‘Well, they don’t ask me.’
‘Listen, DogNut,’ said Justin, ‘so far nobody’s lived long enough after being bitten for us to tell what might happen. What we need to do is test the blood of someone, a child, obviously, who’s been attacked.’
‘I expect you’ve got volunteers queuing round the block,’ DogNut scoffed. ‘Me! Me! Me! Bite me!’
‘DogNut. You have to take this seriously,’ said Justin. ‘If we can find the causes of the illness, how it works, then maybe we can find a cure.’
‘A cure?’
‘Yes!’ said Justin, grinning like a madman now. ‘Imagine if we could turn all those sickos out there back into real mothers and fathers. All you can think about is fighting them, killing them, wiping them out. We’re thinking about curing them.’
‘What do you want to cure them for?’ said DogNut incredulously. ‘Let them die, I say. Then the world will belong to us.’
‘What kind of world, though?’ said Justin. ‘And how will we survive in it?’
‘We ain’t doing too bad.’
‘DogNut’s right!’ said Paul. He’d been lurking by the generator and DogNut had forgotten all about him. ‘We should kill them all.’
‘How can you say that, Paul?’ asked Justin. ‘After all the work you’ve done with us on those three in there?’
‘How can I say it?’ Paul was wide-eyed and getting hysterical. ‘Because they killed my sister. And if you’re on their side then you killed my sister too.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Paul.’
‘Oh, I’m ridiculous, am I? You think it’s funny my sister died?’
‘No, I don’t. Why would I think that? It’s awful. I am really sorry for you. But this is why we need to find a cure so things like that won’t happen again.’
‘It won’t happen again if we kill them all.’
‘Listen, Paul, you really should go and rest. Lie down somewhere.’
‘You don’t want me here, do you?’
‘Quite frankly, no. Not if you’re a danger to the patients.’
‘A danger to them!’ Paul screamed. ‘You’ve got it all round the wrong way, Justin. You’re on their side. You all are.’
‘Please, Paul, go and chill. I’ll find someone else to look after the lorry.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m going!’ Paul snapped, and he stormed off, swearing at a couple of little kids who were feeding some chickens inside a big pen.
DogNut watched him go. Not sure what to think. Paul’s aggressive attitude was making it hard to feel any sympathy for him.
‘He’ll be all right,’ said Justin.
‘He did have a point, mate,’ said DogNut. ‘It’s seriously screwy keeping those sickos in there.’
‘He’s been looking after them for ages,’ said Justin. ‘He was always good with them. Like a zookeeper. I always thought, in a funny way, he was quite attached to them.’
‘It ain’t right, Justin.’
‘What if you got sick, DogNut?’ Justin snapped, finally losing his temper. ‘What if you found you had the disease? You’d want a cure then, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t laugh at what we’re doing here.’
‘True that. But just how d’you think you’re going to go about finding a cure? You? Huh? A fifteen-year-old kid?’
‘Come with me and I’ll show you,’ said Justin.
‘No way,’ said DogNut. ‘You ain’t showing me any more pet sickos.’
‘We don’t have any more. At the moment it’s just these three,’ said Justin. ‘No. I want to show you the labs.’
‘The labs. Of course. Every mad scientist needs a laboratory …’
42
Jester’s party were standing by the long-empty departures board in King’s Cross station, tensed and alert, their darting eyes stretched wide as they adjusted to the dim light – not fixing on anything, looking in every direction for any signs of movement. The last hour had been incredibly stressful and their bodies were so pumped with adrenalin they felt wired to the mains. They gave off a pungent reek of stress and fear. Shadowman hadn’t had time to tell the others to try to mask their scent, and was worried that the smell might attract any strangers who might be hiding out in here. Strangers loved dark places and the tube tunnels beneath the mainline station were a perfect nesting place.
It appeared to be deserted up here, however. Nothing moved. The shops had long since been looted. Trains that would never again go anywhere stood dead at the platforms.
They’d been driven steadily eastwards as they tried to avoid the roving gangs of strangers who seemed to be everywhere in this part of town. Any moves to go north, the direction in which they had originally been intending to head, or south, back towards the palace, had been blocked. A particularly determined group of strangers had followed them for the last half-hour as they’d meandered backwards and forwards, trying to find a hiding-place or a safe path away from the danger. In the end they’d taken a route that ran roughly parallel to the Euston Road and had eventually come to King’s Cross station.
It had been Jester who’d suggested they should actually go into the station. He’d pointed out that the train tracks were wide and clear and open and some distance from any buildings. It was unlikely that any strangers would be hiding out on the rails, and if any did approach they’d be able to see them from a long way off.
As none of the others had a better suggestion, they hadn’t argued, and they’d trooped in off the street.
Jester was trying to sound confident. ‘The tracks run straight north from here,’ he said. ‘We can make good time and cover a lot of distance pretty quickly.’
‘What do we want to go north for?’ said Tom.
‘You’re not seriously thinking of carrying on with this stupid trip, are you?’ Kate added.
‘The best thing we can do is find some other kids to help us,’ said Jester.
‘What bloody kids?’ Tom was getting angrier and angrier.
‘Listen, Tom,’ Jester pleaded, ‘we’re not going to find any train tracks running south, are we? Not from round here. We’re on the wrong side of London. So let’s just get well away from this place, OK?’
‘Crap.’
‘Shut up,’ said Shadowman.
‘You shut up,’ said Tom. ‘You ain’t exactly been a lot of help so far.’
‘Don’t have a go at Shadowman,’ said Jester.
‘Both of you shut up,’ Shadowman snapped, and Jester looked shocked.
‘What –’
‘Listen!’
Shadowman said this so urgently they all fell silent and listened. There was the familiar shuffling sound of approaching strangers.
‘Crap,’ Tom repeated. ‘Crap, crap, crap.’
They emerged from the shadows into a pool of light on the station concourse, a long line of strangers much more diseased than the ones they’d seen out on the streets. Some of them looked barely human. Huge chunks of their faces were missing, and what flesh remained was swollen and bloated and popping with boils.
‘Crap.’
‘Too many to fight,’ Shadowman shouted. ‘On to the tracks!’
They raced past the departures board and vaulted over a set of ticket turnstiles, then careered along the platform. There was a long Intercity train parked on each side, the type of trains that seem to go on forever. The kids’ feet pounded on the hard concrete of the platform. They might have looked like any group of passengers running to catch a train if it wasn’t for the collection of diseased and rotting adults that followed them.
They ran past an endless blur of doors and windows, but at last came to the end of one train and were able to jump down on to the tracks. Then they were out past the great overhanging canopy of the station roof and into the daylight. They slowed down. Every time they were forced to run it took more out of them – their legs ached, their lungs burned, their throats were dry, their feet sore and blistered in their grubby old trainers.
They kept moving, looking down so as not to lose their footing as they
stepped from one sleeper to the next, avoiding the loose clinker that lay between them.
Tom, crippled by a stitch in his side, stopped and bent over. Acid had risen in his gullet and he wanted to be sick. Surely they didn’t need to run so hard now. The strangers had appeared to be a particularly badly infected bunch, and unlikely to keep up. And hopefully their fear of the sun would hold them back.
Tom straightened up.
‘Oh, crap.’
Now they all stopped. Appalled at what they saw ahead of them. A tunnel, and every single train track ran straight into its huge black mouth.
‘That’s just great,’ said Tom. ‘Well done, Jester. We’ll find some tracks to lead us north, will we? Have a nice walk in the fresh air?’
‘How was I to know?’
‘Why did we listen to you?’
‘I ain’t going in there,’ said Alfie, staring at the dark tunnel, trying not to cry.
‘We’ll just have to get off the tracks,’ said Shadowman, hoping to avoid another pointless and tiring argument. He’d been holding back, biting his tongue, not wanting to step on Jester’s toes, but he was beginning to wonder whether he should take charge. It would at least take the pressure off Jester.
‘Yeah?’ said Tom. ‘Good plan, Batman. I’d never have thought of that.’
‘Piss off, Tom,’ said Shadowman.
‘Leave Tom alone,’ said Kate, moving next to her boyfriend.
‘All you two do is moan,’ said Shadowman. ‘How does that help, exactly?’
‘Sod you,’ said Tom bitterly. ‘Once we’re away from here, I don’t care what any of the rest of you say, me and Kate are going back to the palace.’
‘They’re coming,’ said Alfie.
They looked back to see that the strangers from the station were trying to slither down off the platform on to the train tracks.
Shadowman looked around – there was a bank on one side, too steep to climb. A mess of fences and building works on the other. They could run or they could fight. He saw a way to unite the group and lift their spirits. The strangers would only be able to get down in ones and twos. They were groggy and uncoordinated, they struggled with their balance and climbing was something they found difficult.
‘Come on. We can at least get rid of that lot,’ he said, striding over to where the first of the grown-ups was crawling across the tracks. He went straight up to it and as it rose to its feet he swung his club like a batter, splattering its brains over the back end of the train.
Tom and Kate cheered.
‘Yeah!’ Tom shouted. ‘Now you’re talking. Let’s take them out!’
The next few minutes were merciless. The confused and feeble strangers carried on trying to get down off the platform and Shadowman’s calculations were correct. They were arriving singly, making them easy targets. His club rose and fell, smacking into bone. Tom and Kate’s swords were soon covered in blood from the tips of their blades to the pommels on the end of the grips. Alfie was throwing stones and yelling madly.
Only Jester held back, shouting instructions, but keeping clear of the bloodshed.
Soon thirteen strangers lay dead or dying, and the rest of them realized they were beaten. They retreated back along the platform towards the station.
The kids cheered again and hurled insults after the limping, defeated grown-ups. They looked at each other, covered in gore, exhausted, sweaty, but exhilarated.
‘Slice and dice,’ said Tom.
‘Mincemeat,’ said Alfie.
‘You still look very clean, Jester?’ said Kate, staring at his patchwork coat that had only a couple of spots of blood on it. ‘Didn’t see you doing much damage.’
Shadowman kept quiet. He wasn’t looking at Jester, wasn’t interested in whether or not he’d pulled his weight. He’d noticed something. While they’d been fighting, a smaller group of strangers had emerged from the tunnel down the tracks, no doubt lured by the noise and the smell of blood. There were six of them, and they looked considerably tougher and less sick than the ones from the station.
‘The party’s not over yet,’ he said wearily, and pointed to the new arrivals.
Jester erupted angrily. ‘You think I can’t do any damage? Think I don’t know how to fight? Yeah? Well, watch this!’ He grabbed Shadowman’s club from him and strode towards the oncoming strangers who slowed down, not sure if it was safe to move in for an attack.
Jester broke into a sprint, charging full pelt at the strangers, and smacked the first one, a tall father with long fair hair, hard in the neck. He didn’t go down, though, and the other strangers managed to close in on Jester so that he had no room to properly swing the club again.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ said Shadowman. ‘We need to help him.’
The four of them dashed over and started to lay into the strangers. Tom, Kate and Alfie concentrated on the ones who were hanging back. Shadowman headed for Jester, intending to pull him free of the two big fathers who had him by his left arm. But, just as Shadowman got close, Jester swung the club back with his free hand and it struck Shadowman square between the eyes.
It was like being hit by a firework. A shower of sparks exploded in front of Shadowman’s eyes and he suddenly didn’t know which way was up or down. He collapsed to his knees with a grunt, and his bladder emptied, soaking his jeans. Everything had gone a sickly yellow colour and was flipping over and over. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. His head felt as big as the moon and he was shivering, suddenly freezing cold.
The voices of the other boys boomed around him, but he could make no sense of them. The sound hurt him, though. He held his temples, wanting to scream, trying to hold his expanding head together.
He was dimly aware of the strangers being beaten down, of Tom and Kate yelling at Jester, then running off, Jester shouting after them.
Where were they going?
Come back …
I’m still here.
I need your help.
Now Jester was looking at him. His lips moving. Words buzzed in the air, but Shadowman couldn’t catch them. Jester and Alfie tried to pull him to his feet. Every time he stood, though, his legs gave way. In the end they dragged him to the side of the tracks.
‘Can you walk, Shadowman … can you walk … can you walk …?’
Shadowman couldn’t even speak, let alone walk.
‘There’s more of them coming … more of them coming … more of them …’
Where?
Shadowman tried to focus, but the image just flipped and skipped. He forced his face round towards the tunnel mouth. Another gaggle of strangers was emerging.
‘We’ll have to leave him … we’ll have to leave him … have to leave him …’
No …
‘I’m sorry … sorry … sorry …’
No …
The sky was pulsing. Shadowman threw up. Made a last effort to stand. For a moment he was up, then he was overcome with dizziness and he hit the ground with a hard, painful thump.
Everything went black.
He could taste dirt in his mouth. He opened his eyes. He was lying on his side. Staring at the tunnel.
Jester wasn’t there any more. Alfie gone too.
More strangers were coming out. No chance of counting them as they jumped about in his vision. They looked to him like a horde, an army, thousands of them.
Coming along the tracks towards him.
Where were his friends?
Oh yes. They’d run.
He had to hide.
Or something.
No. He was all right. The strangers weren’t coming towards him, after all. They were veering off, going after Jester and the others. They hadn’t seen him where he lay in a tangle of weeds. He was safe. It was going to be all right.
And then he felt a tug at his foot.
With a supreme effort he rolled his throbbing head round to look. It was one of the strangers from the battle. The father with the long fair hair. He wasn’t dead. He was slithering towards Sha
dowman on his belly, and he had his fingers clamped tight to his shoe.
Shadowman moaned.
It was the dead fighting the dead.
43
‘We going inside that, are we?’ said DogNut, bending his neck back to look up at the curved windowless walls of the building in front of him. It rose up eight storeys, looking like nothing so much as a giant concrete nut. The structure stood inside a modern extension to the Natural History Museum that was all glass and steel and hard surfaces.
‘Yes,’ said Justin proudly. ‘It’s where the museum laboratories are.’
‘You sure it ain’t stuffed with sickos?’
‘No. Just kids. Kids and millions of specimens.’
‘Why did the museum need labs?’ DogNut asked as they set off up the stairs. ‘Were they studying diseases, like?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Justin. ‘I think they studied plants and animals, fossils, that kind of thing. We’ve found some amazing scientific apparatus. A lot of it we’re still trying to work out how to use, but there’s loads of things we’re already using, like microscopes, computers, fridges …’
‘I think even I could figure out how to work a fridge,’ said DogNut.
‘We have to keep our specimens cold,’ said Justin.
‘Yeah, I know. You wouldn’t want your sickos to go off.’
There was an entrance to the pod on the third floor and Justin led DogNut into the dark interior, his torch shining over the walls and floor.
‘This building is called the Cocoon,’ Justin explained. ‘Before the disaster it had all sorts of displays and interactive stuff in here, projections on the walls, audio playing …’ He ran his torch beam over the walls like an archaeologist in a prehistoric cave. ‘All dead now, of course, but the museum’s collection of stuffed animals, seeds, insects, bones, weird things preserved in jars – that’s all still here, the physical things, the real things, not digital … bleeps and pixels and ones and zeros.’
There was a series of sloping ramps in the Cocoon that gave occasional glimpses of deserted labs as they climbed inside it, but as they rounded a corner near the top DogNut saw light up ahead. Electric light, burning inside a busy lab full of kids.