The Fear (36 page)

The downside to Arran dying was that they’d all been held up for hours waiting for him to give up the ghost. And then Maxie had insisted on burning his body. By the time they’d reached Regent’s Park it had been dark, and they’d been attacked again, this time by wild animals. In the end they’d decided not to push on any further until it was light. Now they were camped out in a railed-off public garden at the end of the park. Guards patrolled the perimeters, a couple more kept watch from the roof of a groundsman’s hut. Jester felt perfectly safe. Having seen these kids in action, he was more than a little impressed.

He was tired. He’d sleep soon. For now, though, he was trying to make plans while it was quiet. How easy it had been in the old days, with mobile phones and email and Facebook. He could have had a long chat with David and warned him in advance of their arrival. Told him to lay it on thick, prepare a feast, put on a show. They could have banged their heads together until they’d come up with a solid plan. Instead he was having to fly solo for now.

Never mind. He was sure it would all work out fine. It wasn’t far to the palace from here, certainly not more than an hour. They’d be there before lunchtime tomorrow. In the end his trip had been successful, more successful than he’d ever dared to imagine. He’d hoped to maybe find a few strays and outcasts who might want to join up with a larger group for protection and instead he’d found these tough and well-organized
warriors
. It was a shame he’d lost Alfie along the way. And probably Kate and Tom – God knows where they’d ended up. Good luck to them.

And then there was Shadowman. That was a
real
shame. He’d liked Shadow. The closest thing to a best friend he’d had in the world. In the end, though, Shadow had made a sacrifice for the greater good. Look what Jester was bringing back in exchange for his life. At least thirty new recruits. If there was anybody up there in the sky keeping score, couldn’t they see that Jester had done the right thing? What use was it living in small scattered groups around London? They needed to be in one big group. That was the future.

Surely Jester had done more good than bad.

No, not
bad
, wrong.

He had done more right than wrong.

Hell. Had he even done wrong at all? It wasn’t his fault Shadowman had walked inside his swing. If you wanted to blame anyone, blame the strangers, blame the bloody grown-ups who’d left the world in this mess.

Don’t blame
him
. Not Jester. All Jester was doing was surviving. That’s what mattered now. To get through all this and rebuild the world.

Yes. Everything he had done was for the future of mankind.

When he’d finished sewing on the patch, he would sleep well tonight.

And if Shadowman himself was up in heaven looking down at him, he was sure he’d understand.

The strangers weren’t going to give up. They’d been besieging the house since before it had got dark. How long ago was that? A few hours, definitely. From his new hiding-place, in a burnt-out family home a safe distance away from the action, Shadowman had trouble seeing exactly what was going on in the darkness. He could hear well enough, though. Hear the strangers’ grunts and yowls, the creak of breaking wood, the occasional snap. There were kids inside that house and the strangers intended to get at them no matter how long it took.

He’d followed them all day. At first they’d meandered aimlessly about the streets with no real purpose and he’d moved from house to house behind them, keeping far enough away that there was no danger of them smelling him, but close enough that he wouldn’t lose them. It wasn’t difficult. They moved in a slow, shuffling mass, stopping every few minutes and, for no obvious reason, milling in the road, before switching direction and wandering off again. Even if the leaders got too far ahead Shadowman always kept one eye on the stragglers – he couldn’t let his guard down – and kept his other eye in the back of his head as smaller groups were constantly appearing out of nowhere, curious to see what was going on. In the past Shadowman had seen rival gangs of strangers attack each other, like packs of wild dogs, but that hadn’t happened today. These strangers, under the leadership of St George, were working together as an army, just as Shadowman had feared.

Finally, after a long stretch of this random behaviour, he’d noticed a change come over them. They’d become more alert, excited, and had started to move faster. He, in turn, had had to move faster to keep up, taking more risks as he darted from one safe cover to another.

Intrigued as to what might have caused this change in them, he’d braved flanking the crowd to see what the leaders were up to. He’d managed to work his way far enough round the side to get a reasonably good view. St George was acting as if he was on the scent of something. Kids most likely. There was a purpose to him, and the rest of the strangers responded to it. They’d moved steadily south, sticking together, shambling along a little faster. Shadowman had let them pass him by and then fallen back to his position at the rear.

Perhaps twenty minutes later the strangers had become severely agitated and Shadowman assumed they must be moving in for the kill. They’d grown very excited, and now lots of small fights had broken out among them. Then they’d halted. Shadowman had been following their progress in his A to Z and had worked out that they were about halfway down Camden Road. Once again he’d wanted to sneak forward to see what was happening, but couldn’t risk it. In this fired-up state the strangers were unpredictable and a lot more dangerous. Instead he had to wait frustratingly at the rear, trying to read what was going on in their increasingly disturbed actions.

They’d waited in the road for ages before suddenly lurching forward in a drunken sort of charge. What followed was evidently a battle of some kind. Shadowman was too far away to see what was happening, but it was clear that a big fight was in progress. He hoped that whoever they were attacking were well armed and well prepared. He could do absolutely nothing to help. He was one boy against an army. He toyed with the idea of firing his crossbow into the back of them and told himself not to be so stupid. It would only put him in danger of being discovered. His skill was watching and waiting and following. Information was power. In a war a well-placed spy was more valuable than a foot soldier.

He could hear distant shouts and screams, the sort of sounds you used to hear coming from school playgrounds from several streets away. At one point he could have sworn he heard a car’s engine, but thought he must have been mistaken.

The fight didn’t last long, maybe half an hour at the most, but he knew how tiring fighting for even that short length of time was. With your body flooded with adrenalin, your every muscle working hard, your stressed heart thumping, you can’t keep it up for long. On top of that, swinging your weapon, hitting someone and being hit in return takes huge amounts of strength and energy. His dad had been a big boxing fan, and had made Shadowman watch old DVDs of Muhammad Ali in action. A round only lasted three minutes, but the boxers would finish each session dripping with sweat, utterly worn down. Shadowman knew from experience that when you were fighting for your life it was much, much harder. He’d seen kids in fights with strangers just give up, unable to cope any longer, and let themselves be killed.

He had time to think about all this as the battle raged down the road, and then, as quickly as it had started, the fighting stopped and the strangers started to drift back the way they’d come. There was no way of telling who’d won the fight. Many of the strangers were bloodied, some with quite serious-looking wounds. He’d waited until he’d spotted St George and then set off after him. It was hard to read emotions in grown-ups’ blistered, subhuman faces, but there was a definite, defeated, angry mood among St George’s little gang, who all appeared unharmed. Once again they’d wandered with no real purpose, and once again they collected strays as they went. Their black mood had only lifted when they’d stumbled across a house where two older strangers were trying to break in. Shadowman realized straight away that there must be kids hiding inside.

A territorial dispute had quickly broken out between the two old fathers and the angry new arrivals. There followed a brief, bloody fight that ended with the deaths of the fathers. Then St George and his gang had set about trying to break in themselves.

Shadowman had taken out his new binoculars and studied the area. The house stood in a large square with a fenced-off garden in the centre. It had probably once been a rich man’s home, but now looked like something out of a war zone. Whoever was inside had managed to barricade it pretty well; all the downstairs windows were blocked. He wondered how long the kids had been in there holding out against their original attackers. As he swept his binoculars over the site, he spotted the dead body of another stranger. An elderly mother who had been half eaten. Maybe she had been part of the siege party and the kids in the house had killed her? The fathers had probably eaten some of her to keep going, but what they really wanted was the fresh young meat inside. The body looked like it had been dead for a while, the blood around it dark and dry, which meant that the siege had probably been going on for some time.

Since he’d arrived, Shadowman hadn’t seen any signs of life from inside the building. He knew there must still be kids in there, though, or else St George would have given up and wandered off long ago.

He’d worked his way closer, moving from building to building, and had ended up in this burnt-out house. The fire must have happened fairly recently because there was still a strong smell of smoke and charring hanging over it. That would help to mask his scent, which was why he’d chosen it. He didn’t think there was any chance of them discovering him here, but he kept his loaded crossbow by his side just in case. He had a pretty good vantage point, up on the third floor, peering out from a gap in the broken masonry. The roof was open above him, showing the cloudy, starless sky. He wished it had been a brighter night so that he could have seen more of what was happening, but couldn’t risk getting in any closer in case they sensed him.

Now his binoculars could only just pick out the shapes of the grown-ups in the darkness. It was weird to see the control St George had over them. They seemed to respect his authority. What’s more, they all appeared to understand what he wanted them to do, even though he could only communicate with grunts and clumsy gestures, or by occasionally shoving one of them into the attack. They were working together as one unit, like a swarm of ants, sharing a single mind. Shadowman shook his head and told himself not to be crazy. There was no way the strangers could have developed a form of telepathy along with their boils and blisters, when the disease hit them. Or at least – he hoped not. For all their sakes …

The strangers were slow and awkward and St George’s gang were the only ones who could use tools of any kind. Sooner or later, though, they were going to get into the house and kill the occupants. If there were enough kids in there to beat the besiegers, they would have attacked them by now, got rid of them. The fact that they hadn’t told Shadowman that there weren’t enough kids to mount any kind of useful assault.

They were doomed.

The strangers had been steadily working away at the house all night. Right now a knot of them was hammering at the front door while a second gang was tearing at a downstairs window. Others were busy round the back. It was only a matter of time before they got in.

Once again Shadowman felt utterly helpless. Stuck out here, only able to watch. There must have been thirty, maybe forty strangers by the house. If he waded in, he’d just be one more casualty. An attack would achieve nothing.

It made him sick, though, imagining how terrified the kids inside there must be right now.

Then a ripple of excitement passed through the strangers, and they surged towards the front door.

They were in.

Shadowman closed his eyes. He could hear them, crashing about. There were shouts. Kids’ voices, high and frightened. Screams …

It felt like it was never going to end. At least the kids weren’t giving up without a fight. Maybe they would take down some of the strangers before they died.

And then at last Shadowman opened his eyes and dragged the binoculars to his face. They felt like they were made of lead. He didn’t want to look.

It took a moment to get his focus. The strangers were dragging two bodies out, a boy and a girl, the boy dead, the girl still alive and struggling feebly. Shadowman could just make out the shapes of St George, with his bloated head, and the One-Armed Bandit. He could picture the rest of them, Bluetooth, Man U and the one without a name. Picture how excited they would look, how triumphant. How miserable that girl would be, knowing this was the end now.

The strangers dumped the bodies on the ground. The girl sat up. Then tried to stand. With a jolt Shadowman realized that he recognized her. There was something distinctive about the way she moved. He strained at the binoculars, wishing he could see more clearly.

Then the girl shouted defiantly at the grown-ups.

There was no mistaking that voice.

It was Kate.

The dead boy must be Tom.

Then Shadowman’s view was completely obscured as the strangers crowded together, snarling and hissing, jostling to get closer to their catch. Kate stopped shouting. He knew what the strangers would be doing now. He’d seen it often enough before. The way they tore bodies apart to get at the meat and the blood. Gouging with their fingernails, ripping with their teeth, pulling limbs away from bodies with their adult strength. It was a long, slow and messy business.

Without any knives it’s hard work butchering a human body.

Shadowman noticed that he was weeping. He beat the sides of his head with his fists. He felt so utterly useless. Maybe he should have sacrificed himself, just to show Kate he cared.

In despair he aimed his crossbow at the shapeless mass of bodies and pulled the trigger. The bolt shot through the night air, invisible and silent. He had no idea if he’d hit anything, but in a moment a pack broke away from the feeding frenzy. He watched them lolloping this way and that, confused, directionless. They couldn’t possibly have seen where the bolt had come from, though, and soon gave up to go back to their meal.