The Fear (26 page)

‘Oh yeah? And what
am
I up to?’

‘You think you can stroll in here and take over.’

‘No way, man. That’s not my game,’ DogNut protested. ‘I don’t want to step on no toes. This is your party. Whatever you been told you been told wrong.’

‘OK. Good. As long as that’s clear.’

‘Crystal.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Because I don’t want anything to happen here that could screw things up. We’ve worked hard to make this a good place to live. Apart from the sickos in the lower level, it’s just about perfect.’

‘Yeah. Brooke told me about that. How many you got down there?’

‘Don’t know for sure. Not that many. You know how they love the dark, how they love to be underground. It was too dangerous to try and clear them out, so we just secured all the doors so that they can’t get through to our bit. One day we ought to hire some hunters to go in and flush them out, but they don’t really bother us. You remember they used to say you were never more than ten feet away from a rat in London? Or something like that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘But you never saw them, did you? They kept out of our way, just like the sickos do now.’

‘So we safe, yeah?’

‘The museum’s built like a fortress, so it’s easy to defend. Plus there’s plenty of land to grow food on. It works well, but it’s complicated. It’s not just running around smashing sickos’ heads in. We’ve moved on from that.’

‘If you say so.’ DogNut shrugged.

‘Let me tell you what I do, DogNut,’ said Justin. ‘As the boy they voted to be in charge of all this. And you think about it. Think about what sort of life you want for yourself. I get up at dawn. I check with all the kids who’ve been on late duty that nothing’s happened overnight. I personally go to every entrance and exit and make sure that they’re secure. Then I check with the kitchen staff what food we’ve got for the day. Do we need to find more? Is there enough water? Do we have enough fuel for cooking? What are the menus for breakfast, lunch and supper? Will everyone get enough ascorbic acid in their diet? Then we have morning council, where any kids with any problems, complaints, questions, whatever come and talk to me. After that I …’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right,’ said DogNut. ‘I get the picture. Is boring, right?’

‘Not for me it isn’t, no,’ said Justin. ‘I find it all fascinating. But for you …’

‘It don’t have to be that way, blood,’ said DogNut. ‘At the Tower Jordan Hordern is a general, a fighting man …’

‘You’ve seen a few other settlements recently, haven’t you?’ asked Justin.

‘Yeah.’

‘And the kids in charge – were they more like Jordan or were they more like me?’

‘Well … I guess they was more like
you
. Nuts.’

Justin laughed. ‘You’re probably right,’ he said. ‘Now come and look at this. I want to show you something …’ He went over to the windows and pointed down to a big courtyard inside the museum buildings that had obviously been used as a car park.

‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’ DogNut asked.

‘The rather large white object with wheels.’

‘OMG!’ DogNut cried. ‘Look at that. It’s the beast!’

Parked on one side of the car park was the Tesco lorry.

‘Yep,’ said Justin. ‘We parked it there when we arrived. Hasn’t left the car park since.’

‘I guess the food ran out ages ago.’

‘Lasted about two weeks. The lorry’s still useful, though.’

‘What for?’

‘Safe storage.’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Come with me and I’ll show you.’

They didn’t like it around here. Shadowman had led them across the wide Euston Road, and the effect had been like crossing a river from one country to another. The six-lane highway seemed to act like a boundary between the safe area to the south and the wild lands to the north. Maybe it only felt that way to Shadowman, who hadn’t been north of Euston Road in over a year, but he was sure the others sensed it too. It wasn’t helped by the sun going behind heavy black clouds just as they reached the far pavement. The day grew dark and chilly. In the cold gloom everywhere looked very different. The buildings here were grey and dirty and dead.

Tom and his girlfriend, Kate, picked up their pace and kept close to Jester and Shadowman. Alfie had been entertaining them by singing old disco songs. He’d gone through ‘YMCA’, ‘Thriller’ and ‘Staying Alive’. That was their favourite. They’d all joined in, their high voices rising to the heavens.

‘Ha, ha, ha, ha, staying alive …’

None of them had Alfie’s energy, however, and he’d carried on singing long after the others had stopped.

But as they came past Euston station Alfie shut up as well. All they could hear now was the sound of their footsteps bouncing back off the walls of the buildings. It was so quiet. A quiet like London hadn’t known for hundreds of years. The whole buzz and hum and bustle, the engine throb of a city, had been silenced. There didn’t even seem to be any birds around. It unsettled the kids and made them nervous. They’d seen a couple of strangers earlier, solitary ones, badly diseased, slow and feeble. No threat at all. Laughable. One of them had even been shuffling along the pavement on his bottom, pulling with his heels and pushing with his knuckles.

Tom and Kate had perked up and wanted to attack them for the hell of it. To boost their confidence. But Shadowman had insisted they press on. Noise and the smell of blood would only attract other strangers. It was best to keep moving while the going was good. They had no idea what lay ahead, after all.

They hadn’t seen any other children yet. Not one. They hadn’t passed any obvious hiding-places, strongholds that they themselves might have picked to live in. The last time Shadowman had come up this way there had been lots of kids around, squatting in the houses. They must all have either been killed or had clubbed together into larger groups and moved into safer buildings, like David’s group at the palace. Shadowman was wondering how far they’d have to go before they found anyone else of their own age.

‘Have we got a limit?’ he asked Jester, trying to break the tension of these gloomy streets.

‘A limit to what?’

‘How far we go. How long we stay away. You haven’t really said. Do we go back tonight? Tomorrow? Next week?’

‘I vote we go back now,’ said Tom.

‘Wait, surely we’re going back before tonight,’ said Kate anxiously, holding on to Tom’s arm. ‘I’m not staying out in the dark somewhere strange. You never said we were going to be away overnight.’

‘That’s because there
is
no definite plan,’ said Jester. ‘There can’t be.’

‘That’s just great,’ said Kate.

‘No,’ said Jester. ‘What I mean is … we don’t know how far we’ll have to go to find any other kids. OK, to be fair, if we haven’t found anyone by this evening, then we head back before it gets dark. Does that sound all right? If we
do
find other kids, though, then it might make sense to stay with them until tomorrow.’

‘I vote we go back tonight, whatever,’ said Kate.

‘Say we do find some other kids?’ asked Alfie. ‘Then what happens?’

‘Then we see what’s what.’ Jester shook his head. ‘Jesus, I can’t see into the future. We might think it’s worth pressing on and looking for some more kids. Or we might just go back to the palace with whoever we can persuade to join us.’

‘Great plan, Jester,’ said Alfie sarcastically.

‘I vote Shadowman’s in charge,’ said Kate.

‘Will you shut up, Kate?’ Jester snapped. ‘We’re not taking votes.’

Kate mumbled something inaudible.

‘You’re not helping,’ said Jester. ‘Look, this is really only a scouting party, all right? To try and find what’s out there. There might be no one else, or there might be loads of kids. We might even find some who’ve got a better set-up than David, and decide we’re not going back at all.’

‘Sod that,’ said Tom. ‘All my stuff’s at the palace. All my mates.’

‘Yeah. Joke, Tom. OK? You really think there’s going to be a better set-up than we’ve got? I don’t think so.’

‘So where exactly do you want to look next?’ asked Shadowman.

Jester stopped walking and pulled a map out of his pocket.

‘We’ll head up as far as Camden, I reckon,’ he said, studying the map. ‘Check it out. It’s the sort of place kids might end up. Then I’ll decide where we go after that.’

‘If you ask me,’ said Tom, ‘this is one big waste of time. We’re not going to find anything. Nothing’s going to happen.’

The words were barely out of his mouth when a stranger lurched out of a side-road no more than three metres away. He was a middle-aged father with a broken arm, the bone sticking out through the skin, his face a mess of yellow boils. It was hard to tell who was the more surprised, the father or the kids.

They all froze.

Jester and the rest of them gripped their weapons tight.

The father tilted his head to one side, staring at them with wide, lidless eyes.

‘I vote we kill him,’ said Tom.

‘I vote we run,’ said Shadowman.

‘There’s only one of him,’ said Kate.

‘Yeah?’ said Shadowman. ‘Try looking the other way.’

Tom turned round. Coming up the street from the direction of Euston Road were about twenty strangers. Moving fast.

‘Holy shit,’ said Tom.

Kate grabbed him and pulled him along the road. The others were already running. Shadowman took the lead. Streaking ahead on his long legs. He was more used to life on the streets. More used to running. So that he’d started to move the instant he saw the mass of strangers. No thinking about it, no panic, just off and sprinting.

Glancing back, though, he realized that he’d have to let the rest of them catch up. They were no different to the strangers – in a group they were strong; if they got split up, they were easy meat.

‘Come on,’ he yelled. ‘Leg it!’

He slowed just enough for the others to draw level. All except Alfie, who was smaller and not so fast.

‘Wait for me,’ he shouted.

‘You have to go faster!’ Jester screamed back at him, as the gap widened between them.

‘I can’t. I’m going as fast as I can.’

‘Wait for him,’ said Shadowman. ‘We don’t leave anyone behind.’

‘Hurry up, Alfie!’ Jester sounded cross. Not angry at the strangers, but at Alfie. Would he have just run off and left him if Shadowman hadn’t said something? Shadowman wondered about Jester sometimes. Wondered if he ever really cared about anyone other than himself.

There wasn’t time to think about any of this, because the road ahead was blocked as well now. Another smaller but no less dangerous group of strangers was approaching from the north. The kids veered off to the east, smashing their way past two lone strangers, a mother and a father. Shadowman had borrowed a club from the palace for extra firepower, and he used it without hesitation to crush the skull of the mother, who crumpled on to the bonnet of a car, spraying it with a foul cocktail of bodily fluids. It was Alfie who took out the father, jabbing his spear into his guts. Unfortunately he didn’t have time to yank it out again, and had to carry on without it, leaving the father staggering about in the centre of the road trying to pull it free. At last he succeeded, but it was like pulling out a plug. The father hissed as a steaming grey mass of intestines flopped out of the wound. He collapsed to his knees and three of the pursuing strangers stopped to make the most of this free meal.

Nothing else barred their way and the kids were able to run on, bobbing and weaving through the side-streets until they were absolutely sure they’d left all the strangers behind. At last they risked stopping, and leant against a wall, panting and wheezing and clutching their sides.

‘Bloody hell,’ Tom gasped. ‘What was that? Why weren’t they all indoors? Why weren’t they sleeping? Don’t they know they’re only supposed to come out at night?’

‘Maybe nobody told them,’ said Shadowman.

‘Seriously, guys,’ said Kate, who was shaking and white-faced. ‘I really do vote we go back now. This is serious. I never expected there was gonna be armies of them.’

‘They weren’t an army,’ said Shadowman. ‘They don’t make armies. They don’t have the brains. And none of us got hurt.’

‘Yes, but bloody hell, Shadowman.
Bloody hell
. That was scary. I haven’t seen that many strangers in one place since this all began.’

‘Come on,’ Tom pleaded. ‘Can’t we just go home? There needs to be more of us. This is stupid.’

‘We’re not going home,’ said Jester.

‘Why? Why not?’ Kate shouted. ‘Why the hell not?’

‘Look.’

There were more strangers coming from the south, and once again the kids were running.

Justin unlocked a heavy door and took DogNut outside into the car park they’d seen from the library. DogNut had been aware of a chugging noise, like a motor running, and was intrigued to see what it was. The air was filled with petrol fumes and DogNut saw a petrol-fuelled generator standing next to the lorry.

He was surprised to see Paul fiddling with the generator. Justin seemed surprised as well.

‘Are you all right, Paul?’ he asked. ‘You really don’t need to come back to work just yet.’

‘I’m all right,’ said Paul, straightening up. ‘It helps to be doing something.’

His eyes were red from crying, though his pale cheeks were dry. He looked very jittery, as if he might burst into tears again at any moment.

‘We can find something easier for you –’

‘This is my job,’ said Paul angrily, cutting Justin off.

‘I know,’ said Justin.

‘Don’t you think I can do it?’

‘I didn’t say that. In fact, forget I said anything. Can you open the lorry for us?’

Paul said nothing, but sullenly fished a keyring from his trouser pocket. It was heavy with keys of all shapes and sizes. He selected one and slotted it into a padlock on the back of the lorry. He snapped the padlock open and slid the door up.

DogNut covered his mouth and gagged. The smell that came out of the lorry was disgusting. Sour and rotten.

‘Jesus, who’s died?’ he said.

‘About four-fifths of the population of the world,’ said Justin.