‘We sick of the same old faces day in, day out,’ said Marco. ‘And nothing much has changed since the sickness, has it? The peng girls still go with the popular guys, the fighters, the leaders, the good-looking ones. The lucky ones. The rest of us … We do what we can.’
‘There’s always Jessica,’ said Finn, nodding towards her. ‘She just split up with her boyfriend.’
‘Yeah, Jessica,’ said Marco, making a face. ‘To be honest, I always thought she looked kinda … sour.’
Al was stuck with Jessica again. He’d had no choice on the boat, but he’d been hoping that once they hit dry land he could dump her and hang with Marco and Felix who always made him laugh. Jessica had latched on to him, though, and wouldn’t stop going on about her ex-boyfriend, Brendan. She went over, again and again, all the details of their break-up. Al hoped to God she wasn’t interested in him. He much preferred having a laugh with the guys than chatting to girls about all the things they were interested in, like emotions. He was pretty sure she wasn’t interested in him as a potential boyfriend. Girls never went for him that way. He was just a handy ear to babble into. He almost felt jealous of Finn, carrying Olivia. He bet she didn’t go on about emotions and ex-boyfriends and who said what to who and why. Probably too busy banging on about her perfect brother, Paul.
Courtney, meanwhile, was taking the opportunity to talk to DogNut.
‘You scared at all?’
‘Yeah. I guess. Our likkle pleasure cruise was the easy bit. Bummer that we lost the boat, but in the future that’s gonna be the way to do it.’
‘The future?’ Courtney protested. ‘I ain’t doing this again.’
‘No. Don’t you feel it, gyal?’ said DogNut excitedly. ‘This is about more than finding lost friends.’
‘Is it? News to me.’
‘Come on. You said it on the boat. We’re explorers. What were we gonna do? Sit on our arses at the Tower growing old and fat? Dying there? No way! There’s a big world out here, and I aim to see some of it. We got places to go. Mysteries to solve. We need to know what’s going down.’
‘Do we?’
‘Yeah. We gonna go back to the Tower as heroes, explorers. I’m gonna be important, Courtney. I’m gonna change things. We gonna blow this town wide open. The Thames is gonna be, like, our main road. We can easily link up with other kids like the ones at the Houses of Parliament.’
‘I quite liked the sound of sitting safe behind the walls at the Tower growing old and fat,’ said Courtney. ‘Well … fatter. I mean, do you think we’re really ready for this?’ As she said it, she glanced nervously around at the big buildings looming up on either side of them, half expecting a bunch of sickos to jump out from every shadowed doorway.
‘We ready,’ said DogNut, and his confidence spilt over into her. ‘Last time we come up this way was a year ago. We know better now how not to get whacked. We’ve had a whole year more of learning about the sickos, of learning the best way of fighting them.’
‘Or running away,’ said Courtney.
‘That’s how you know, sister!’ said DogNut. ‘When to fight, when to run. I ain’t dumb! I know it’s not gonna be no picnic. So, yeah, I’m scared, but I’m not scared, if you know what I mean. What about you?’
Courtney just shrugged, letting him think she was tougher than she was. Someone he could rely on.
‘I remember one time, back at the museum,’ she said after a while. ‘Me and Brooke and Aleisha was talking. We’d been out and found the lorry, we was all feeling good, reckoned we could handle the sickos, no problem. Anyway, we was talking – and I always remember it for some reason – maybe it was the last time we was all together and happy. I said the only problem with sickos was if you got overwhelmed. Only I couldn’t remember the word at the time. Overwhelm. It’s a weird word. We all had a laugh about me trying to remember it. Overwhelm. It ain’t a word you get to use that much. And whenever I think of Brooke and Aleisha we’re back there, the three of us, laughing.’
‘It is a weird word, overwhelm,’ said DogNut. ‘I can’t get it out of my brain now thanks to you.’
‘You know what I mean, though,’ said Courtney. ‘Don’t you? They’re only really dangerous, the sickos, when there’s loads of them. One or two you can handle, but when there’s, like, hundreds …’
DogNut nodded, didn’t say anything for a moment, because he was suddenly right back there at the bank, and Leo, poor clumsy Leo, was being overwhelmed by sickos.
No other word for it.
He shook his head, dragged himself back into the present.
‘We gonna make sure,’ he said, ‘that whatever happens we ain’t overwhelmed. All right? Deal?’
‘Deal.’
And as they slapped palms, almost as if it had been arranged by a God with a sick sense of humour, they saw movement ahead and watched open-mouthed as a large group of adults crossed the road in front of them.
‘Oh crap,’ said DogNut, and he drew his sword.
9
Marco licked his dry lips. His chest felt tight. This was all beginning to get a bit too real. It had been easy, fun even, rowing up the Thames, and they’d never been too scared of the kids at the Houses of Parliament. They were a bunch of wimps really. He and Felix had started to think that perhaps the world was a safer place than they’d imagined, stuck inside their castle. As they were getting ready to leave, they’d laughed about it together, complained that they were getting bored. Now, seeing the sickos crossing the road, it didn’t seem quite so funny.
And, Jesus, there were a lot of them.
The kids froze, hoping they hadn’t been spotted. But then something alerted one of the sickos and he turned. A moment later all the other adults stopped. They were too far away for Marco to see them clearly, but he’d glimpsed enough of them to be able to tell that they were fast-moving for sickos. That meant they were younger and not as badly diseased.
The most dangerous type.
‘What do we do?’ he said.
‘We run, I guess,’ said Felix. ‘There’s way too many to fight.’
Marco turned round to see if the road was still clear behind them. ‘Back to the Houses of Parliament?’
‘Or we could go up a side-street,’ said Courtney. ‘Try and get round them.’
‘Good idea,’ said DogNut and they dodged up a smaller road called Broadway, pushing on in a fast jog, their packs rattling on their backs.
As they crossed over the next junction, however, they saw another group of sickos running towards them from the side. The kids swore and picked up their speed, only to find the way ahead blocked by yet another gang so that they were forced to duck into an alleyway that branched off to their left. Things were happening too fast for them to get scared, and as long as they kept moving, they were in with a chance of getting away without a fight.
DogNut was hot and angry. It would be a mighty pain in the arse if his expedition fouled up on day one. He wanted to be remembered for something heroic, not for leading his friends into a hopeless dangerous mess.
But that’s exactly what he had done …
The alley turned a sharp corner and came to a dead end. A literal dead end – there was a pile of ancient corpses here, lying on top of each other, dried out in the sun at the base of a brick wall.
Courtney cursed loudly. ‘Now what do we do?’
‘We hope they didn’t see us,’ said DogNut. ‘Hope they run past.’
‘No such luck,’ said Marco, who’d been keeping a lookout at the corner. ‘Here they come!’
The kids dropped into a defensive huddle, DogNut, Marco, Felix and Al at the front with Courtney, Olivia, Finn and Jessica behind them. Olivia was whimpering. Jessica put an arm round her and tried to comfort her, but it only seemed to make the little girl wail louder, her thin piercing voice bouncing off the high walls of the alley.
DogNut turned round and told her rather too harshly to shut up.
They waited in silence now, breathing hard, tensed, weapons held out in front of th
em, watching as the group of sickos came down the alleyway towards them.
Courtney tried to stop her short spear shaking in her hands. She didn’t want DogNut to know just how terrified she was. There was a hotness spreading down her thighs beneath her jeans where she’d wet herself. All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball on the floor. But she told herself that she had to stand there. Stand and fight.
As the sickos drew nearer, she was able to get a good look at them. They were young, mostly in their twenties, she reckoned, and for sickos they were fit. Lean and toned and tough-looking. They mostly wore sports gear – tracksuit bottoms or shorts, tight vests and T-shirts – some were half naked, displaying taut, well-defined muscles. They looked for all the world as if they’d just come from the gym. One appeared to have iPod headphones stuck in his ears; another wore a sweat band round his head. Most had the usual covering of boils and sores, but one or two of them looked completely untouched by disease.
They weren’t human any more, though.
It was their eyes that gave them away. They were dead, like sharks’ eyes.
No, they weren’t human. They were animals, intent on one thing and one thing only: catching and eating their prey.
They were also better organized than most sickos. There was a young mother at the front who was acting as their leader. She was bolder than the others, who seemed to be following her lead. She wore jogging pants and had her hair pulled into a crude ponytail. She also appeared to be wearing make-up. It was smeared over her face in a complete mess of eyeshadow and lipstick and pink blusher. Like a little girl who’d been at her mum’s cosmetics.
DogNut didn’t take his eyes off her. He gripped his sword tight with both hands. It was a civil war Roundhead sword, heavy and strong enough to split a skull. He had a breastplate protecting his torso and wore heavy leather gauntlets. He wished he’d brought a shield along with him, but he hadn’t wanted to be too weighed down. Sickos didn’t carry weapons. It was their teeth you had to watch out for. Any small cut could get infected.
The biggest danger was getting bottled up like this. If there were enough sickos, they could get in past the kids’ weapons and DogNut and his crew would be swamped. No, what was the word Courtney had used?
Overwhelmed.
‘Come on,’ he growled quietly, trying to think of a plan.
If he could take down the mother, maybe the others would back off. If he made an attack now, while they didn’t expect it, if he took the fight to them, he might just be able to finish it before it got going.
He yelled and ran at the mother, sword sweeping down from over his head. But he’d waited too long; she was ready for him. She shrank back to the safety of the other sickos. DogNut’s stroke swished harmlessly down through thin air and he couldn’t risk advancing into their ranks. There must have been at least twenty sickos crammed in here.
He lifted his sword again and bellowed a war cry. The lead mother tilted her head to one side, watching him like a bird. The father with headphones nodded and opened his mouth to let out a strangled yowl.
And then they attacked. Hurling themselves at the kids.
DogNut and the boat crew were used to fighting, and the sickos were unarmed so their first wave was easily thrown back. There was the sound of metal striking bone, hacking flesh, and then a skeletal mother lay dead at DogNut’s feet; a father was crawling away, bleeding heavily from a spear cut to his shoulder; a young mother in a bright yellow tracksuit had lost the fingers from one hand and she was shaking it in confusion, watching the blood as it sprayed up the sides of the alleyway.
So far none of the kids were hurt.
DogNut allowed himself to believe for a moment that perhaps their chances of survival weren’t as low as he’d feared.
He didn’t have long to enjoy the feeling as the bravest of the sickos came forward again: four fathers with bare torsos and grubby shorts. DogNut could see the sweat lying thick on their skin, saliva drooling from their mouths, the whites of their watery eyes mottled red and yellow and brown. They came in a pack, fast and hard. It wasn’t so easy to knock them back this time. In the cramped alleyway DogNut couldn’t get a good swing and was scared of hurting one of his friends with his sword. He spotted Al lashing out with his mace, repeatedly battering one of the sickos who wouldn’t give up. Courtney and Felix were hemmed in, stabbing and shoving. Then Marco’s spear was knocked flying and he quickly drew a long knife from his belt, but the lead mother had been waiting behind the four fathers and she darted out and clawed at his wrist with long fingernails. Marco yelped in agony and tried to stab the mother. Somehow, though, she wrenched the knife from his grasp and was just about to bite his forearm when Al hit her from behind with his mace. She spun round with a snarl of fury but, before she could go for Al, Finn punched her hard in the side of the neck with his good hand. At last she retreated with the second wave of sickos.
All except for one short father who lay still on the ground next to the dead mother.
Two down, eighteen to go.
And now the lead mother was armed. She raised Marco’s knife above her head. DogNut felt his heart sink and his energy drain away. Sickos didn’t usually know how to use weapons, but this mother must have been smarter than the others. And if she was smarter then she was more dangerous. It was now more important than ever to take her out. Easier said than done. She was protected by the knot of fathers around her.
She tipped her head back, shook the knife and let out a long high-pitched wailing scream. The other sickos joined in, hissing and gurgling, the less diseased managing a sort of sick animal whine.
The sight of the mother waving the knife seemed to give them courage and they massed for another attack. Normal human beings would have been too scared of the kids’ weapons. Sickos were stupid, though. No matter how many of them died the rest would keep on coming if they were hungry enough.
Marco straightened his German helmet. He’d managed to pick up his spear, but his face was twisted in pain. The mother had wrenched his arm and holding the weapon was obviously difficult for him. Felix had taken a knock to the head. His left ear was bleeding badly. The spear in Courtney’s hands was shaking, its bloodied tip drawing a crazy zigzag in the air. Olivia was whimpering again. The sound was dispiriting, but DogNut didn’t have the strength to tell her to be quiet.
He tried to focus all his concentration on the sickos. Tried to anticipate their attack. Pick his targets.
He knew, though, that if the sickos attacked with enough force, and threw as many bodies into the assault as they could, the small group of kids wouldn’t stand a chance.
He swore. The sickos moaned, shuffled forward, twitching and dribbling …
‘Come on,’ DogNut muttered. ‘Come on, you butters freaks, come and get some …’
And then there was no more time to think. A great press of bodies surged down the alleyway. DogNut slashed once, cut a father’s head half off his shoulders then found himself squashed up against the wall by three bodies – foul, stinking, diseased sickos. Up close he could see that their skin was worse than it had looked, eaten away by disease, lumpy with growths and boils, their gums bleeding, their eyes weeping yellowy white gunge. He headbutted one of them, felt a splash of snot and saliva and pus across his face. Spat. Tried to drag his sword up, cutting through soft flesh. He had no idea how the others were doing, stuck as he was in this desperate, hot, sweaty huddle.
‘Get off me! Get off!’ he grunted, feeling teeth on his arm … and then there were shouts from the other end of the alleyway, the snarling, yelping sound of dogs. The sickos dropped back, turned, milling around in confusion. The lead mother broke away. Something had rattled them – the kids had their chance.
‘Charge them!’ DogNut yelled. ‘Force them back down the alley and let’s get out of here.’
‘You heard the man,’ Marco shouted. ‘Let’s go!’
The kids raced down the alleyway with a roar, smashing sickos out of their way. As they chased them into the
road they saw that another group of kids was attacking the grown-ups from behind. That was what had startled them.
This new bunch of kids was heavily armed and wore various bits of homemade leather armour. They also had five big dogs on chains: three staffs, a bull terrier and a massive Rottweiler. The dogs were jumping up at the fleeing sickos, snapping and barking wildly.
The sickos scattered, limping off in different directions, howling in fear and frustration.
The two groups of kids joined together and chased the largest pack of sickos, cutting down the slowest ones. But when they came to Birdcage Walk, the wide road that ran along the side of St James’s Park, the sickos broke up and their leader, the mother with the knife, got away.
A tall boy wearing a leather mask hissed a quick order to two girls who were smaller and more agile than their friends.
‘Stay on them! Don’t lose their scent.’
The girls sprinted off, light on their feet, keeping their distance, but staying on the tail of the command group.
The dogs now turned their attention to DogNut’s crew, and strained at their leads, snarling and barking and spitting foam from their bared teeth. Their owners shouted at them and lashed them with short whips until they calmed down.
Courtney checked out the gang of kids who had saved them. There were about fifteen of them and they were a heavy-looking bunch. They wore a mixture of leather and fur and camouflaged material, and carried spears, bows and clubs. Several had helmets or masks.
Their leader came over. He was carrying a wooden club banded with metal strips. His mask resembled a human face.
Courtney gasped. It didn’t resemble a human face – it was a human face. Gnarled and leathery and stiffened by the sun. It had to be. She felt a wave of nausea and swallowed the bile that was rising in her throat.
He pulled the mask down. His own face wasn’t much better – it was scarred and pockmarked from old acne. He looked quite old, maybe sixteen, and stared at DogNut’s crew without any expression.
‘You a’right?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ said Marco. ‘Thanks to you.’
The Fear Page 6