The Fallen

by Charlie Higson

  ‘Yeah, but he had a lot of help from the grown-ups he let out.’

  ‘And what would have happened if we hadn’t come here?’ said Maxie. ‘A lot more kids would have died.’

  ‘Including me probably,’ said Robbie from across the room.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Maxie. ‘They need you here.’

  ‘Oh, I can play at being a doctor,’ said Maeve. ‘But to be honest, I don’t hardly know any more than anyone else. Certainly no more than that geeky Einstein kid. Once he’s back I won’t be needed here at all.’

  ‘If he comes back,’ said Maxie gloomily.

  ‘Are you worried about them, Maxie?’ Maeve sat down finally, her rant over.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘They’ll come back. And then what? Are you happy here?’

  ‘Happy enough. I don’t know when I’ve last really been happy. Maybe talking to Blue in the sick-bay back at the palace. It was quiet there. We could pretend that nothing existed outside those four walls. That we didn’t have to worry about anything. That we didn’t have to be scared.’

  ‘You don’t want to come with us then?’

  ‘Us? What d’you mean?’

  ‘I’ve been talking to some of the other kids here,’ said Maeve. ‘It’s not just me feels this way. There’s a few of us want to go. Some of the younger ones like Ella and Monkey-Boy are freaked out by this place and, let’s face it, there’s not enough food to go round. We’ll be doing everyone else a favour.’

  ‘You can’t go, Maeve.’

  ‘I can.’ Maeve stood up. ‘And I will.’

  Cameron writhed in the bed, his legs thrashed under the sheets and he whimpered.

  ‘Is he going to be all right?’ said Maxie.

  ‘I don’t bloody know,’ Maeve snapped, sounding very tired. ‘As I say, Maxie, I’m not a doctor. I’ve had enough of this. Just keep checking his temperature. If you can get him to drink some water as well …’ She paused, looking down at Cameron in his bed. ‘He’s got as much chance as the rest of us.’

  75

  ‘Something’s not right,’ said Blue and the group stopped.

  The doors of the church were standing open.

  Something was definitely not right.

  Blue told everyone to quickly get under cover and they hurried off the path and into the trees. Ollie settled in next to Blue, crouching low behind a stump, Ebenezer with him.

  ‘You’ve got good eyesight,’ said Blue. ‘Can you see anything?’

  Ollie stared hard at the church, looking for any clues as to what might have happened. Of course there could always be a perfectly innocent explanation. The kids might have had to come out to do something, or …

  Who was he kidding? Blue was right – something was off. They could all sense it, fine-tuned as they were to pick up any signs of danger. A crow flapped down from the tower and disappeared behind the church. Ollie looked up. There was nobody there. No look-out.

  It wasn’t as if anyone was running around screaming. It was spookily quiet. Ollie scanned the church again, then the churchyard. What was wrong?

  ‘There,’ he said at last, pointing.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Back over by those buildings, those shed things.’

  ‘What am I looking for?’

  ‘I can see it too,’ said Ebenezer. ‘A body, I think.’

  ‘That’s just made my day,’ said Blue and he muttered something filthy under his breath.

  ‘Can you see what sort of body?’ he added. ‘A kid? A grown-up?’

  ‘All I can tell you is it’s not moving.’

  Now Einstein joined them.

  ‘Why have we stopped? What’s going on?’

  ‘There’s a body over there,’ said Blue.

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Well, I hardly think it’s sunbathing, is it?’ said Blue.

  Ollie sat down with his back to the stump, started fishing steel shot out of his pouches. The morning had started so well. Too good to be true.

  Blue had got them up at sunrise. The warehouse kids had made them some beds down among the shelves, piling up mattresses and sleeping-bags and duvets. They’d kept close to each other for security. It had been dry and quiet and warm, but few of them had slept well.

  They’d negotiated with the Twisted Kids about what they could take. It hadn’t taken long. The girl they called the Warehouse Queen had been in charge, but she never seemed to speak, just sat there, slumped in her wheelchair throne. The other kids hovered round her and seemed to know what she was thinking without her having to say anything.

  The deal they’d struck was that Einstein would be allowed to take whatever they could carry as long as they also took some of the Twisted Kids back to the museum with them. They were supposed to find out what was going on in the outside world. Check that it was safe at the museum, and then, when the time was right, report back to the warehouse so the Queen could decide on their next move.

  The Twisted Kids were being cautious. Patient. They’d had fifteen years to think about it, after all.

  Ollie slotted the steel shot into the leather pocket on his sling. Stretched the elastic cords back then relaxed them. Testing it. It was a nervous habit. As if somehow it could have stopped working or got broken since the last time he’d used it.

  ‘I’ll go and take a closer look,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Ebenezer and Ollie gave him a smile of thanks.

  ‘Me too,’ said Jackson, moving up from the group of kids who were hiding behind Blue.

  ‘Yeah, all right,’ said Blue. ‘That’s plenty. Everyone else watch their backs. And watch our backs. Until we know what’s going on, this is a hot zone.’ He turned to Einstein, suddenly angry. ‘Why would they open the doors?’ he hissed accusingly. ‘Why would they come out? We told them to stay put. They were safe in there.’

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ said Einstein. ‘I was with you, remember?’

  ‘They’re your kids. If they’ve done something stupid they’ve put us all in danger.’

  Ollie shook his head and moved off. What was the use of arguing about it now? The only thing to do was find out what had happened and get it sorted. He and Ebenezer and Jackson crept through the trees, sticking to the shadows. He was sniffing the air, searching for that distinctive sickly, sweet-and-sour perfume of rotten adult. All he could smell was greenery, earth, a fresh new world freed from the pollution of cars and planes … and people …

  It had taken them about an hour to load what they needed back at Promithios. As much as they could carry, the Warehouse Queen had said. She’d also allowed them to take three trolleys to carry it on. The new trolleys were much better than the ones they’d lugged all the way from the museum and left here at the church. They had better steering and bigger wheels with solid rubber tyres on them so were much easier to manoeuvre.

  Before they’d left, the warehouse kids had all come to see them off. The Pink Surfer, with his giant elongated foot, Betty Bubble, Flubberguts, Legs, Spider Boy and the Queen, whom Monstar had carried down from the platform as easily as if she’d been a little baby, before fetching her wheelchair throne. And TV Boy, chatting away still, puffed up from the show he’d put on the night before.

  When Blue had asked which of them was coming and who was staying behind, it was Skinner who’d been the first to step forward. He was excited, nervous, jittery. Then Fish-Face, with her wide mouth and eyes round the sides of her skull. Like the Queen, she didn’t seem to say a lot. In fact Ollie wondered whether she could speak at all. And finally Trinity. Ollie didn’t know whether Trinity was technically a he or a she, or something plural. He didn’t like to think about that third shrivelled little body sticking out of their backs. It couldn’t be dead. Ollie knew that much. If a part of you died, unless it was cut out, the rest of you followed.

  They’d made a peculiar procession, tramping along the road, with the trolleys piled high with boxes. Skinner couldn’t walk very fast and in the end they’d sat hi
m on one of the trolleys with his cat in a box. Fish-Face was fine but quiet, and Trinity could move surprisingly quickly. Skinner was like a little kid, pointing things out, laughing and chatting away to Achilleus and Paddy, who were pulling his trolley.

  Like a mad school trip. No sign of any grown-ups. Clear skies. An empty city.

  And now this …

  Two steps forward and three steps back.

  They reached the edge of the treeline and halted. Ollie’s eyes hadn’t stopped darting about, scanning the whole area, alert for any signs of movement. Apart from the odd bird, though, there was nothing. And with every step they got closer to the thing lying on the grass among the gravestones. He prayed it was a grown-up. The body appeared to be wrapped in something that was a dirty white. He could see bloodstains.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ he asked Ebenezer.

  ‘I reckon it’s that girl who got killed on the way here.’

  ‘Maybe they brought the body out because it was smelling too much or something.’

  ‘So why did they not shut the doors?’

  ‘Should we check in the church or carry on looking out here?’ whispered Jackson. ‘This is all new to me.’

  ‘Outside first,’ said Ollie. ‘We need to recce the whole area. We don’t want to get trapped in there. Come on.’

  They left the safety of the trees and ran across open ground towards the body. They jumped a low wall and threw themselves flat.

  ‘It’s Gabby,’ said Jackson. They were close enough now to see that the body was indeed hers. She’d been half unwrapped from the sheet and part of her face had been bitten off. Grown-ups had been here. The question was – where were they now? And what had happened to the rest of the kids?

  ‘Over there,’ said Ebenezer and he nodded towards something. Ollie looked. At the other end of the churchyard were four grown-ups, sitting as if having a picnic. They were spattered with blood and were chewing on lumps of raw meat, tearing off ragged chunks with yellow teeth. Ollie saw that one of them was eating a hand. A small hand. A child’s hand. He felt his stomach lurch and fought off a gut-kick of sickness. And then he saw that another of them, a slack-jawed father, was picking at a wound in his own leg, digging out bits of rotten flesh, sniffing them and then popping them into his mouth.

  The adults hadn’t spotted Ollie, Ebenezer and Jackson yet. They were too busy eating. Ollie eased himself up on to his knees and got his sling ready. It was quite a distance to shoot from here, but he hoped he could still do enough damage. He took aim and loosed a steel ball. One of the grown-ups, a bald mother, jerked her head and toppled sideways. The others ignored her, just carried on eating. Ollie fitted another ball to his sling. The second shot got the father who’d been picking at his leg right in the neck. He put a hand to his throat and stood up, looking around. The next shot took his teeth out and knocked him down. The odds were balanced. It was time to go.

  The kids charged. Ebenezer had three lightweight throwing spears. They may not have been very heavy but their points were sharp, and he hurled two of them as he ran, taking down the last two grown-ups, who had finally realized, too late, that they were in danger. Then Jackson was in among them and she finished them off with her spear.

  It was over quickly and the three kids stood there, panting and gasping with rage. There were two dead children here. Too badly mauled to be able to tell who they were.

  Ebenezer collected his spears and Ollie looked for his steel shot. Of the three balls he’d fired he only found one, but in his search he found another dead child in the long grass. A boy. The crow they’d seen earlier was pecking at his eyes. Ollie shooed it away.

  ‘That’s Reece,’ said Jackson. There were tears on her cheeks. ‘Oh Christ, what happened here?’

  ‘They opened the doors for some reason,’ said Ollie. ‘We have to find out if any of them are still alive.’

  ‘These grown-ups were too relaxed,’ said Ebenezer. ‘If there was anyone else alive …’

  ‘We have to look,’ said Ollie.

  It was vital to act fast now. Careless of any other grown-ups that might be in the area, they hurried back to where the rest of their group were still hiding among the trees.

  They quickly explained the situation to Blue, whose mood turned even blacker. He stood up, his muscular body tense.

  ‘Hello?’ he yelled, striding towards the church doors. ‘Hello? Anybody in there … ?’

  There was no reply.

  He turned to the rest of his group.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ he barked. ‘We’re going inside.’

  76

  Ollie ran to catch up with Blue. He wanted to be first in. Killing the grown-ups in the churchyard hadn’t been enough; he was still all churned up inside. And he couldn’t bear the thought of any more kids getting hurt. He had to get inside and do it fast. If some of the museum bunch were still alive in there he was going to save them. He never fought close up, hand-to-hand. He usually held back, letting his sling do all the work for him. That’s what he was best at and that’s where he was most use. Now, though, he couldn’t wait. He had a knife in a sheath on his belt, but he hadn’t used it for a long time. The way he felt right now he could take a grown-up apart with his bare hands. An alarm was sounding in the back of his head that he tried to ignore …

  This is how you make mistakes. How you wind up dead. Don’t let your emotions get hold of you. Don’t take stupid risks …

  But he wasn’t listening. He wasn’t listening to anything except the blood singing in his ears and his own tangled thoughts screaming at him. Blue shouted something, but he didn’t register the meaning until it was too late and the next moment, as the words ‘Look out!’ formed in his brain, he collided in the doorway with a father who was coming out of the church. Ollie was sent spinning, the breath knocked out of him, and he went down heavily, crashing on to his arse on the hard, cold stone of the porch. The father was still standing, though he looked slightly stunned, not understanding what was going on.

  Blue had got caught up in the collision as well, and was thrown off balance, his timing out. He was squaring up to whack the father, raising his club. Too slow. He hadn’t spotted another father coming up fast behind the first one from out of the darkness. Ollie wanted to shout a warning, but was still gasping for air, his head spinning.

  Blue was going to be taken down, and it was all his fault.

  Blue swung at the first father, who was ready for him and batted the club away with his arm. And then Achilleus was with them. He barged Blue aside and let the charging father run on to the point of his spear. He turned with him as he came, and twisted sideways, letting the father slide off the spear and smack head first into the ground. Achilleus hadn’t finished yet. He kept moving and punched his spear into the first father. In and out in one swift movement that killed him outright and sent him tumbling down on top of the other grown-up.

  Achilleus paused long enough to pull Ollie to his feet and then carried on into the church. Ollie caught his breath. Waiting. The collision had knocked some sense into him and he’d calmed down. Achilleus was way better than him at this sort of thing. Ollie fitted a shot to his sling and went in much more cautiously after him and Blue.

  The first thing he noticed when he got inside was that there were other people in here. It took him a couple of seconds to make sense of it in the gloom. A bright flame of hope burned briefly. Was it the rest of the children? The flame died as quickly as it had flared. The people were too big. They were adults. There was a large group to the right, down by the altar, and another smaller group to the left.

  There were no signs of any children.

  No. That was wrong. There were children in here. But they weren’t moving. Ollie saw that there were bodies all over the floor. Mangled and trampled.

  He had paused just inside the doorway and was now pushed aside by more of his gang coming in from behind. He grabbed Ebenezer as he went past.

  ‘We’ve got to slow down,’ he said. ‘It�
��s not good in here.’

  Ebenezer muttered a prayer and kissed the crucifix that hung on a chain around his neck.

  Blue and Achilleus had already piled into the group of adults to the right. Ollie switched his attention to the smaller group, fired off a shot too quickly, without really taking aim. Ebenezer was about to throw one of his javelins when the incoming kids got in the way. This was not the right terrain for ranged weapons. There was really nothing Ollie could do now except hang back and try to stop any grown-ups who tried to make a run for it. His eyes had at last grown used to the lower light levels and he watched as Jackson cut down a pair of emaciated mothers.

  He moved to a better position in the aisle and stumbled on something. It was a young girl from the museum. He hadn’t known her long enough to learn her name. She looked quite peaceful, almost as if she was asleep. There was another girl lying next to her, however, whose face was screwed up in fear and pain. He knelt down to check her pulse, just in case. Nothing. She was already cold, her flesh hard and solid.

  He closed his eyes, wishing he was somewhere else. Fighting back tears.

  ‘Look out, Ollie,’ Ebenezer shouted.

  Ollie looked up just as three fathers came hobbling down the aisle towards him. They had got away from Jackson and were moving fast. They were very close together, as if they had their arms round each other, and then Ollie realized that the father in the middle didn’t have any arms at all, and the other two only had one each. They appeared to be working as a single unit. And they’d been busy. The lower half of the face of the father in the middle was painted thick with blood and his teeth were stained pink.

  As Ollie struggled to pull his knife free, someone stepped in between him and the attacking fathers.

  It was Trinity.

  The three fathers stopped dead in their tracks and stared, mesmerized. A hideous, distorted mirror image of Trinity.

  Trinity’s arms were in the air, hands extended. The middle father began to whip his head from side to side as if trying to shake something loose. The other two hissed, but wouldn’t attack. And then Jackson’s war party stormed over and chopped them down from behind.