I feel like crap.”

      Ignoring their continued cries, he looked about. It was a deliciously warm afternoon and they were in a forest. All around them, the leaves were intense shades of gold, red and orange and the sky was an unbelievable blue. Beneath the branches, fallen chestnut casings were in abundance, split open – displaying cream-coloured flesh and the fattest, shiniest, chocolaty-brown fruits. A faint and delicate scent of sweet-smelling woodsmoke laced the air, combining with the damp must of rich, fertile earth. Early autumn in Mooncaster was a ravishing feast for the senses, just like every season here.

      Lee felt nauseous. This time the crossing had been different. He still felt groggy and exhausted and bile burned the back of his throat. Remaining seated, he shifted around and saw that the trees stretched far into the distance in every direction. Whatever forest this was, they were deep in the middle of it. He had no idea exactly whereabouts in Mooncaster they were. There was no landmark in sight to help him.

      “Don’t matter,” he told himself. “We ain’t hangin’ here longer than we have to.” But he wasn’t looking forward to the trip back if it was as rough as the journey getting here. His innards felt like they’d been put through a blender.

      Looking up at the guards’ rifles, he hoped Gerald had removed the real versions from their sleeping selves back in North Korea and was making good use of them this very minute.

      “Tough if he ain’t,” Lee said aloud. “Cos we is outta here.”

      Rising to his feet, he tried to get the guards to calm down.

      “Hey, Sporty!” he said, calling them by their Spice Girl nicknames. “Enough with the whinin’, and Scary, if you nudge me with that rifle butt one more time, I is gonna leave you here, I swear to God.”

      The guards waved their arms and continued to shout.

      “Yeah – yeah,” Lee said. “It’s mad, it’s off the hook, but stressin’ out and boohoos won’t do no good, ladies.”

      Suddenly, close by, there was a furtive rustling. The guards leaped around in alarm and ‘Baby Spice’ opened fire. The autumnal peace erupted with a blizzard of bullets that went ripping through the undergrowth and a tree trunk splintered as lead hammered into it. A red squirrel fell from a branch and another half-dozen shots made it jump and twitch before the nervous guard realised what it was and ceased firing.

      The others stared across at the thoroughly dead animal, then began to snigger in embarrassment. Their shared tension had been released and they gave Baby teasing punches on his arm.

      Lee shook his head at them. “You all got that outta your systems now, yeah?” he asked warily. “That weren’t cool, you assholes. That furry bullet bag coulda had somethin’ to say – you have no idea what the zoo life is like round here. That coulda been anythin’. That was dumb, guys – real baseline dumb! Trigger-happy ain’t the word; trigger-hysterical is what you is. You need to frost up, right now, ’fore one of us gets capped the same way.”

      The guards had no idea what he was saying. They pointed at the squirrel and laughed. It was the only time Lee had ever seen them display any jubilant emotion. Their relieved, joking chatter sounded weird in this place. One of them, the thinnest, and usually the surliest, was the first to become grave once more and lifted the chain that tethered him to Lee’s wrist. Then, with urgent gestures, he mimed the boy taking them away from here.

      “You got it, Posh,” Lee agreed. “That’s what I is ’bout to do – take us back over that rainbow. This messed-up Oz has got enough crazy muthas in it already; it don’t need four more with guns, what don’t speak local.”

      After several frustrating minutes in which he tried to indicate what he was going to do, he finally had them lined up on either side of him. They were on an overgrown forest path and, by scissoring his forefingers, managed to demonstrate that they were going to run along it a little way and wake up back in the medical room.

      “In North Korea,” he said, nodding his head slowly. “DPRK – yeah? That crap heap, ass end of nowhere. We go back there, mkay?”

      “Kay!” affirmed Scary and Posh Spice on his right.

      “Kay!” chimed in Sporty and Baby on his left.

      Lee took a moment to compose himself and crunched his neck muscles a few times. Glancing along the forest path, he reckoned they’d be back in the mountain base before they made it past three trees. What they’d find waiting for them back there, however, was an entirely different matter.

      “You’d best be long gone when we get back, old man,” he muttered. “These ladies is burnin’ to shoot something bigger than squirrels.”

      Closing his eyes, he tensed and then ran forward. The chains rattled and the four guards ran with him.

      After passing at least ten trees, Lee slowed to a stop and took deep breaths as he gazed about, frowning. Why were they still here? What had he done wrong? He didn’t understand it.

      The guards looked at one another uncertainly and voiced their confusion.

      “I know, I know,” the boy said. “I got me no idea neither. We go again, yeah?”

      “Kay!” they said in military unison.

      Lee closed his eyes again and concentrated harder than before. He thought of the familiar room, with its monitors, wall mirror and hospital bed. That’s where he was going to find himself this time. No doubt about it.

      With a grunt, he ran along the path, leading the eager guards.

      When that attempt also failed, followed by a third, fourth and then a fifth, during which they’d held hands, the guards’ keen anticipation had gone and they had reverted to shouting at him angrily.

      “We should be gone by now!” Lee declared, holding his hands up. “We should be back in that dump you call home. This is not my fault.”

      Posh Spice had run out of patience and he turned his rifle on the boy, prodding him in the stomach to get this most basic threat across in no uncertain terms.

      “Hey!” Lee yelled. “You do somethin’ crazy an’ there’s no way you’re gonna get back, stupid.”

      The others seemed to agree with him and they shouted at Posh in Korean, pushing the barrel of the Kalashnikov away.

      Posh railed back at them and Lee let them bawl at each other. He tried to work out what he was doing differently. There’d never been any trouble getting back to the real world. He had flitted in and out of this twisted place at will. Mind you, he’d never had to take four adults with him, but there hadn’t been a problem bringing them here in the first place.

      “Yeah, but that weren’t down to me,” he told himself. “I was dragged here, like when I brought Spencer and Maggie back in the camp. Maybe I got me a two-person max limit?”

      “Hey, ladies,” he called, interrupting their argument. “Let’s try this again, but different this time. Just two of you come with me. I’ll bounce straight СКАЧАТЬ