“It had nothing to do with the real Greek myths!” said Chris.
“Who cares?” James cast a weary look over the books piled up on the table. “Nobody ate any kids in it.”
“3-D’s rubbish,” said Jibber-Jabber.
“Well, unless they completely changed the story,” said Chris, “it should start with the baby Perseus being thrown into the sea in a locked chest. They weren’t trying to eat him, but they were trying to kill him.”
“Boring,” said James.
“You probably think that Uranus is just a funny word that sounds like your anus,” said Chris. And James snorted again.
“It’s a planet,” he said. “Everyone knows that.”
“And it’s named after a Greek god,” said Chris.
“There was a god called Your Anus?” James said the name with relish and laughed. “That is one embarrassing name for a god. If I was a god, I’d much rather be called something cool like Thor or Zeus, or something.”
“Uranus was the first ruler of the Greek gods,” Chris said, ignoring James. “Before Zeus. He was the god of the sky. His son Cronos wanted to take over the universe, though, and attacked his father with a sickle.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a tool with a big curved blade for cutting down crops.”
“So who won?”
“Cronos. He cut his dad’s privates off and threw them into the sea.”
“Nice.”
“But after Cronos took over, he heard of a prophecy that his own children would do the same thing to him—rise up and overthrow him. So he ate them, one by one, as they were born.”
“Double nice.”
“One of them escaped, though,” said Chris. “His youngest son, Zeus.”
“Yeah, as I say, I’ve heard of him.”
“And when Zeus was old enough, he slit his father’s belly open and freed his brothers and sisters, and that was the end of Cronos.”
“Cool story,” said James. “But Cronos was hardly a sicko, was he?”
“He was pretty sick,” said Jibber-Jabber. “I mean, he chopped his dad’s dangly bits off and chucked them into the sea. That’s pretty sick, I reckon. On a scale of one to ten that’s definitely at least a nine.”
“Yeah, I guess.” James had been idly fiddling with a stack of books, poking and prodding them, and now they collapsed across the table.
Chris tutted. “What are you doing here, anyway?” he said, tidying the books.
“What does it look like, noob? I’ve come for your World Book Gay event.”
“Are you supposed to be Harry Potter?” said Wiki.
“No, I’m supposed to be Uranus,” said James, pronouncing it “your anus” again. “That’s why I look so ugly and stupid.”
“If you’ve just come to ruin everything, you can sod off,” said Chris.
“Oh, so this is an exclusive event, is it?” said James. “Not open to everyone? I’m not good enough to read your precious books? And there I was thinking maybe you could teach me something.”
“No, you weren’t,” said Chris. “You’ve just come to laugh at us.”
“Yeah,” said Wiki. “This was supposed to be something fun, something for us lot. We don’t need you wrecking it.”
James put his hands up in surrender, with a pantomime-innocent expression.
“What did I do?” he said. “I’m here, aren’t I? I’ve even brought some reading glasses. So what’s the deal? When does it start? Do I get a badge and a certificate saying ‘I am a reading nerd’?”
“Go away, James.”
“I’ve got as much right to be here as you lot.”
Hattie came over to James. She was tall, with a round face and slightly goofy teeth.
“Please don’t spoil it for us, James,” she said. “I’ve been really looking forward to this.”
“Who are you supposed to be?” said James, looking Hattie up and down. She was wearing some old-fashioned clothing she’d lifted from the Victoria and Albert Museum next door—a long skirt and a bonnet.
“I’m Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice, if you really want to know.”
“I don’t really, no.” James looked at the others, sizing them up. “Okay, Wiki and Jibber-Jabber, what are you? A couple of hobbits from The Lord of the Rings?”
“Yes.”
“Thomas? Erm…no. You’re going to have to help me out.”
“I’m Alex Rider.”
“Yeah, right. What about you, Chris? You’re a wizard of some sort. Gandalf? Dumbledore?”
“Rincewind, actually, from the Discworld novels. Look—you can stay if you want, James, as long as you don’t ruin it for everyone else.”
James leaned back in his chair, putting his hands behind his head. “I only came to hear the fairy stories.”
“Just ignore him,” said Hattie’s younger sister, Alice (who was dressed as Alice from Alice in Wonderland). “We can still do what we were going to do.”
“That’s right,” said James.
Chris sighed. The event had not got off to a good start. He glanced at the big windows that were set into the wall all down one side of the library, overlooking the parking lot. The stars were coming out. At this rate it was going to be a long night.
If Chris had looked out the library windows, he might have spotted a dark shape moving across the parking lot. Nobody was supposed to be out here at night, but as part of the security team and the official keeper of the sickos on the truck, Paul had keys to everywhere. He darted behind one of the chicken coops and scanned the windows of the library, two stories above him. They were lit with a soft orange glow from the candles the kids were burning. All the other windows were black squares. Most of the kids would be getting ready for bed in the main exhibition hall of the museum. The only risk of being seen was from one of Chris Marker’s lot, the bloody book nerds. He hoped they were too involved in their stupid event to notice anything going on out here. He’d do what he had to do and get away fast.
He moved over to the truck in a low crouch and pushed the shutter up as quietly as he could, then scooted up onto the tailgate. He grabbed a flashlight from where it hung near the opening, and pulled aside the drapes. He pushed the button forward and shone the light on his three sickos, nudging them from their sleep. They hissed and gurned at him, angry at being disturbed.
“Time to come out and play,” he said, sliding a key into the padlock that held their cage shut. “It’s judgment time.”
He’d show the kids. Show them what the world was really like now, make them suffer like he had suffered, like his little sister Olivia had suffered. He rattled the padlock loose and swung open the door of the cage. He walked over to Cheryl. She waved her skinny arms at him. Her nails had grown long and horny, like claws. She was weak, though. By herself she could do very little, but with her friends, with Simon and Louis…Well, let’s face it, even the three of them wouldn’t do that much damage.
Three against sixty wasn’t great odds.
That was why Paul had already opened the doors in the basement of the museum as well. Behind those doors, shut away in the dark corridors, lurked an army of sickos, just waiting to enter the upper levels of the museum and feed. They’d found their way down there somehow, drawn by the scent of children. And now they would be able to find their way up to where the children lived.
He unfastened the chains that held Cheryl in place, and kicked her as she made a move toward him. Then he went over to Louis and fiddled with his chain. The sicko snapped at Paul like an untrained guard dog and Paul slapped him away.
“Behave yourself,” he said. “I’m letting you go, you stupid creep. It’s not me you want to attack.”
He rattled the chain through the hoop. Louis seemed to smile now, as if he was grateful for being set free. Surely Paul had imagined it. Sickos didn’t have real thoughts, didn’t have real emotions. They were dumb beasts.
Zombies.
He crouched in front of Simon and fumbled at
the buckles on his muzzle. Simon had powerful jaws and strong teeth.
“If you try and bite me, you dirty old bastard, I will kick all your teeth out,” Paul said. “You get me? Huh? One false move and you’re a dead sick duck.”
He unchained Simon and let the chains clatter to the floor. The sicko sniffed the air like he always did, tasting Paul’s scent, but seemed to have no interest in attacking him. Paul hoped they weren’t all too weak and feeble. It was important to him that his three—Simon, Louis, and Cheryl—made a big impact. Important that the other kids saw exactly what dirty secrets were being kept chained up here, hidden away in the heart of their precious museum. The kids who called themselves Scientists had made these sickos what they were, and now they were going to reap their harvest.
Finally, he kicked Cheryl into life and shuffled backward, not taking his eyes off the three sickos, keeping his flashlight shining in their faces. They hated bright light and shrank away from it. People called them zombies, but to Paul they were more like vampires—ready to suck his blood if he let them. He climbed down off the back of the truck, and once he was safely on the ground outside, he retreated to a safe distance and called to them softly.
“Come on, you ugly freaks, you turds, you sick twisted bastards, get off there….”
Louis was the first to appear, sticking his head out and tilting his worm-eaten nose in the air, snuffling, shivering. Then he plopped down onto the tarmac and waited for the others. Simon came next, trembling on shaky legs. He stuck his tongue out and appeared to lick the night, thick saliva dribbling down his front. Finally, Cheryl came slithering out, always the feeblest, unable to stand, moving her body from side to side like a snake. She wriggled over the edge of the tailgate and hit the deck with a wet slap.
“Idiot,” said Paul. He knew, though, that sickos were tough inside. It took a lot to hurt them.
Cheryl paused for a moment as a shudder passed through her skinny flesh; then she was up and moving off, half crouching, half crawling, chimp-like, the other two lolloping at her side.
“It’s party time,” said Paul, sniggering. His head ached something awful and he was shivering as badly as the excited sickos. His fever was getting worse. Well, it was nothing. Tonight he had let loose the plague and sent it into the museum.
Let’s see how the others like it.
“Here come the gate-crashers….”
There was a collection of miserable faces around the library table. All except one: James was grinning his face off. Having the time of his life. Behaving like the most annoying little kid, constantly interrupting, asking questions, and mocking the others. They’d given up arguing with him. It was clear he wasn’t going to budge and the angrier they became with him, the more they shouted and the more he enjoyed it. The bigger the reaction, the happier he was.
Chris had been trying to read out a passage from one of his favorite books—Titus Groan, a fantasy novel set in a huge rambling castle called Gormenghast. He had brought a copy of the book to the museum with him. There were loads of books in the museum’s two libraries, but they were all science books. There was everything you could ever want to know about fossils, insects, evolution, geology, volcanoes, dinosaurs, plants, birds, bones, meteorites, crystals…but there weren’t exactly a lot of stories. So whenever scavenger parties went out to look for food or supplies, they also had instructions from Chris to bring back any books they found. Storybooks, novels, fiction.
Over the past year Chris had slowly but steadily been removing those science books that looked the least interesting from the library shelves and replacing them with novels. The kids were very prone to boredom in the museum. There was no TV, no DVD player, no computers or Internet or Xbox. So Chris’s books were very popular—which was partly why Chris had been so angry and upset that so few kids had bothered to turn up for his special event.
Fantasy novels were the most in demand. Since their own world had gone to hell, the kids liked to lose themselves in other worlds and other realities.
James was obviously not a fantasy fan, however. He had butted in every few seconds while Chris had been reading.
“Why has everybody got such stupid names?” he’d sneered. “Prunesquallor? Steerpike? Sepulchrave? What kind of a name is Sepulchrave? Why can’t they have normal names like Mike, or Steve, or Dave? Dave’s a good name. Dave Smith would be a much better name for the book than Titus Groan. And they could call the castle Brian.”
So Chris had abandoned Titus Groan. Now he was trying to find a book that James might approve of.
“Okay,” he said, picking one from the pile. “What about this? My favorite living author. Well…at least he was before the disease.”
“What’s his name?” asked James. “Nerdy Nerdman?”
“No. Anthony Nash.”
“Anthony Nash?” said one of Chris’s assistants, a serious-looking girl called Lettis. “I love Anthony Nash! He wrote this really amazing spy series about a boy who gets a computer implanted in his brain.”
“Yeah,” said Jibber-Jabber. “And he wrote the Demon Spawn series as well. I loved that. About a boy in a foster home who finds out that his father was a demon and his mother was an angel, so he’s half demon and he has to fight his dark side to stop it from taking over, and he has these superpowers—”
“If you don’t mind me saying,” said James, “it sounds a little far-fetched.”
“It’s a brilliant series,” said Jibber-Jabber. “It’s really gory and lots of characters get killed!”
“Anthony Nash is a really good writer,” said Chris Marker. “His books sold millions.”
“So what?” said James. “Get me a proper book. Find one about diseases that might be helpful.”
“Please shut up,” said Thomas. It was the first time he’d spoken since James had asked him who he was dressed up as.
“Oh, the geek can speak, can he?” said James. “Freak of the week.”
“You think you’re so macho, don’t you?” said Thomas, his voice shaky, as if he might start crying at any moment. “You call us geeks, but what are you? A science nerd. That’s all. You’re hardly Conan the Barbarian, are you?”
“At least I’m not Conan the Librarian.”
“Ha-ha. Old joke.”
“I do things, Thomas,” said James. “I help.”
“You’re a bully,” said Thomas.
“Yeah, and you’re a tit.”
Thomas jumped up out of his chair and stood over James, shaking with rage.
“Sit down, tit-end,” said James. “You’re blocking my light.”
“Why don’t you just shut up and go away?” said Thomas.
James suggested Thomas do something to himself that was not only physically impossible, but also quite disgusting.
This broke Thomas. Unable to hold back any longer, he threw himself at James, fists pummeling his back. This was exactly what the bigger boy had been waiting for. He stood up, grabbed Thomas around the neck, and wrestled him to the floor. In a moment he’d flipped him onto his front and was rubbing his face into the dirty carpet.
And all this time, James was laughing. “Look at you, you worm, you wriggling little bookworm, trying to get back underground.”
“Leave him alone!” said Hattie. “Get off him!”
“He started it.”
Now Jibber-Jabber joined in. He went to kick James, but James saw him coming, grabbed his ankle, and twisted it, sending Jibber-Jabber sprawling into a chair before crashing to the floor.
James was just going to make a lunge for Jibber-Jabber’s tender parts and cause him some real pain when there was a knock at the door.
Thinking it might be someone who could help, Hattie ran over and opened it. James looked up, his view partly obscured by a jumble of chairs.
“Good costume,” he said. “Ten out of te—”
But there was something wrong. He realized that the others were standing staring, transfixed by the new arrival, and Hattie was backing away from the door.<
br />
It slowly dawned on James that the figure in the doorway wasn’t a kid dressed up.
It was an adult sicko. And he smelled appalling.
James swore and scrambled to his feet in an awkward flurry of arms and legs.
Now it struck him that he recognized the sicko. It was the one they called Simon Foul. Somehow he’d got off the truck. And somehow he’d lost his muzzle.
“That’s Simon Foul. How’d he get in here?” he said, his voice suddenly high and cracked, catching in his throat.
“How are we supposed to know?” said Jibber-Jabber. “You’re the sicko expert; we’re just geeks, remember?”
Thomas had got up off the carpet and was standing in the middle of the room, paralyzed, like a hedgehog in the middle of a highway. If James had hurt him at all, he’d forgotten all about it. His attention was entirely focused on the evil-smelling sicko who was shuffling in through the door.
“I don’t like it,” said Alice. “Make it go away.”
Chris turned to James.
“Well?”
“Don’t look at me,” said James. “I’m not going anywhere near it.”
“We have to get it out of here,” said Chris. He was staying calm.
“He’s not alone,” warned Hattie, who had a different view of the doorway than the others. “There’s more of them.”
“Oh, Jesus,” muttered James, moving around behind the big table. “It’s all three of them.”
Simon moved fully into the room, revealing Louis and Cheryl behind him.
James was shaking so hard it hurt. The humorous names he’d given to the three sickos didn’t seem quite so funny now.
As Louis and Simon moved ahead, Cheryl followed, supporting herself on the doorframe. Her head was moving rhythmically from side to side as she scanned the room with yellow eyes. Something rumbled up from the depths of her stomach and she let out a long watery belch, followed by a dribble of brown liquid from between her lips. Then she sucked in a lungful of air and staggered toward Hattie, who backed away with a little shriek.