‘They’ve killed the boy. They’ve killed the boy.’
A new message, round and round. Fish-Face wasn’t thinking about what she was saying. It was straight from her heart, her raw emotions spilling out on to the wind, like seed pollen. In the end Skinner had taken hold of her and brought her back inside. Taken her to the birds gallery where they lived. Tried to calm her down. Hoping she wasn’t going to crack up. She’d always been quite delicate, hysterical sometimes, and it hurt – having her pain jammed into his head.
She was like a frightened bird and here in the gallery, surrounded by the crazy forms of all those real stuffed birds, it felt like madness.
‘Fish-Face,’ he said, holding her. ‘Come on. Calm down. You need to do this properly, to concentrate. Please. It’s all right, Sam’s safe. It’s all right …’
Her father came in. Wormwood the Green Man. He’d have heard her as well, felt her inside his mind. He put his long arms round her.
‘You have to stop,’ he said. ‘You have to stop this now. If you send out these crazy messages they won’t know what you mean.’
‘They have to come,’ said Fish-Face. ‘They have to come and help. We need all the help we can get.’
‘I know that,’ said Wormwood. ‘But you must be calm.’
Skinner studied him. He was looking more and more like an ordinary man every day. Whatever drug, whatever cure, whatever antidote Einstein was giving him, it was working. If they just had more time they might be able to beat the disease. It all depended now on what was happening with Jordan’s army, so close and yet so far away in Hyde Park. Did they have any hope of holding back the sickos? Of killing enough of them to win the day?
Fish-Face was right. The kids needed all the help they could get. Skinner wondered if he should go and join the fight. Pick up a sword or a spear and help. Would he actually be any help, though? He’d never really been in a fight, let alone a full-scale battle.
He didn’t need a sword or a spear, though, did he? Skinner’s best weapon was his ability to give the shout – the shout inside. The shout that silenced all thought. The shout that could short-circuit someone’s brainwaves enough to paralyse them for a moment.
What good was that, though? Really? It was like a freeze-attack, a magic upgrade in one of the tower defence games he used to love playing on his laptop before the electricity went off.
It was useful in a tower defence game, but was it useful in real life?
Strange how the Twisted Kids had developed different strengths. Like the way Fish-Face and the Warehouse Queen could communicate over huge distances, Mister Three as well, when he was awake, like a human telephone. And there was Monstar, stronger than any man …
Skinner felt a stab of longing. He missed his friends.
Fish-Face had calmed down now, her signal just a soft murmur instead of a shriek. She was nodding as Wormwood whispered comforting words into her ear.
‘We should go and see how they are,’ said Skinner. ‘We should make sure Sam’s all right. If he gets hurt, if he gets killed, then this will have all been for nothing.’
As soon as he said it, he wished he hadn’t because it set Fish-Face off into another panic, yelling out her crazy SOS.
‘They’re after Sam. They’re after Sam. You have to help us. They’ve killed the boy. They’ve killed the boy. They’ve killed the boy …’
‘Please,’ said Skinner. ‘Try to stay calm. I’m going to see Sam. Send a more controlled message.’
He left the birds gallery and walked down to the main hall. There was a cluster of kids by the diplodocus. Skinner could see Sam and The Kid. They looked OK. They were talking quickly, trying to explain to the small crowd what had happened. Some of the kids were crying, hugging each other. Whitney had been really popular, and Paddy and the five other smaller kids who’d been killed had many friends here. The two older kids as well.
Now the big front doors opened and Jackson came striding in. Everyone turned to her. She looked angry at first, and then relieved when she too saw that Sam was unhurt. Sam repeated what he had just told everyone else. Explaining what had happened in the fight, who’d got hurt, who’d been killed, who wasn’t coming back.
‘Has anyone told Achilleus yet?’ Jackson asked. No one said anything. They stared at the floor. Some shook their heads. Nobody had dared.
‘I’ll do it,’ said Jackson.
‘I’m coming with you,’ said Skinner. Skinner liked Achilleus. Achilleus had been part of the team that had made its way out to Heathrow and found the Twisted Kids at the warehouse. Achilleus had fought bravely and brought Skinner and Fish-Face and Trinity safely into town. He teased Skinner, but in a funny way they had a bond. Skinner felt that Achilleus was an outsider as well.
‘I’m coming too,’ said Sam. ‘He’ll be upset.’
And of course where Sam went The Kid went. So the four of them walked upstairs and round to the front of the building where Achilleus was holed up. With every step, Skinner grew more nervous and unsure. How was Achilleus going to react? Should he have left Jackson to it?
Well, there was no turning back now. He’d look bad.
He swallowed.
Jackson knocked. There was no response.
Skinner hoped someone would say – ‘OK, let’s come back later …’
But Jackson knocked again.
51
Skinner stood back as Jackson gave a third knock. Harder this time. And she carried on knocking until there was a grunt from the other side.
‘I need to talk to you,’ said Jackson loudly, putting her face close to the door.
‘Go away,’ said Achilleus. ‘I’m not in the talking mood.’
‘Something’s happened,’ said Jackson. ‘I seriously need to talk to you about it.’
‘I said go away,’ said Achilleus.
‘Something’s happened to Paddy,’ said Jackson.
For a moment there was silence from the other side, and then a rattle and Achilleus pulled the door open. Skinner saw his ugly, scarred and battered face. And, for the first time ever, he saw worry in the boy’s eyes.
‘What you mean?’ he said. ‘Where is he?’
‘Can we come in?’ asked Jackson. Achilleus stared at the four of them. What must they look like? Jackson, big and tough, with a razor-cut pattern in her cropped hair just like Achilleus. She’d done it herself in the end and it was a bit rubbish. Then there was Skinner with his folds of skin. Finally the two little boys, Sam serious and worried-looking, The Kid wearing his usual dress over his trousers, his wild hair sticking up in all directions.
Was this really the best way to tell someone their friend had died?
Well, there wasn’t any other way.
Achilleus retreated into the darkness of the room and the four of them went in. This used to be an office and then it had been Justin’s room. Achilleus had kicked Justin out and made it his own. But it was still bare and cold.
Achilleus stared at Jackson, waiting for her to speak.
‘I’m sorry. It’s not good,’ said Jackson. ‘Paddy went out. He left the museum. He wanted to join the fight. He wanted to be you. A hero. He took your Nike top, and your spear, the one he gave that weird Irish name to …’
‘The Gay Bulge,’ said Achilleus flatly.
‘Yeah. That.’ Jackson dried up. Didn’t know how to carry on.
‘He had your helmet as well,’ said Sam. ‘It fell off …’
‘What happened to him?’ said Achilleus. ‘Tell me.’
‘They killed him,’ said Sam. ‘Grown-ups. They ambushed us. I tried to stop him. I tried to get him to go back. He wanted to show everyone what he was made of. Whitney got killed. And Froggie. Paddy went back to try and save him. He was a hero. He died a hero.’
‘A hero?’ Achilleus was staring at Sam, like he didn’t know who Sam was, like he couldn’t understand the language, like Sam was a foreigner or something. You could see that Achilleus couldn’t take it in. And then he did something that Skinner ne
ver expected. Had never seen him do before. Never imagined he ever would see. Achilleus started to cry.
‘He was just a little boy,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t a soldier. He would never have been a warrior. I would never have let him. He was just a little boy.’
Jackson went and put her arms round him and he collapsed against her, his whole body shaking with sobs. And she helped him on to a pile of cushions and he slumped into them, boneless and shaking. Jackson cradled his head in her strong arms.
‘He was a good kid,’ said Achilleus, his voice muffled and thick. ‘I used to tease him. Never told him what I really thought. There was always time. Thought we’d have plenty of time. Thought we’d have years. He was my friend. I never told him. Never will.’
Skinner was embarrassed. He didn’t know where to look, what to say or what to do. Sam and The Kid went over and they put their arms round Achilleus too. Skinner joined them. And they stayed like that for a long time. There was nothing more to say. There was nothing anyone could do. You couldn’t bring a dead person back to life.
At last Skinner felt Achilleus stop shaking. He sniffed, stood up and moved away from the others towards the windows. He wiped his face and smashed his fist against the wall, letting out a harsh bark of anger and a string of swear words.
And then suddenly there was a commotion at the door and people burst into the room.
It was Einstein, with a couple of his science kids from the pod. Einstein looked furious. He yelled at Achilleus.
‘See what you’ve done! See what’s happened now. They went out there because of you. The sickos could’ve killed Sam. They might kill all of us. And what do you do? How do you help by sulking in here like a baby girl?’
Achilleus stared at him with his hurt eyes, and again he had that look of incomprehension. Like he didn’t know what Einstein was saying.
‘What are you going to do about it?’ said Einstein.
‘Go away,’ said Achilleus, his voice dull and cold. ‘I don’t wanna talk to you.’
‘Yeah,’ said Jackson. ‘Not now, Einstein.’
Einstein ignored her. He strode over to Achilleus and stuck a finger in his face.
‘You’re supposed to be a great fighter,’ he said, spraying Achilleus with spit. ‘I can’t see any evidence of that right now. You let that little boy go out there and do your fighting for you. You let him get killed. And they could’ve killed Sam. What if that had happened? I mean, God, we’re lucky it was only Paddy …’
‘Go away,’ said Achilleus again.
‘No,’ said Einstein. ‘I’m not going. Look at you, crying. What is that? Self-pity?’
‘Leave him alone,’ said Jackson. ‘Can’t you see he’s really upset?’
‘I loved that boy,’ said Achilleus.
‘That’s a bit gay, isn’t it?’ said Einstein and he gave a dismissive snort.
In one quick movement Achilleus took Einstein by the throat and slammed him against the wall. When he spoke, there was no anger in his voice, just a horrible coldness.
‘What do you mean by gay?’ he said. ‘You mean gay as in homosexual? Or gay as in a bit crap?’
‘I suppose I mean both,’ said Einstein, refusing to be intimidated.
‘So it’s gay to have feelings, is it?’ said Achilleus. ‘It’s crap to have feelings?’
‘Hit a nerve, have I?’ said Einstein. ‘Worried about your sexuality, are you, big man?’
‘No,’ said Achilleus. ‘I’m not worried at all. I am gay. For as long as I’ve understood what the word meant I’ve known what I am. It’s no big deal. And I loved Paddy.’
‘Bit young for you,’ sneered Einstein.
Achilleus slapped him hard with his free hand. Leaving a nasty red mark on Einstein’s cheek.
‘I didn’t love Paddy in that way,’ he said. ‘He was just a boy. But I did love him as a friend. Just as I love Jackson, and Sam, and Skinner, and all the decent people in the world. And just as I do not love you, Einstein, because you have no feelings. The only reason I’m not gonna kill you is because I’m not stupid. I realize how valuable you are. Maybe you can stop the disease. But I’m warning you – if you can’t stop it, if your experiments are a waste of time, then I will seek you out and I will twist your neck until there’s no life left in you.’
He let Einstein go and Einstein stood there, coughing and spluttering, rubbing his bruised neck. Then he gave a sideways look to Achilleus and went out, trying to look as dignified as he could.
Jackson touched Achilleus gently on the shoulder.
‘I didn’t know,’ she said. ‘I guess I should’ve done. I just never thought that a mashed-up thug like you could be gay at all.’
‘Anyone can be,’ said Achilleus. ‘And I meant what I said about you. I like you. You’re good. In another world, if I wasn’t gay, who knows? But I am and I’m cool with it.’
‘I need to go back,’ said Jackson. ‘Will you be all right? The battle must’ve started by now. Will you come?’
Achilleus shrugged. ‘I don’t know if I’d be much use right now,’ he said. ‘Not sure I could even pick up a spear.’
‘Well, if you change your mind,’ said Jackson, ‘it’s still there.’
‘What is?’ said Achilleus.
‘Your spear. Sticking out of that tree upstairs.’
‘Paddy said that whoever pulled the spear out would be the greatest champion of all,’ said Sam. ‘And they’d win the day for us all. He tried, we all tried, but none of us could pull it out.’
‘Right now,’ said Achilleus, ‘I’m not sure I could either.’ Tears came back into his eyes and he angrily swiped them away. ‘He was just a little boy. He never deserved that.’
He sniffed again. Dragged his sleeve across his eyes to dry them.
‘I’m not gonna cry any more,’ he said. ‘Einstein was right. I should’ve been looking after Paddy. Then this wouldn’t have happened.’
They left him alone, and Skinner went off by himself. Climbed up to the next level and stood looking at Achilleus’s spear embedded in the wood. He put his hands to it, hands that were nearly obscured by great folds of skin.
He held tight and he pulled.
The spear stayed where it was.
52
For a few minutes the sky was full of missiles. Ollie had never seen anything like it. He’d shouted the order – ‘Now! Shoot them down now!’ – and his missile unit, spread out along the barricades, had let loose.
First the bows.
The sounds of the bowstrings twanging, the arrows flying, their feathered flights hissing and fluttering, had all mixed together into a single great sigh, as if the kids had been holding their breath and now they were releasing it in one mighty exhalation.
There had been enough arrows to darken the sky. They’d curved up, seemed to hang there for a moment and then fallen down, smacking into the front ranks of the sickos – arrow after arrow after arrow.
David’s captive royals had been at the head of the army, as if leading them into battle. A row of them, decrepit, falling apart, their tattered dresses and fancy uniforms flapping on their scrawny bodies. One wore a tiara and it had glinted in the sun.
Ollie remembered how David had talked of using them to take over London. To be the figureheads of his new era.
His own royal family.
They’d been the first to fall. One moment they were there, some even looked like they might be smiling, proud … and the next moment total annihilation. They were gone. The arrows had slammed into them and cut them down to nothing. And the sickos behind marched over their bodies and trampled them into the dirt.
Still the missiles flew. Ollie couldn’t see how anything could survive that attack. But on they came.
And in a scarily short amount of time the archers had run out of arrows.
Then came the javelins.
The breathy flutter of bows was replaced by the grunts of the kids hurling spears, the thud and thwack as the weapons hit their targets.
/> And on they came. Closer and closer. Until you could clearly see their faces. And now it was the turn of the slingers, Ollie among them. They fitted their missiles, stretched back their slings and let fly. Slingshot rained down on the sickos.
All around him, kids were now throwing whatever they had at the advancing army. Stones and rocks, sticks, bits of scrap metal and concrete, anything hard and sharp or heavy enough to do damage.
Until there was nothing left to throw.
Had it made any difference? Ollie had seen a lot of sickos go down. But the ones behind had simply walked over them and kept on advancing. They had no fear. That’s what made them such a deadly enemy. They just kept on walking into the storm that the kids were sending at them. A normal army might have broken, fallen back, run away from that hail of death. But grown-ups – you could do what you liked to them and they would just keep on coming. Ollie knew that it would be very different when kids started to get killed, which they would soon enough – they might easily panic and run. Fear was a mighty weapon, but only one side was able to use it today.
Now the sickos were at the barricades, pushing at them, trying to climb over, expressionless and single-minded. Like a herd of cattle who would keep pushing and pushing. Some were being impaled on the sharpened wooden stakes Jordan had driven into the ground, the sickos behind ramming them further on to the spikes.
Ollie gave the order for his troops to fall back. Some of them had weapons for close-up fighting, but not all. Until they found more missiles they weren’t going to engage with the enemy.
Jordan had another task for them. It was their job to take any killed or wounded away.
They left the fighting to the other units, who were armed with long spears and pikes. They were thrusting them at the sickos and for now the barricades were holding, but it would only be a matter of time before the piles of fallen sickos on the other side got higher. They were slowly creating a sort of ramp so that the sickos who filled the gaps from behind would be able to get closer and closer to the top.