He filled his pockets and slotted the last couple of items in his pack, which had lots of little compartments. Everything had its place and the vest kept it all from rattling about. Satisfied, he stood up, slipped the single wide diagonal strap over his head and put on his cloak. The kids in the shanty town wore a bizarre mix of stuff that they’d looted, bits of military clothing, odd fashion items, punky stuff, leather jackets, fancy dress, as if they were all trying to outdo each other with their wackiness, so Shadowman didn’t stand out in his cloak. In other circumstances, with different kids, he might have taken it off, rolled it up and worn it over his shoulders as if it was a blanket, but here in the camp he felt he could wear anything he liked and not be noticed.
The camp was its usual chaotic, squalid mess. The biggest problem kids had since the disaster was boredom. This must have been what it was like going to war, the stories he’d read about soldiers whose days were filled with unrelenting boredom, punctuated every now and then by brief moments of extreme terror and violence. That was what life was like now for everyone. There was no TV, no computers, no mobile phones or Xboxes; there was nothing to do except try to stay alive.
The shanty town had been largely built on the solid footing of the parade ground, but it spilt over on to the grass in the park where a group of kids was playing football. The ball was a bit flat; that was a permanent problem. Balls were too easily punctured and very hard to repair. A fully pumped football was something of a precious treasure.
Other kids were playing different games: the younger ones chasing each other around; some of the girls had invented their own elaborate games that involved hopping and skipping, jumping, clapping, singing and counting. Most kids, though, just lounged around on whatever they could find to sit on – broken chairs, logs, bits of rubbish – and chatted to each other, just like the bored contestants on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here. Of course they couldn’t talk about what they’d watched on TV last night, or a piece of music they’d heard, or something they’d seen on YouTube, the latest video game, the premier league … It was all gossip. Who’d said what to who and what they’d said back at them, who they liked, who they didn’t like.
That was another reason why Shadowman preferred to keep himself to himself. So he didn’t have to talk to anyone. He kept on the move, strolling around the camp, settling now and then by one of the fires that they kept burning day and night, letting the smoke wash over him. He’d learnt early on that the grown-ups could smell kids, so he did all he could to mask his own scent. It also hid his smell from other kids. Smoke was the best deodorant around. It got into your clothes, your hair, your skin, and drowned out all the unmentionable smells that unwashed bodies accumulate. He’d rubbed most of the soot from his skin and now just looked like one more grubby boy among a camp full of grubby boys.
A group of kids was making music – banging boxes, clapping, rapping – one had a battered guitar with three strings. Occasionally one of them would break away and do a little dance of some sort, showing off, trying to outdo the others.
Nearby two boys were fighting, a small crowd gathered round them. They were really battering each other and the onlookers were laughing. Shadowman smiled. All of this served one purpose. To take their minds off the thing they all thought about all the time. Food. Where was it going to come from, what was it going to be, how much was there going to be?
There never was enough, of course. And it was never very nice. A lot of it would be stale or rancid.
Half the kids from the camp were out on the streets still, breaking into houses and shops to see what they could find. There was always excitement in the camp when these groups returned, like fishermen back from the sea or hunters back from the wild. Would they bring back a mammoth today, or just a couple of rats?
Another reason why Shadowman liked to work alone. He could find his own food and look after himself, not have to worry about any other mouths to feed, not sharing or waiting his turn, hanging back to see what crumbs he could pick up after the bigger, tougher kids had had their fill.
He saw one of the kids he’d made friends with, a little Irish bruiser called Paddy. He was sitting alone playing with some broken action figures. Shadowman sat down next to him and Paddy said hello.
‘What are those guys?’ Shadowman asked, nodding at the little men.
‘They’re Halo figures. I found them in a comic shop months ago. I could really do with some new ones.’
‘I used to love playing Halo,’ said Shadowman. ‘My mum used to shout at me all the time. Stop playing that bloody game …’
‘Yeah,’ said Paddy. ‘Me too.’
‘My favourite was Fable, though.’
‘Never played that.’
‘It was good. Good story. Good acting.’
‘I just like games where you blow things up and shoot people.’
‘Yeah.’
There was a commotion on the edge of the camp. Someone was coming in. Shadowman looked over to see John and Carl striding on to the parade ground carrying boxes wrapped in plastic. Big grins on their faces. Behind them came several other lads also carrying boxes.
John and Carl were the two guys in charge here. John was the overall boss. As far as Shadowman was concerned, he was a skinny, wiry, ugly, gap-toothed, mean, shaven-headed little bastard. His character was a lethal mix of bone-stupid and streetwise smarts, and he was prone to terrible acts of random violence. The other kids were scared of him and he used that fear to keep some sort of control in the camp. There was a kind of screwy order and the kids seemed happy to have him boss them around. He made them feel safe.
Carl was his deputy. Cleverer and altogether nicer, he dressed a bit like a pirate, with a bandanna permanently tied round his head, and had no ambition to be number one. He seemed to be the only person who could stop John from getting out of order. Shadowman reckoned that John was seriously unhinged and probably dangerous. If the disaster hadn’t happened, he would have been locked up somewhere. But now, in this upside-down new world, psychos like John were leaders and generals.
As the foraging party got nearer, Shadowman saw that the boxes they were carrying contained not food but cans of beer and cider. John started shouting triumphantly about it.
‘Look what your Uncle Johnny has got for you useless tossers. Don’t say I don’t look after you. There’s going to be a big party in the old town tonight and there ain’t no adults gonna stop us! No mums, no coppers, no sleep till morning.’
Paddy jumped up and ran over to him.
‘Give us one!’ he shouted happily, and John casually kicked him in the balls, sending him sprawling across the gravel, spilling his action figures everywhere. John walked on, laughing, and crushed one of the little men under his heavy boot.
‘Later,’ he said. ‘And you can wait your turn, you Irish loser. We’re gonna have a riot and we’re gonna do it properly. I ain’t had nothing to drink in days.’
He went to his own shack and dumped his box on the ground. The other kids piled theirs around it.
‘Listen up, goons and goonettes,’ John shouted, jumping up on the boxes. ‘I want a really big fire, I want some music and I want some grub. Get on it. Sort me out. And when I’m happy you can all have a drink. Well, not all of you, only the ones that make me happy.’
He jumped down, laughing, and tore his box open to get at a can, which he popped open and clamped to his mouth. As he glugged away, he caught Shadowman’s eye.
‘What you looking at?’
‘Nothing.’
Shadowman dropped his gaze, embarrassed that John had spotted him. His cloak of invisibility had failed.
‘Come here.’
Shadowman had no option but to go over to John who glared at him over his beer can, looking right into Shadowman and making him feel naked and foolish.
‘I seen you around. I ain’t sure I like you.’
Shadowman shrugged. Decided to try to change the subject.
‘Where’d you get the beer???
?
‘What’s it to you?’
‘Just interested.’
‘Yeah – interested. You’re always interested, ain’t you? Listening in, poking your nose everywhere. Interested.’
John took a sudden swing at Shadowman, lashing out with his left hand. Shadowman instinctively ducked and backed away. John grinned.
‘You’re fast, ain’t you?’
‘Fast enough.’
John bent down and for a moment Shadowman wasn’t sure what he was going to do. But he simply grabbed another beer can and chucked it at Shadowman, who caught it neatly.
‘Cheers,’ said John.
‘Thanks,’ said Shadowman. ‘What’s the catch?’
‘No catch. We found this lot in a pub cellar, seeing as you asked. It was rammed full of booze. Which was lucky, as Carl’s little pillaging expedition earlier got banjaxed. I’m sending another gang back to get some more. Drink up.’
Shadowman opened his can and put it to his lips. As he did so, John whipped out a knife and held the point to Shadowman’s throat.
‘Dropped your guard, there, Snoopy,’ he said, and then pressed his face very close to Shadowman’s, keeping the knife hard to his skin and causing a small trickle of blood to run down his neck.
‘I’m keeping my eye on you,’ he said.
‘OK,’ Shadowman gulped, trying to keep his tone neutral.
John took the knife away, gave Shadowman a dismissive smile, then walked off, chuckling. One of his girls ran up to him, and John shoved her over.
‘Leave me alone,’ he said. ‘You’ll get your booze.’
He sat down on the boxes and lit a cigarette. Around him the other kids were madly busy, trying to get everything done to John’s satisfaction.
Shadowman wondered if this was a vision of the future. Was this what was going to happen to mankind? Was everything going to fall apart and degenerate into this desperate day-to-day existence? Or was it going to be more like how David ran things at Buckingham Palace?
It was funny, really. Mankind had such a powerful urge to survive at any cost. He’d read about kids in some Third World countries who lived on rubbish tips. Kids as young as five and six earning a few pennies to support their families by sorting crap all day for recycling. What for? So that they could grow up and have children of their own who would have to live on the rubbish tip as well.
Given the choice of living on in squalor and starvation, sickness and danger, or simply putting an end to it all, most people would choose life.
There had been a man who lived on Shadowman’s road when he was growing up. He’d lived there all his life, was one of the last of the original residents of Notting Hill. Everyone else was waiting for him to die so that they could buy his house cheap. If the old geezer had sold it, he’d have probably got a couple of million quid for it. But he didn’t want to sell it. He didn’t want to move. He wanted what he was used to.
Shadowman would see him sometimes setting off for the shops in the morning. He was impossibly old and walked bowed over, his hands twisted with arthritis. He could barely move and shuffled forward at an agonizing snail’s pace all the way down to the end of the road. It would take him all morning. And then, with the few pence he had, he’d buy a half a loaf of bread, some cheap biscuits, a pint of milk and some eggs, and then he’d shuffle home again.
Shadowman couldn’t imagine what kind of a life the old man had lived, and what he must have been thinking as he dragged himself to the shop and back, but he knew that if anyone had asked him if he wanted to end it all he would have said no. He was still alive, still moving, and he wanted to live as long as he could.
There seemed to be a deep-down urge in all living things to carry on whatever the cost. These kids were living, and they would go on living. Perhaps they would rebuild the world. Who knew? Diseases had struck before. The Black Death had wiped out half the population of Europe, but mankind had come back from that. This new disease had probably killed more. Three quarters maybe? Provided the kids were immune they would survive and somehow they would build a new world. And so far it looked like they were immune. Shadowman was fifteen now and had displayed no signs of illness. No sores or boils or crazy thoughts. That wasn’t to say that it might not all change, of course …
Nobody could see into the future.
Well, if he wanted to guarantee his future he needed to keep out of John’s way for a bit.
He drained the can and tossed it on to a pile of rubbish.
Dark soon. Better get moving.
Things to do.
People to see.
16
David was standing out on the balcony at the front of the palace with Jester. This was his favourite place in the whole building. On big occasions in the past, like weddings and birthdays, or jubilee celebrations, the royal family used to come out here to wave down at their public. Now David liked to come here and look out across St James’s Park. There was a good view of London and he saw it as his kingdom. His world. The only thing that spoilt it was knowing that the squatters were down there at the far end of the park in their filthy camp. A group of kids he couldn’t control. He needed to find a way to bring them on to his side.
In the meantime he had concerns closer to home. The eight travellers who had turned up on his doorstep.
‘So, they’ve agreed to stay the night?’ he said, without looking round at his second in command.
‘Yup.’
‘That’s a relief. We don’t need to keep an eye on them for the time being then. I’ll keep working on that Courtney girl. I can tell she wants to stay here. At least for a while. Do you think she bought my story about sending you out to gather information?’
‘I think so.’ Jester nodded and leant on the balustrade next to David. ‘She doesn’t seem to be the brightest spark in the box.’
‘We’ll make a big show of you going to find out where Brooke might be,’ said David. ‘They don’t have to know it’s all a sham. It won’t be too hard to hold them here till you come back, and hopefully by then they’ll have got used to the good life and won’t want to leave. I’ll offer DogNut a position of power. Make him a general or something.’
‘Stupid name,’ said Jester. ‘How does he ever expect to get anywhere with a stupid name like DogNut?’
‘He’s the key to this,’ said David. ‘They follow his orders. If necessary, we’ll let him leave and keep the others here. Without him around they’re much more likely to do what we tell them.’
‘And what about me?’ Jester asked. ‘What do I tell them when I get back? Do I tell them the truth? That Brooke and the others are living just down the road in the Natural History Museum?’
‘Don’t know. It’ll come out one way or another eventually, I suppose. I’ll think about it.’
‘So how long do you want me to go away for?’
David switched his attention from the view of St James’s to Jester. ‘I want you to do a bit more than just keep out of the way for a few days, Jester.’
‘Yeah? What exactly?’
‘DogNut said he’s just here looking for Brooke.’
‘Don’t you believe him?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said David. ‘I mean … I think he’s definitely looking for her, but what if there’s more to it than that?’
‘Like what? I don’t get it.’
‘You heard what he said about how things are at the Tower of London? How that weirdo Jordan Hordern has made them into a sort of army?’
‘What of it?’
‘I’ll bet DogNut and his gang are spies. Checking us out.’
Jester gave a snort of laughter. ‘You’re just being paranoid, David.’
‘It’s good to be paranoid,’ said David.
‘Don’t tell me you want me to go and spy on the Tower? It’s miles away.’
‘No. Not that.’ David shook his head. ‘But there are obviously more kids out there than we thought, surviving in different places round London.’
‘I guess
so.’
‘And if we want to be in charge we have to get them on our side,’ David went on. ‘We have to show that we’re the toughest, the best-organized, I don’t know, the best-fed group in London. We have to build an army, Jester, just like Jordan Hordern’s done. So there’s no argument. We’re already stronger than all of the groups round here that we know of. Like Nicola and her ninnies at the Houses of Parliament. They have to rely on hunters like Ryan for their security. Not us. But we do need more fighters.’
‘I still don’t get what you want me to do,’ said Jester.
‘It was DogNut gave me the idea,’ said David. ‘Basically I want you to go out there and explore like he’s doing.’
‘Explore?’
‘Yeah. I’ll give you some troops, don’t worry, but I want you to go out there and find me some more fighters. Look for big settlements. Offer them whatever you like. Tell them whatever you want. Just get them to come here. Until we’re in control of all of London we’re never going to be really safe. And to do that I need a proper army.’
David stopped and pointed towards the park.
‘That lot there,’ he said. ‘John and his bloody squatters. We have to deal with them first. We have to show them that no one messes with us. We’ll smash them. And then we’ll smash Brooke and Justin and the rest of the losers at the museum.’
‘What about Justin’s offer to join us?’ Jester asked. ‘I thought the kids at the museum wanted to form an alliance of some sort?’
‘They’d like to,’ said David. ‘Sure. But I’m not interested. I want to teach them a lesson. I want to break them, Jester, make them suffer for what they did to me. Then, and only then, when they know who’s boss, once they come crawling to me on their scabby knees, will I let them join us. But to do that I need more fighters.’
He banged his fists on the stone balustrade of the balcony.