Un Lun Dun - China Mieville [9]
The walls just kept going up. Everywhere they looked, they were surrounded by enormous concrete monoliths that dwarfed those they remembered, and stood in more chaotic configurations. Not a single one of them was broken by a single window.
The door swung shut, and clicked. Zanna tugged it: of course it was locked. The building they’d emerged from soared into a sky glowing a peculiar glow.
“Maybe that room’s, like…a train carriage…” Deeba whispered. “And we’ve come down the line…and…and it was later than we thought…”
“Maybe,” whispered Zanna doubtfully, trying the door again. “So how do we get back?”
“Why did you turn it?” Deeba said.
“I don’t know,” said Zanna, stricken. “I just…thought like I had to.”
Holding each other’s arms for comfort, peering everywhere wide-eyed, Zanna and Deeba crept into the passageways between the walls.
“I’m calling Mum,” Deeba said, and took out her phone. She was about to dial when she stopped, and stared at the screen. She showed it to Zanna. It was covered in symbols they’d never seen before. Where the reception bar usually was was a sort of corkscrew. Instead of the network sign was a weird pictogram.
Deeba scrolled through her address book.
“What’s that mean?” said Zanna.
“Those aren’t my friends’ names,” whispered Deeba. Her phone’s contact list contained random words in alphabetical order. Accidie, Bateleur, Cepheid, Dillybag…
“Mine’s the same,” said Zanna, checking her own. “Enantios? Floccus? Goosegog? What is that?”
Deeba dialed her home number.
“Hello?” she whispered. “Hello?”
From the phone sounded a close-up buzzing like a wasp. It was so loud and sudden in that silent place that Deeba turned it off in alarm. She and Zanna stared at each other.
“Let me try,” said Zanna. But dialing her number led to the same unpleasant insect noise. “No reception,” she said, as if that were all that was wrong. Neither of them said anything more about the strange words or pictures on their phones.
They went deeper into the cavern between the windowless buildings.
“We have to get out of here,” said Zanna, speeding up.
They ran past windblown old newspaper, deserted tin cans, and the rustling of black rubbish bags. In growing terror they turned left then right then left, and then Zanna came to a sudden stop, and Deeba bumped into her.
“What?” said Deeba, and Zanna hushed her.
“I thought…” she said. “Listen.”
Deeba bit her lip. Zanna swallowed several times.
For long seconds there was silence. Then a very faint noise.
There was a rustling, what might be a light footfall.
“Someone’s coming,” whispered Zanna. Her voice was halfway between hope and despair—would this person help, or be more troubles?
Then she slumped, and pointed.
It was just a torn black rubbish bag, billowing nearby. It scraped gently against the ground.
Deeba sighed and watched it despondently as it fluttered a little closer. There was more rubbish behind it: with a clatter a can rolled into view, and there was the whisper of newspaper. A little collection of discarded stuff swirled at the passage entrance. The girls leaned against the wall.
“We got to think,” Deeba said, and tried and failed to use her phone again.
“Deeba,” Zanna whispered.
There was more rubbish than had been there a moment before. The black plastic, and the can, and the newspapers, had been joined by greasy hamburger wrappers, a grocery bag, several apple cores, and scrunched-up clear plastic. The rubbish rustled.
More rolled into view: chicken bones, empty tubes of toothpaste, a milk carton. Debris blocked off the way they had come.
Deeba and Zanna stared. The rubbish was moving towards them. It was coming against the wind.
As the girls began to creep backwards, it seemed as if the rubbish realized they were onto it. It sped up.
The cartons and cans rolled in their direction. The paper fluttered for them as madly as agitated butterflies. The plastic bags