Zom-B City (12 page)

Mr Dowling trots down the steps of the National Gallery at last, doing a little dance as he descends. The mutants applaud wildly and screech at the humans to clap too.

As the clown nimbly waltzes down the steps from the terrace to the square, I get a clearer look at him. The flesh of a severed face hangs from each shoulder of his jacket. Lengths of human guts are wrapped round his arms, and severed ears are pinned to his trouser legs. A baby’s skull sticks out of the end of each of his ridiculously large red shoes. His hair is all different sorts of colours and lengths, torn from the heads of others in clumps and stapled into place. The flesh around his eyes has been cut away and filled in with soot. Two v-shaped channels run from just under either eye, down to his upper lip, and the bone beneath has been painted pink. A human eye has been stuck to the end of his nose and little red stars are dotted around it.

The trapped humans stop screaming as the clown approaches and the mutants pull back to let him through. Like me, these people have seen a lot since the world went to hell, but nothing like this. Mr Dowling belongs to another dimension entirely, one even crazier and more twisted than this undead hellhole.

To conclude his dance, Mr Dowling leaps into the air and pirouettes, then drops to one knee and spreads his arms wide. The mutants howl their appreciation and stamp their feet raucously. One of them holds up a sheet of paper with a large 10 scrawled across it in red.

Mr Dowling bows his head and accepts the acclaim with false humility. Then he hops back to both feet and prowls round the humans, grinning at them like a piranha, his eyes twitching insanely, skin wriggling as if insects are burrowing about beneath the flesh.

One of the mutants steps up next to the clown and blows his whistle sharply, waving an arm for silence. I could be wrong, but I think it’s the one who tried to kidnap a baby in the Imperial War Museum on the day when I first learnt that this wasn’t just a world of normal humans.

When all of the mutants are still, the one with the whistle addresses the sobbing people at the heart of the crush in a choked, gurgly voice.

‘Ladies, gentlemen and children — it’s show time! Welcome to the weird, wild, wonderful world of Mr Dowling and his amazing cohorts. Thrill to the sight of the living dead and their masters. Coo as we rip you from head to toe. Cheer as we make intricate designs out of your gooey innards. Worship as we take you to Hell and beyond.’

The mutants cheer again, but the humans only stare in bewilderment. Most of them are weeping openly. ‘Please!’ one of the men begs. ‘Spare us! We’re not . . . we won’t . . . anything you ask of us . . .’

‘Hush,’ the mutant frowns. ‘Mr Dowling did not come here to entertain futile pleas. He came to party!’

‘
Party!
’ the mutants holler, shaking their fists and weapons over their heads.

When they’re silent again, Mr Dowling points a long, bony finger at the woman with the baby and makes a shrill squeaking noise. The mutant next to him listens carefully, then crooks a finger at the woman and beckons her forward.

‘No!’ a man next to her shouts. ‘Take me, not the baby!’

‘As you wish,’ the mutant shrugs. He blows his whistle and a pair of zombies lurch into action, grab the man and drag him to the ground. His screams ring loud around the square, but not for long.

‘Now,’ the mutant says pleasantly, crooking his finger at the woman again.

She stumbles forward, shaking her head, crying, clutching the baby to her chest. ‘Please,’ she whispers. ‘Please. Please. Please.’

The mutant makes a soothing, tutting noise, then prises the baby from her and hands it to Mr Dowling. The clown takes the child with surprising gentleness and rocks it in his arms. The baby gurgles happily, unaware of the danger it’s in. Mr Dowling makes another sharp, questioning noise.

‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ the mutant asks politely.

‘A guh-guh-guh-girl,’ the woman gasps, eyes on her child, fingers clasped in silent prayer, rooted to the spot, helpless and terrified.

The clown nods slowly and squeals again.

‘Mr Dowling says that he’s glad,’ the mutant translates. ‘He’s not in a boyish mood today. If it had been a boy, he would have dashed its head open and fed its brain to our zombies. But since it’s a girl, he’s inclined to be merciful.’

‘He . . . he’s not going to hurt her?’ the woman croaks, tearing her eyes away from the baby and looking to the mutant with the slightest glimmer of hope.

‘That depends on the choice you make,’ the mutant says.

‘
Choose
. . .’ the other mutants murmur. The word sounds obscene on their scabby, twisted tongues.

‘I don’t understand,’ the woman frowns.

‘It’s very simple,’ the mutant grins. ‘The ever-generous Mr Dowling is giving you a choice. You can choose to spare your baby or your colleagues.’ He nods at the other humans in the square.

‘You mean . . .’ She gulps, eyes widening.

‘You got it, sweet thing,’ the mutant chuckles obscenely. ‘We butcher the baby or we kill everybody else. Your call. Now — choose.’

‘
Choose . . .
’ the others repeat again, their pale yellow eyes alive with repulsive yearning.

As the woman struggles with her choice, someone squats next to me and says, ‘As distasteful as this is, it should be intriguing. Mr Dowling always puts on a memorable show.’

I look around in a daze. The man is tall and thin, but with a pot belly. He’s wearing a striped suit with a pink shirt. He has white hair and pale skin, long fingers and unbelievably large eyes, twice the size of any normal person’s, almost fully white, but with a tiny dark pupil burning fiercely at the centre of each.

‘
Owl Man
,’ I moan.

TWENTY-THREE

‘You remember me,’ the man with the owl-like eyes beams. ‘How sweet.’ He winks, then blows me a mocking kiss.

‘This can’t be real,’ I mutter. ‘I must be dreaming.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Owl Man tuts. ‘You cannot sleep, so it follows that you cannot dream. Therefore this must be real.’

‘It could be a hallucination.’

‘Possibly,’ he concedes. ‘But it isn’t. Now tell me, are you hurt? Can I help you?’

He reaches out a hand. I push myself away from his creepy-looking fingers and wipe dirt and blood from my forehead. ‘How are you here?’ I ask. ‘The last time I saw you was in my bedroom.’

‘There’s no telling who you might run into these days,’ he smiles. ‘The world was always a small place, but now it’s positively box-like. So few of us left with our senses intact. Our paths cannot fail to cross.’

Owl Man stands and stretches. I frown as I study him.

‘What are you? I can hear your heartbeat, so you’re not a zombie. But you’re not a mutant either, are you?’

‘Certainly not,’ he says, sniffing as if offended. ‘I am . . .’ He pauses, thinks for a moment, then shrugs. ‘I am, as you so poetically put it,
Owl Man
. That is all you need to know about me for now.’

My mind is whirring. There are so many questions I want to put to him, about the mutants, Mr Dowling, why certain zombies revitalise. I’ve a feeling that if anyone can answer those questions, it’s him.

But before I can ask Owl Man anything, the mutant with the whistle shouts at the woman faced with the impossible choice. ‘Time’s up. Choose or we slaughter them all, baby, adults, the lot.’

Owl Man grimaces. ‘Kinslow is a nasty piece of work, but he keeps things interesting, and that’s what Mr Dowling demands of his followers.’

I get the sense that Owl Man doesn’t approve of what’s going on. But he doesn’t try to stop it, just observes the sick show with a neutral expression.

‘Hurry!’ the mutant called Kinslow croaks. ‘Choose now or . . .’ He produces a knife and passes it to Mr Dowling. The clown laughs as he takes it, then slides the blade up beneath the baby’s chin.

‘
Them!
’ the woman howls, falling to the ground with horror. ‘Take them! Spare my child!’

The other people scream with fear and outrage, but their cries are cut short when Kinslow blows his whistle again, three long toots. At his command the living dead surge forward and tuck into the hapless humans, survivors no longer, just zombie fodder now.

‘This is awful,’ I groan, turning my gaze away.

‘Yes,’ Owl Man says morosely. ‘But it’s about to get even worse. Look.’

Mr Dowling hasn’t handed back the baby. As the zombies finish off the last of the humans and tuck into fresh, warm brains, the clown strides among them, still clasping the infant. Kinslow and the woman trail after him, the mutant snickering, the woman distraught.

‘My girl,’ she whimpers, reaching for the baby.

‘In a minute,’ Kinslow snaps, pulling her back. ‘You don’t want to disturb Mr Dowling when he’s preoccupied. You wouldn’t like him if he lost his temper.’

The clown comes to a halt over a thin, male zombie who is digging into the open head of the boy who wasn’t much younger than me. He watches the zombie for a while, then sticks his left index finger into a hole in the man’s throat, where he was bitten when still alive. His finger comes out wet and red. With a soft, choking noise, he puts the finger into the baby’s mouth and the little girl’s lips close on it trustingly.

‘
No!
’ the girl’s mother screams, sensing the threat too late to prevent it. She tries to throw herself at the clown, but Kinslow kicks her legs out from beneath her and she collapses.

‘No! No! No!’ she screeches, covering her ears with her hands as the baby’s brittle bones extend and snap through the skin of her fingers and toes. ‘You told me you’d spare her! You promised!’

‘We did spare her,’ Kinslow says, taking the zombie baby from Mr Dowling and holding her out to the woman who was once her mother. ‘She still lives, in a fashion. She’s as wriggly and alert as ever. Just a little less . . .
breathy
. Now take her. She’s yours to do with as you wish.’

Kinslow presses the baby into her mother’s arms. Her tiny sharp teeth, newly sprouted, snap together as she stares at the woman whose brain smells so good and tempting, even to one as young as this.

The woman gazes down on her ruined child for a full minute in horrified silence, the clown and Kinslow waiting to see what she’ll do next, everybody watching with wretched fascination except for the feasting zombies. Then, like a person sleepwalking, she undoes the buttons on her shirt and frees a breast. She presses her daughter to it and lets the undead baby bite and feed, murmuring softly to her, stroking her hair, vowing to care for her even in death.

‘A touching scene,’ Owl Man murmurs.

‘Bastard,’ I snarl at him.

‘There’s no point blaming me,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t responsible.’

‘You didn’t do anything to stop it though, did you?’ I challenge him.

‘That’s not my role,’ he says. ‘We all have a role to play in life, and unlike many unfortunate souls, I am all too aware of what the universe demands of me. I simply follow the path that destiny demands, as we all must.’

‘Even if it means letting babies be sacrificed?’ I sneer.

‘Yes,’ Owl Man whispers and a sad look crosses his oversized eyes. ‘You may find this hard to believe, but I have done even worse than that in my time. I fear that you might too, over the course of the grim days and nights to come.’

‘What are you talking about?’ I snap.

‘Remember when you could dream? Remember the babies on the plane?’

I shiver at the memory. Owl Man also asked me about my dreams the last time we met. ‘What about the bloody nightmares?’ I growl.

‘They marked you, Becky,’ he says. ‘I was sure you would survive and regain your senses, just as I was certain we would meet again. You are a creature of the darkness, the same as myself and Mr Dowling. Like us, I fear that you too will end up destined to play a cruel, vicious part in the shaping of the future. Some of us cannot escape the damnable reach of fate.’

Before I can ask Owl Man what that means, he stands and calls to Kinslow and Mr Dowling. ‘I have someone here I think you might be interested in.’

The clown bounds across, Kinslow racing to keep up. Mr Dowling stops in front of me and beams as if to welcome an old friend.

‘You made it out,’ Kinslow grunts, pulling up beside his master. ‘Mr Dowling said that you would. You caught his eye underground. He told me you were the cream of the crop.’

‘See, Becky?’ Owl Man mutters. ‘
Marked
.’

Kinslow glares at the tall man with the owlish eyes, but says nothing.

Mr Dowling bends over until his face is in front of mine. The last time he did that, he spat a shower of spiders over me. But today I can’t see anything in his mouth, only a long, black tongue.

The clown smells worse than an open sewer. My nose wrinkles and I try to turn my face away, but he grabs my chin and forces me to maintain eye contact. As he stares into my soul with his beady, twitching eyes, he squeals a few times, softly.

‘He wants to know if you’re ready to come with us,’ Kinslow says. ‘He knows that you disapprove of many of the things we do. But he’s willing to teach you, spend time with you, show you the way forward, share his power with you.’