‘We don’t usually go through there either,’ said Kyle, still speaking for Ed. ‘I mean, like, we don’t never go through there.’
‘These is twisted times,’ said the masked boy.
‘True that.’
‘You guys look like you can take care of yourselves, though.’
‘We were just a bit outnumbered,’ said Kyle.
The masked boy chuckled. ‘About a hundred to one.’
‘We’re looking for someone.’ Ed finally spoke. He was slowly returning to life, like a dead leg coming awake. It was painful. If it was possible to get pins and needles in the brain then that’s what it felt like to Ed.
‘Looking for someone?’ the masked boy asked.
‘Yeah. That’s why we came through the badlands from the Tower. We were looking for someone. Didn’t know how bad it was going to be.’
‘Ain’t usually like this.’
‘No?’
‘No. Strange days … I’m Ryan Aherne, by the way.’ Ryan offered his hand for a high five and Kyle slapped it.
‘Ain’t nothing goes down on these streets I don’t know about it.’ Ryan pushed the mask from his face. He was an ugly bugger, covered in acne.
‘We’re hunters,’ he said as if he expected Ed’s lot to understand what that meant. His whole gang, maybe twenty-five of them in all, were dressed in leather and furs and Ed noticed that Ryan had a string of dried human ears hanging from his belt.
Noticed – but didn’t feel any reaction.
The kids all introduced themselves and started chatting. There was a lot of news to share. Ed watched Adele and Hayden and Will and Macca. He was glad that none of them had been killed. That was down to Ryan and his hunters. Ed at last felt human enough to thank him and they locked grips.
‘I saw you making hamburgers of them bastards,’ said Ryan. ‘I don’t know your story, man, but if you ever want to join my pack there’s a space for you.’
‘Thanks.’ Ed forced a smile. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
He felt a growing sense of relief that he was alive, but it was soured by a heavy weariness and a headache. Behind it all lay a gloomy depression. The fight had taken a lot out of him.
‘We been chasing down bastards since we woke up,’ said Ryan, scratching his dog’s head. It was a big Rottweiler, with a thick studded collar. ‘Streets round here are usually safe in the day.’
‘We thought we’d be OK once we were through the badlands,’ said Ed. ‘Never expected this.’ He indicated the vile mess in the road. A truckload of blood and guts, already covered in flies.
Ryan went over to one of the bodies and poked about with his boot.
‘They’ve started arriving a couple of days ago,’ he said, and spat into the road. ‘First just a few, ones and twos, you know, heading east mostly, into the badlands. Then they’ve started coming over the bridges. At first they’ve only come at night, then they’ve started coming at all hours.’ He kicked a head and sent it skittering across the road. ‘It’s messed up,’ he said, and then spotted something, knelt down next to a heap of dead flesh.
‘Would you look at that,’ he said. Ed joined him. There was a pile of grey jelly, slick and slimy. It looked a bit like frogspawn and there were what looked like translucent eggs in it.
And something else.
Something moving.
Like tiny grey maggots.
‘You ever seen anything like that before?’ Ryan asked.
‘No.’
Ed straightened up. He didn’t want to think about any of this right now. ‘You said it, Ryan. These are twisted times.’
‘Too right. We need to get you somewhere safe. Let’s roll!’ He called this last command out to the waiting kids and they set off down the road in the direction of the Houses of Parliament. Ed could see the familiar tall tower that housed Big Ben, like something out of a dream. Something from the past that was lost a long time ago.
‘So who you looking for then, soldier?’ Ryan asked Ed as they trudged along.
‘A boy, two boys, travelling with a girl.’
‘Through the badlands?’
‘Yep.’
Ryan sucked his teeth and then whistled.
‘Don’t fancy they chances much, to tell you the truth.’
‘Me neither.’
‘I ain’t seen no one about,’ said Ryan. ‘Anyone with any sense is staying off the streets till these bastards pass through.’
‘But not you?’ Ed smiled.
‘Told you, soldier.’ Ryan grinned back at him. ‘Is our job to keep the streets safe. We’re like the Old Bill, I guess. Your friendly neighbourhood police force. Where was your friends trying to get to anyways?’
‘Buckingham Palace,’ Ed replied.
‘Wouldn’t advise rocking up that way right now, to be honest. There’s bare sick bastards coming through. Besides, we don’t have a lot of truck with them palace dudes. You guys need to rest up for a bit, get yourselves clean and pukka before you go dancing in that party. Safest bet is I take you to Nicola. She’ll look after you.’
‘Nicola?’
‘Yeah.’ Ryan laughed. ‘She’s the prime minister, man. Didn’t you know?’
Now it was Ed’s turn to laugh. ‘You’re not serious.’
‘Well, in her own mind she the prime minister. She’s holed up in the Houses of Parliament. Bunch of well serious kids she got with her. They have votes and everything in there. Makes no difference to anyone else, but if it keeps them happy, you know? She’s good news, though, Nicola. She does all right by us. Not like some. You’ll like her.’
The air was suddenly filled with screams. Shadows swarmed across the road. Ed flinched and then looked up.
Seagulls.
Hundreds of them, wheeling and swooping, come to clean up the mess. Like vultures.
There were rich pickings for them back there.
43
It was dark as midnight down in the hole and there was a right stinko in the air. The Kid knew that stink.
Old man’s stink.
Sick and rotting. Plus the other thing.
Everybody poops.
The Kid stood very still, feeling the vibrations in the room. He was bat and moth and radar, all in one.
The bad boys upstairs had stripped him of his precious jacket, frisked him and whisked him away. Four of them, the two with the dog chains and two others, bristling with spears and slick with fear. They had the shakes on them bad. They’d tied his wrists with leather twine and taken him to a hole that they’d knocked through a wall in the warehouse. Big black hole it was and they’d slipped him through it, stepping from the new world into the old. From concrete and breeze blocks, ducts and cables and metal shelves into a musty, dusty, fusty, dry old world of stone and brick and wood that had stood there so long it had turned as grey as a pensioner in a Werther’s ad.
There were Roman buildings down here. His granddad had told him that. It was the Romans who had first built London, long time no see. Like in the olden days. Dates had never been his thing. And underneath all the new stuff was the old stuff. Buried deep. Whenever they wanted to put up a new building these days, they had first to excavate. Send in the Time Team. See what the Romans had left behind.
The Kid wondered if this old place they’d walked through had been built by some long-gone Julius or Claudius or Caligula, back in the days of Latin and sandals.
There were stone steps down, all worn and broken up, taking them deeper between narrow walls, pressing in from the sides. Then the corridor had opened out into a vault with brick arches holding up the roof. Wine barrels hiding in niches, forlorn and forgotten.
The Kid had smiled, felt a familiar, friendly warmth in his belly. This was his world. The underground. Alberich’s realm. He was the tunnel king. He’d been in cellars like this before, exploring beneath the city.
That was the olden days too. Many moons ago. There had been a heap of them back then, girlies and boyos, all mucking in together where they’d lived
in Spitalfields Market. They’d done all right for several good months. And then they’d got sick. Not the old man sickness of the grown-ups, some other disease, the flu or the pox or the flux. It had come to walk among them and one by one by one they’d passed away.
The Kid knew then he’d have to skedaddle. Being another victim wasn’t for him. He’d taken his chances on his own.
And then he’d met Sam I Am, his right-hand man. Never had a friend like Sam before. He hoped he’d be all right up there without him.
These thoughts had clattered about in the haywire tangles of The Kid’s mind as down they’d gone, the candlelight slipping and crawling over the old grey and yellow stone walls.
And then at last they’d come to a door.
Big door. Black door. Iron studs and a key as big as your head. Nathan had unlocked it. Rattle-click-clunk-clank. The Kid had thought of the Clickee Cult, up there, banging away until kingdom come. And he’d thought of sweet Yo-Yo, his violinist. He had to get back to her somehow. Make her see sense. He liked Yo-Yo. He liked anyone who could play music like that. His granddad had made him hear music. All music. What there was inside it. Where it took you. How the best music didn’t shout at you and tell you what to do. How you could find your own way through it.
Then the big boys had made ready, spears held out, the fear dripping off them so you could almost see it. They didn’t like what was on the other side of that door.
Nathan had turned on a powerful bright torch. Dazzling it was. And they’d counted …
One … two … three …
Then it was door open, spears jabbing into emptiness, the torch shining bright, all shouting and yelling fit to frighten the devil away. And they’d shoved The Kid through the door.
There were more steps on the other side and he’d almost fallen, but somehow he’d danced down them and by the time he’d reached the bottom the door had banged shut behind him, and – BANG – the lights went out.
He’d had half a moment to get a picture of the place they’d flung him into like a dirty rag. It was another ancient wine cellar, most of the barrels gone, arches and dust, lots of dust. Tracks in the dust where something had walked …
Then darkness.
The smell of death.
It was the darkness he stood in now, trying to herd his thoughts somewhere useful.
He wasn’t alone down there. The vibrations told him that. And the smell. Poo. Wee. Worse.
The smell of a hungry fellow.
He’d smelt that smell many times before, in the tunnels, knew if he got a whiff of it he had to turn back and go another way. There wasn’t no other way to go down here, though, was there? This was the end of the line. This was a dungeon. And there was a dragon in it.
He kept very still, keeping his breathing quiet, trying to sense where the monster might be. Trying to build up a picture.
Not much luck.
Give it time.
He waited, still as a frightened mouse, and at last he heard it. Sniffing. Snivelling. The monster was sussing him out.
And then he heard something else.
A voice.
‘Hello.’
A man’s voice. Soft and low and gentle. A kind voice.
Don’t be fooled, kiddo. It was the monster, all right. The blimp, Frank, it was the blimp.
The Kid held his counsel. Didn’t deign to reply.
‘Don’t be frightened,’ came the kindly voice, floating over the darkness. Like honey it was. ‘I only want to talk to you. It’s lonely down here. What’s your name, child?’
Everybody wanted to know his moniker of late. Well, that was between him and the gatepost. He had to keep some things to himself. A person needed secrets, private things, needed to keep a part of himself hidden away in a money box for a rainy day. You never knew when you might need it. His name was his to have, his to hold, his and his alone.
If you shared too much of yourself you eventually found there was nothing left.
Hold your counsel. Still your tongue. Let the cat have it.
‘Why don’t you come over here and sit with me? You must be scared in the dark there. I’ll look after you. There are rats down here, you know.’
Yeah. One big fat talking rat who smelt of rotten trainers and toilet gifts.
‘We’ll have a party. I don’t often get visitors. But when I do, I always make them feel at home.’
A party? Right. Yeah. The Kid had heard enough. It was time to put his four-step plan into action. He raised his hands to his hair, his joyous, thick tangle of locks. Like an explosion, sprouting from the top of his head. Stiff as wire wool it was. Matted solid.
His granddad used to read him stories. The Kid loved stories more than anything. One of his favourites was about the Twits. Old man Twit had a beard to write home about. Yes, indeed.
He’d kept things in his beard.
And The Kid kept things in his hair. Oh, the big boys had frisked him all right, but they really weren’t up to the job. They weren’t professionals. He had all sorts stashed away in his hair. He felt carefully for one of his razor blades. A good trick that, to keep razor blades hidden in your locks. If any grown-ups tried to grab your hair and pull you into their dens they got a nasty shock, and sometimes lost their fingers.
The twits.
In a matter of moments he’d cut through the leather twine and freed his hands.
Step two. His cigarette lighter. That was there to be winkled out, nestling in a pocket of hair like a bird’s egg in a nest.
Step three. He used his blade to cut a strip of material from the bottom of his dress.
Step four. He started to move slowly to his left. He’d seen just enough when the boys had shone their torch in to know that there was a wine barrel over there and some rickety old wooden props and supports.
‘There’s no point in moving about in the dark,’ said the voice. ‘It’s not safe. You must be scared and lonely. Come here. We’ll be great friends, you and me.’
The Kid ignored him and kept shuffling along, hands stretched out in front of him. Had a good sense of space, learnt from many months exploring in the dark. Went like a blind boy until he felt the hardness of a wooden post. His fingers ran over it, reading it, looking for a crack. The wood was ancient and dry and half rotten. He found a loose strip, dug it out a little with his blade then prised the strip away. It was about twenty centimetres long and slightly thicker than a pencil. It would do.
‘I’ve got things you’d like – sweets and chocolate and, I don’t know, sometimes I forget. Do you like chocolate? What’s your favourite colour?’
The Kid put his blade back for safe keeping and then wound the length of cloth round the end of the wood and secured it in place with the leather twine, binding it tightly into a wad, but leaving a strand flapping loose.
All the while the monster had been talking, talking, wheedling, syrupy, trying to hypnotize him, like Kaa the snake in The Jungle Book.
‘Come to me, child, sit with me a while. They always do. In the end.’
The Kid was finally ready. The big boys had shown him the best weapon to use to slay the dragon. Light. They’d shone that big brightness of theirs right in here, trying to scare the monster away from the door.
He walked quickly towards the sound of the voice, and when he was close, he rolled the flint at the top of his lighter, and as it sparked into life, he put it to the scrap of loose cloth. It flared and lit. Burned bright for a few seconds.
Long enough for him to eyeball the monster.
He was a father. Maybe forty years old, bald, with long skinny arms and legs and a round pot belly. Just sitting there on a stone bench, his arms by his sides, his hands resting on the bench, with long fingernails, horny and twisted. He appeared to be naked, but it was hard to tell; his skin was marked by the disease, distorted by lumps and growths and swellings, and covered all over with a soft fur of green mould. His skin was pulled tight on his face, making his pale eyes bulge and exposing his gums. The sort of f
ace The Kid used to make in the mirror to amuse himself, pulling the loose skin back with his hands.
As The Kid shoved the flames towards him, the man raised one hand to his face, shielding it, fingernails rattling.
He swore at The Kid.
‘How’d you get that? Why’d they let you down here with fire?’
‘Because they’re stupid,’ said The Kid. ‘Because they believe too strong in one sole thing. Their brainboxes is all facing one way. They don’t think that there might be other things in the world. I’m not like them. My mind don’t go in a straight line. The steering wheel is loose.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m The Kid. Who are you?’
‘Who do you think?’ The monster’s voice turned cold and hard. ‘I’m Wormwood, the Green Man.’
44
Shadowman was making his way back to The Fear. He had a strange, sick, out-of-joint feeling that he was more at home with his strangers than he was with other children. He hadn’t bothered to argue any more with Saif. What was the point? The guy was an arrogant prick. Arrogant like Jaz and Ricky had been, and if Saif wasn’t careful he was going to wind up as dead as them.
True, he had a lot to be arrogant about. He had organized the camp at IKEA well. The big car park was secured all around and they were growing a lot of food there. He had a collection of cars with petrol in them so his scavenging parties were fast and efficient and relatively safe. The kids were well armed and the distinctive blue box of the main building was warm and dry.
Something happened to people when you gave them too much power, though. They started to believe they were special, that they were always right, all-powerful, invincible.
Saif almighty.
Shadowman had seen it happen to other kids around London. A girl called Anita had been in charge of the first safe house he’d camped out in after the illness hit. It had been out west in Notting Hill. Had been her family home. They’d done well there to begin with, survived the early days of chaos and rampage. They’d lived through the first weeks when the streets had been thick with strangers, and Anita had begun to think that it was down to her, that she was the one making a difference. She couldn’t see that it was mostly luck.