The Fear

by Charlie Higson

  ‘Take care of yourself, won’t you?’ Ed gave DogNut a big hug.

  ‘Gay,’ said DogNut, and Ed hugged him again, harder this time, and lifted him off his feet. They laughed. Ed’s face looked crazy when he laughed. The scar down one side went white and tugged his mouth and eye out of shape.

  ‘It ain’t too late for you to change your mind,’ said DogNut. ‘Come with us.’

  ‘I’m staying, Doggo. They need me here. Besides, you got a full crew.’

  ‘I could kick someone’s arse off. Finn ain’t much use with his arm in a sling.’

  ‘Nah.’ Ed shook his head. ‘This is your gig.’

  Olivia ran over and threw her skinny arms round Ed’s waist.

  ‘Please come with us!’ she squealed.

  Ed picked her up and sat her on his hip.

  ‘I can’t come, Livvie. You’ll be all right with the Dog.’

  ‘I’m scared.’

  Ed handed Olivia over to DogNut. ‘DogNut will look after you, won’t you?’

  ‘Course I will.’ DogNut beamed at Olivia and carried her to the boat, then passed her down to Marco and Felix who settled her at the front.

  DogNut turned back to Ed.

  ‘Feels good to be doing something, man,’ he said, breathing in deeply and turning his face up to the sun. ‘It’s safe here, but I been feeling more and more boxed up lately. All we do is get from one day to the next. I’m taking control of things. Hitting back. Not letting the sickos rule my life.’

  Ed raised an eyebrow. ‘And of course there’s Brooke.’ He leered at DogNut. It wasn’t a good expression for him.

  ‘Yeah, Brooke,’ said DogNut. ‘You missing out, man. I’m gonna get in there before you.’

  Ed raised his hands in surrender. ‘She’s all yours, dude.’

  ‘All mine,’ said DogNut.

  ‘All you got to do is find her.’

  ‘You had to bring me down, didn’t you,’ said DogNut. ‘Bust my bubble.’

  ‘You’ll find her.’ Ed sounded very sure of it. DogNut slapped his palm and clambered down into the boat.

  ‘But a year’s a long time,’ Ed called after him. ‘Maybe she’s changed?’

  ‘Pop, pop, pop,’ said DogNut, sitting down next to Courtney. ‘All my bubbles is busting.’

  Jordan came and leant over the side of the pier, his face unreadable behind his glasses. They were held together with a dirty Elastoplast and were so scratched DogNut wondered how he could see anything through them.

  ‘I’ll keep your position open for you,’ he said. ‘You can pick up where you left off when you get back.’

  ‘Cheers,’ DogNut shouted, as he pushed the boat away from the edge. He grinned at Courtney, picked up his oar, slipped it over the side and looked down into the water. And that was when he saw them, looking up at him from the murky depths, with their gaping mouths stretched wide, hands coming towards him. The creatures from his dream.

  DogNut closed his eyes to shut out the image and moaned quietly, as if he’d hurt himself.

  Then he grunted. Shook himself. Opened his eyes. He had to stay focused on what he was doing. It was time to let the daylight burn off the memories and let the fresh air blow the black tatters of the fading dream away.

  Bad thoughts. They couldn’t help. They’d only poison his brain. He was going to leave them behind. Leave Leo behind. Leave his guilt back there in the basement of the bank. He was going to come back stronger.

  He looked around the boat at the other kids. They didn’t seem to have noticed him losing it. They were all too wrapped up in themselves, dipping their oars in the water, settling on the benches. Good.

  ‘OK, let’s do this,’ DogNut shouted, and they were off, pulling fast through the shimmering water.

  3

  Apart from Finn they’d all arrived at the Tower floating down this stretch of river. After their sightseeing boat had hit a bridge and sank, they’d made it to the Tower on a flotilla of life rafts. The memories of that day were confused and the story of the fire and the battle had been told so many times that it had taken on the status of a myth. Things had been added, kids had enlarged their parts, so that now DogNut wasn’t sure what bits of the story were real and what were made up.

  It was going to be interesting travelling back upriver to Lambeth Bridge – where they planned to put ashore – interesting to see what memories it stirred. Brooke’s crew had escaped north over the bridge in a supermarket lorry, and DogNut intended to follow the route they’d taken and try to find out what had happened to them.

  They’d packed enough supplies to last them a week if they were careful. DogNut reckoned that any longer than that wouldn’t be safe. If they hadn’t found anyone in that time, they’d return to the Tower and try again at a later date.

  He twisted round and looked at the others. Olivia sat up at the front like some kind of mini-figurehead. She was trembling slightly, whether from cold or fear he couldn’t tell. Her face was set in a determined expression. Marco and Felix sat side by side on the first bench, already bickering and criticizing each other’s rowing style. The next bench was taken up by Ugly Al and moody Jessica, rowing steadily and not talking to each other. DogNut and Courtney were on the last bench and Finn was at the back. As the only one of them facing the front, he was in charge of steering. He sat there, a huge silent presence. DogNut knew he was gutted about not being able to use his swollen arm, so it was good that he was some help to them as a navigator.

  A fresh breeze was blowing in their faces as they man-oeuvred into the middle of the river and they were soon passing the great blue-grey hulk of HMS Belfast to their left and pulling steadily towards London Bridge. Out here they could forget about the problems that were going on all around them in the city. The disaster might never have happened. It could have been just another day. From a distance the buildings looked just as they did on all the old postcards. The best thing was that no sickos could get to them here. They could row and row and keep on rowing until they’d left town, right out into the countryside if they wanted, and no diseased mothers or fathers could stop them. The kids had been using the river more and more lately, and were beginning to understand what a useful thing it was to have right next to the Tower.

  It was still hard going, though, digging into the choppy water, trying to keep the strokes even and not tangle the oars. Slowly they began to work together as a team and drop into a steady rhythm.

  DogNut was soon caught up in it, in sync with Courtney: leaning forward, dropping the oars, pulling back, lifting the oars, forward, back, forward, back. DogNut had always been happier when he was doing something. He could switch his brain off and not worry about things. He didn’t like thinking.

  He smiled.

  ‘You thinking about Brooke?’ Courtney asked.

  ‘Wasn’t.’ DogNut grinned at her. ‘But now I am.’

  ‘Do you think we’ll find her?’ she asked.

  ‘I dunno,’ said DogNut. ‘I hope so. That’s all I got, though, just hope.’

  ‘You like a dog, ain’t you?’ said Courtney. ‘You’ll sniff her out.’

  DogNut lifted his chin and howled.

  ‘Not so loud.’ Courtney laughed. ‘She’ll hear you coming and run a mile.’

  DogNut grew serious. ‘D’you think she likes me at all?’

  ‘We better hope for your sake she does.’

  ‘You don’t reckon she likes Ed better?’

  ‘I ain’t seen her for a year,’ Courtney protested. ‘I don’t know what she likes, do I?’

  ‘Before then, though,’ said DogNut. ‘What about before?’

  ‘Who knows the workings of that girl’s mind?’ Courtney raised her eyebrows. ‘She always went for good-looking boys, though.’

  ‘Like Ed,’ said DogNut. ‘Before he got that scar.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Courtney. ‘Always the cool boys that everyone wanted to go out with. She’d track them down, show them no mercy. Then mostly she’d get bored of them after a week. M
ove on.’

  ‘Ed thinks she went off him when his face got cut up.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘D’you think we’ve left it too late?’ DogNut asked. ‘D’you think we should have come looking for her before?’

  ‘Dunno,’ said Courtney. ‘But we was too busy just trying to survive. Wouldn’t have risked it before. Wouldn’t have risked it with anyone else, either.’

  ‘You mean it?’ said DogNut.

  ‘I mean it. You’re a good guy, DogNut. Used to think you was just some idiot, you know? But you’ve grown up. Not too much, mind. You’re still a good laugh. I mean, I like Ed, but sometimes he’s, you know, he looks like there’s a cloud hanging over him. You act like nothing’s a hassle.’

  ‘So, what sort of boys do you go for?’ DogNut asked, and Courtney just made a grunt that could have meant anything.

  ‘Well?’ DogNut pressed her.

  ‘I don’t have a type.’

  What she wanted to say was skinny, funny boys who don’t take things too seriously. Boys like DogNut.

  Courtney did miss Brooke. She did want to see her again, but the main reason for coming along on the expedition had been because she saw it as an opportunity to be alone with DogNut for a few days. Well, yeah, all right, not completely alone, but more alone than you ever could be in the Tower with all the other kids around. And now here she was, squeezed up against him, shoulder to shoulder on the bench. OK, so she was sweating too much and couldn’t help puffing and panting as she worked her oar. Already her shoulders were aching, her hands were getting sore and the wooden seat seemed to be getting harder and harder. Despite all her padding.

  Her big fat arse.

  She was still closer to him than she’d ever been before.

  Yeah. That was the truth of it. If it wasn’t for how she felt about DogNut, she would never have come along in the first place. It was just too dangerous. She had a reputation as a fighter, as a big tough girl that you didn’t argue with, but she still got scared, and the idea of leaving the safety of the Tower and setting off across London quite frankly terrified her. She was amazed that her feelings for DogNut were stronger than her fear.

  Of course it was stupid. What hope did she have? She knew DogNut’s reason for the trip was to find Brooke and try to persuade her that the two of them were meant for each other. Still, Courtney had this time with him … Maybe she could change his mind? She had pictured all sorts of things happening on the trip.

  Like saving his life …

  Pathetic.

  What were the chances that a skinny pin like DogNut would go for a fat girl like her? Cos that’s what she was: fat. Wasn’t nothing she could do about it. She was born that way. She didn’t eat any more than anyone else, she got exercise, she wasn’t lazy or nothing. She was just fat. Her friends tried to reassure her, tell her she wasn’t fat, that it was all muscle and bone … And she was muscly, stronger than any other girl she knew. It was just that when she looked in the mirror in her little room at the Tower – which was something she tried not to do that often – what she saw there was a big fat lump.

  With a big fat arse.

  She glanced round at DogNut, working away at the oars. He was a scraggy, stretched-out thing. His arms like twisted ropes. What did he see when he looked at her?

  A mate? A soldier? A lump?

  She was pathetic.

  She didn’t have a hope.

  Pathetic and screwy.

  Well, they were all screwy, weren’t they, and this whole trip was screwy. Courtney fancied DogNut, DogNut fancied Brooke and Brooke probably still fancied Ed. Despite what DogNut thought.

  Who did Ed fancy then? She had no idea. Ed kept himself to himself.

  Yes, this was one screwy expedition. And who even knew whether Brooke was still alive? Funny how Courtney could have that thought without feeling anything. It wasn’t a nice thought, let’s face it, but for the last year she had been reminded of the reality of death nearly every day. She wasn’t totally hardened to it. It still got to her when someone died. She still cried a bit, but she was much tougher than she had been before. A part of her could sit back and look at it coldly – Brooke might easily be dead. The part of her that might have been sad was pushed out of the way. She didn’t want it to get any more battered than it was. Another part of her – a nasty, dark, sneaky part – secretly hoped that they wouldn’t find Brooke, that she might be dead – that way DogNut was hers.

  I don’t really mean it, God. It was just a thought.

  It was all right to have nasty thoughts, wasn’t it? As long as you didn’t hold on to them. And, really, come on, what were the chances of finding Brooke? One girl, out there in the whole of London. If she was even in London still. Brooke and the others had all got away on that big lorry full of food. What would have stopped them from just keeping on going, driving right out of London? All the stories were that it was worse in the countryside, but even so …

  ‘I hope we find her,’ she said. Trying to convince herself.

  ‘We’ll find something,’ said DogNut. ‘It’s gonna be an adventure whatever.’

  Yeah, thought Courtney worriedly … whatever.

  4

  ‘Didn’t realize it was so close.’

  ‘Me either.’

  They were passing between the Tate Modern, the huge old power station that had been turned into an art gallery to the south, and St Paul’s Cathedral, set back from the river to the north. St Paul’s was gleaming white in the sun and was a solid reassuring sight. It had stood there for hundreds of years and looked like it would stand for hundreds more.

  It was a shock to find it so close, though. The kids had learnt to avoid the area between the Tower and the cathedral. It was part of the no-go zone, the old financial district. Weird things happened there. Like what had happened to Leo. The streets this way were far too dangerous. Some time ago a couple of groups had set off to explore in that direction, and had never come back. Jordan Hordern forbade anyone else from heading there. Nowadays, if the kids at the Tower wanted to go further than the surrounding area, they headed east, or south, across Tower Bridge. The fire hadn’t made it this far along the river and there were rich pickings in the houses and shops over the water.

  ‘What was his name?’ said DogNut who had been following his own train of thought.

  ‘Who?’ said Courtney.

  ‘The nutjob who wanted to go to St Paul’s? Crazy freak who made that stupid flag and was always spouting, like, religious stuff.’

  ‘Matt.’

  ‘That’s it, Mad Matt. Wonder if he ever made it there?’

  ‘I hope he drowned,’ said Courtney flatly.

  When they’d escaped from the fire on the tourist boat, Matt had gone crazy and tried to change their course downriver to the cathedral. It was his fault that the boat had crashed and sunk and Aleisha had been sucked into the river. Matt had last been seen floating away on a piece of wreckage with his followers.

  Courtney wondered if he’d made it, if he’d been living in St Paul’s all this time. So near, and yet a million miles away. It was weird to think of all the other kids who must be out there, in their own small groups dotted around London, trying to survive, only knowing their own patch.

  A thought struck Courtney.

  ‘We’re doing a good thing,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it?’ said DogNut. ‘I don’t think I ever done nothing good before.’

  ‘Exploring,’ said Courtney. ‘Seeing what’s out there. Meeting other kids. Pulling everything together.’

  ‘You jumping ahead of yourself,’ said DogNut. ‘We ain’t met no one yet.’

  ‘But we will.’

  ‘Look at that,’ said Jessica, from her bench directly behind them.

  DogNut and Courtney looked round. They had reached the edge of the fire damage. The buildings all along the south side of the river were blackened and broken – it was a desolate wasteland. With no emergency services to put the blaze out it had raged f
or days, eating away at the city until rain and a change in the wind had finally halted it. A haze of smoke had hung over London for months after it had happened but now the skies were clear.

  As the kids stared in fascination at the ruins they lost concentration and the boat was quickly out of control and turning in the water. It took some shouting and cursing until they finally got it straightened up and moving smoothly again, but they still couldn’t help looking as they slid past the seemingly endless devastation. It brought it home to them all just how dangerous their mission was. Just how much London had changed.

  As if to ram the point home, two dead bodies floated past. A little girl who must have been no older than five or six, her body puffy and bloated, her eyes eaten by fish, and a middle-aged man, his greenish skin covered in lumps and boils and swellings so that he looked like nothing so much as a giant dead toad.

  The boat fell silent, all their efforts now focused on rowing, which was much more tiring than they’d expected, despite all their practice. It had felt easy at first, but they were becoming all too aware of just how big the river was, how heavy the boat was and how far it was to Lambeth Bridge. The bench seemed to dig into DogNut’s backside so that he could feel every knot and ridge of grain in the hard wood. His back and arms ached; his hands felt raw.

  They’d come to Waterloo, where there was a big bend in the river. They realized they would have to fight the fierce current that wanted to pull them to the north bank. Marco and Felix, who had been muttering at each other for the whole journey, raised their voices.

  ‘You got to row harder,’ Felix snapped.

  ‘It’s you who ain’t rowing hard,’ said Marco. ‘The boat’s, like, twisting round. You got to dig into the water.’

  ‘What with? A spade?’

  ‘No, with your oar, stupid.’

  ‘I am digging in with my oar, you spaz. What do you think I’m doing?’

  ‘Don’t call me a spaz, you spaz, you’re gonna get us drowned.’

  ‘Will you two shut up!’ DogNut shouted. ‘And concentrate on not hitting the bridge. If we don’t hold our line, we’ll smash up against it.’