Chapter Five

 

 

THEY KEPT TO the side of the road as the walking building continued to totter around on its spindly legs. The Russians had quickly switched from adoration to panicked defence. Shots rang out, bullets piercing the building’s windows and ricocheting of its bricks.

With luck, Grace thought, running past God, the mobsters and the building would keep each other occupied until they were out of sight.

Sadly, as the ocean came into view, she heard the heavy feet pounding down the road towards them; a mad, witch-like cackle cutting through the air. Just ahead of them was a large barricade built from wooden sheeting, sandbags and barbed wire.

Above the barricade a colourful sign, painted in swirling reds and blues announced The Queendom of Coney Island. If only they could reach it in time they might be safe.

‘Faster!’ she shouted to God, looking back over her shoulder. ‘We’re nearly there!’

‘Baba Yaga!’ the cackling voice called and she could see the face of an old lady at one of the upper windows, leaning out over the sill, long grey hair whipping around her head.

God turned to look. His sledgehammer slipped from his hands and he tripped over it as it clattered to the ground. With a yell he fell on his back in the middle of the road, staring up at the advancing building. Any moment now, he would be stepped on and all pretence of his being the Almighty would be smeared across the tarmac.

She considered leaving him, just another dead body in the road, but she couldn’t do it. However much the last few weeks had made her numb to the death of strangers, she couldn’t stand by and see someone who had been kind to her die, not if there was anything she could do to help.

She picked up the sledgehammer, and did her best to wave it over her head. It was so heavy she ended up doing little more than shaking it ineffectively. She roared at the top of her voice and ran towards the building’s legs, hoping she could move quickly enough to avoid them as they shuffled and stamped their indentation into the surface of the road.

God rolled out of the way just in time to avoid being crushed; the three-toed foot clenching, its talons digging thin wounds in the road.

Grace swung the sledgehammer down on the foot, pleased to hear a rewarding crack of thin bones as the hammer did its damage.

Above them, the old woman roared with rage and the building toppled precariously, its damaged foot rising into the air as it tried to avoid a second blow.

Grace was already running towards the second foot, swinging the sledgehammer again. This time the foot darted away from her, trying to avoid suffering the same fate as its partner. It was an automatic reaction and one that robbed the building of its balance.

The old woman screeched in anger and panic as her home stumbled backwards, hopping and shuffling as it tried to avoid falling over.

‘Run!’ Grace shouted, dropping the sledgehammer and making for the barricade, snatching at God’s robes as she passed.

‘I don’t want to go in!’ he shouted. ‘I’m God, I’ll be fine out here.’

‘No you won’t!’ she replied, banging on the barricade. ‘Hey! Let us in! There’s a monster house out here trying to kill us!’

Behind them, the building had retreated some distance but it was regaining its balance and she was sure that it would soon resume its attack.

She banged on the barricade again. ‘Come on! We’re here to visit the Queen!’

A hatch slid back and she found herself staring into a water tank, a large fishy eye staring back.

‘Hi,’ she said, rather hesitantly. ‘Can we come in?’

Another hatch slid back, this one revealing a speaker grill. ‘What do you want?’ asked a deep voice, distorted by the water. The tank in front of her filled with bubbles as the eye’s owner spoke.

‘We want to come in,’ she said again.

‘Speak up,’ the aquatic voice said. ‘I can’t hear you.’

‘We want to come in!’ she shouted.

‘Why?’

‘To see the Queen.’ She stepped to one side. ‘And to get away from that.’

The eye stared out of the tank, looking at the building that was now making its way back towards them, limping slightly thanks to its damaged foot.

‘House on legs,’ the voice said. ‘Weird.’

‘So let us in!’

‘What’s the password?’ the voice asked.

‘I don’t know!’

‘Wasn’t talking to you.’ Another hatch slid back, a couple of feet higher and to the right of the first. In this one she could see the bloated, scaled face of something that resembled a puffer fish crossed with a baby.

‘Can’t remember,’ said a new voice. ‘Something to do with cotton candy I think. Or do I mean baboons?’

‘Baboons?’ Grace shouted in exasperation.

‘That must be it,’ said the new voice. ‘Baboons are definitely to do with baboons. Let her in.’

‘You sure?’ asked the first voice. ‘I think she was just guessing.’

‘Baboons are not the sort of thing you randomly guess,’ said the second voice. ‘You’re being paranoid again. Let her in.’

‘If you’re sure.’

A hatch large enough to walk through appeared and Grace dragged God inside.

‘What about the building with legs?’ the first voice asked as they entered a dark tunnel.

‘Does it know the password.’

‘It keeps screaming “Baba Yaga”.’

‘That has absolutely nothing to do with cotton candy. Or baboons. Or anything really. Tell it to go away.’

‘I don’t think she’ll listen,’ said Grace. It was lighter now and she could see that they were in one of those glass tunnels they had in big aquariums, the sort where you could walk through the large tanks and see the fish swimming around you.

Looking back she could see the other side of the barricade, the fish people floating in front of the barricade windows watching the advancing building.

‘Cannon?’ asked the one that looked like a puffer fish.

‘Cannon,’ the other agreed, a more slender creature, elongated arms and legs poking out of an algae-covered track suit. Its eyes were huge and jutted from either side of its narrow head.

A long, black cylinder sat between them, attached to the barricade. The puffer creature bobbed over to it and pulled a stout lever on its side.

There was a deep boom and the water fizzed around them as the cannon sucked and then expelled some of the tank’s contents. In the distance, muffled from their position inside the tunnel, Grace heard a dull crump as the jet of water hit its target. A moment later there was a crashing sound.

‘What’s a Baba Yaga then?’ asked the puffer creature.

‘Blowed if I know,’ its partner replied, ‘but it’s lying outside with a pair of broken legs.’

‘Don’t suppose it really matters then.’

The puffer creature swam down to Grace and God, pressing its face up against the glass of the tunnel. ‘You two had better follow me.’