The Fear

by Charlie Higson

  Finally, after a long stretch of this random behaviour, he’d noticed a change come over them. They’d become more alert, excited, and had started to move faster. He, in turn, had had to move faster to keep up, taking more risks as he darted from one safe cover to another.

  Intrigued as to what might have caused this change in them, he’d braved flanking the crowd to see what the leaders were up to. He’d managed to work his way far enough round the side to get a reasonably good view. St George was acting as if he was on the scent of something. Kids most likely. There was a purpose to him, and the rest of the strangers responded to it. They’d moved steadily south, sticking together, shambling along a little faster. Shadowman had let them pass him by and then fallen back to his position at the rear.

  Perhaps twenty minutes later the strangers had become severely agitated and Shadowman assumed they must be moving in for the kill. They’d grown very excited, and now lots of small fights had broken out among them. Then they’d halted. Shadowman had been following their progress in his A to Z and had worked out that they were about halfway down Camden Road. Once again he’d wanted to sneak forward to see what was happening, but couldn’t risk it. In this fired-up state the strangers were unpredictable and a lot more dangerous. Instead he had to wait frustratingly at the rear, trying to read what was going on in their increasingly disturbed actions.

  They’d waited in the road for ages before suddenly lurching forward in a drunken sort of charge. What followed was evidently a battle of some kind. Shadowman was too far away to see what was happening, but it was clear that a big fight was in progress. He hoped that whoever they were attacking were well armed and well prepared. He could do absolutely nothing to help. He was one boy against an army. He toyed with the idea of firing his crossbow into the back of them and told himself not to be so stupid. It would only put him in danger of being discovered. His skill was watching and waiting and following. Information was power. In a war a well-placed spy was more valuable than a foot soldier.

  He could hear distant shouts and screams, the sort of sounds you used to hear coming from school playgrounds from several streets away. At one point he could have sworn he heard a car’s engine, but thought he must have been mistaken.

  The fight didn’t last long, maybe half an hour at the most, but he knew how tiring fighting for even that short length of time was. With your body flooded with adrenalin, your every muscle working hard, your stressed heart thumping, you can’t keep it up for long. On top of that, swinging your weapon, hitting someone and being hit in return takes huge amounts of strength and energy. His dad had been a big boxing fan, and had made Shadowman watch old DVDs of Muhammad Ali in action. A round only lasted three minutes, but the boxers would finish each session dripping with sweat, utterly worn down. Shadowman knew from experience that when you were fighting for your life it was much, much harder. He’d seen kids in fights with strangers just give up, unable to cope any longer, and let themselves be killed.

  He had time to think about all this as the battle raged down the road, and then, as quickly as it had started, the fighting stopped and the strangers started to drift back the way they’d come. There was no way of telling who’d won the fight. Many of the strangers were bloodied, some with quite serious-looking wounds. He’d waited until he’d spotted St George and then set off after him. It was hard to read emotions in grown-ups’ blistered, subhuman faces, but there was a definite, defeated, angry mood among St George’s little gang, who all appeared unharmed. Once again they’d wandered with no real purpose, and once again they collected strays as they went. Their black mood had only lifted when they’d stumbled across a house where two older strangers were trying to break in. Shadowman realized straight away that there must be kids hiding inside.

  A territorial dispute had quickly broken out between the two old fathers and the angry new arrivals. There followed a brief, bloody fight that ended with the deaths of the fathers. Then St George and his gang had set about trying to break in themselves.

  Shadowman had taken out his new binoculars and studied the area. The house stood in a large square with a fenced-off garden in the centre. It had probably once been a rich man’s home, but now looked like something out of a war zone. Whoever was inside had managed to barricade it pretty well; all the downstairs windows were blocked. He wondered how long the kids had been in there holding out against their original attackers. As he swept his binoculars over the site, he spotted the dead body of another stranger. An elderly mother who had been half eaten. Maybe she had been part of the siege party and the kids in the house had killed her? The fathers had probably eaten some of her to keep going, but what they really wanted was the fresh young meat inside. The body looked like it had been dead for a while, the blood around it dark and dry, which meant that the siege had probably been going on for some time.

  Since he’d arrived, Shadowman hadn’t seen any signs of life from inside the building. He knew there must still be kids in there, though, or else St George would have given up and wandered off long ago.

  He’d worked his way closer, moving from building to building, and had ended up in this burnt-out house. The fire must have happened fairly recently because there was still a strong smell of smoke and charring hanging over it. That would help to mask his scent, which was why he’d chosen it. He didn’t think there was any chance of them discovering him here, but he kept his loaded crossbow by his side just in case. He had a pretty good vantage point, up on the third floor, peering out from a gap in the broken masonry. The roof was open above him, showing the cloudy, starless sky. He wished it had been a brighter night so that he could have seen more of what was happening, but couldn’t risk getting in any closer in case they sensed him.

  Now his binoculars could only just pick out the shapes of the grown-ups in the darkness. It was weird to see the control St George had over them. They seemed to respect his authority. What’s more, they all appeared to understand what he wanted them to do, even though he could only communicate with grunts and clumsy gestures, or by occasionally shoving one of them into the attack. They were working together as one unit, like a swarm of ants, sharing a single mind. Shadowman shook his head and told himself not to be crazy. There was no way the strangers could have developed a form of telepathy along with their boils and blisters, when the disease hit them. Or at least – he hoped not. For all their sakes …

  The strangers were slow and awkward and St George’s gang were the only ones who could use tools of any kind. Sooner or later, though, they were going to get into the house and kill the occupants. If there were enough kids in there to beat the besiegers, they would have attacked them by now, got rid of them. The fact that they hadn’t told Shadowman that there weren’t enough kids to mount any kind of useful assault.

  They were doomed.

  The strangers had been steadily working away at the house all night. Right now a knot of them was hammering at the front door while a second gang was tearing at a downstairs window. Others were busy round the back. It was only a matter of time before they got in.

  Once again Shadowman felt utterly helpless. Stuck out here, only able to watch. There must have been thirty, maybe forty strangers by the house. If he waded in, he’d just be one more casualty. An attack would achieve nothing.

  It made him sick, though, imagining how terrified the kids inside there must be right now.

  Then a ripple of excitement passed through the strangers, and they surged towards the front door.

  They were in.

  Shadowman closed his eyes. He could hear them, crashing about. There were shouts. Kids’ voices, high and frightened. Screams …

  It felt like it was never going to end. At least the kids weren’t giving up without a fight. Maybe they would take down some of the strangers before they died.

  And then at last Shadowman opened his eyes and dragged the binoculars to his face. They felt like they were made of lead. He didn’t want to look.

  It took a moment to get his focus
. The strangers were dragging two bodies out, a boy and a girl, the boy dead, the girl still alive and struggling feebly. Shadowman could just make out the shapes of St George, with his bloated head, and the One-Armed Bandit. He could picture the rest of them, Bluetooth, Man U and the one without a name. Picture how excited they would look, how triumphant. How miserable that girl would be, knowing this was the end now.

  The strangers dumped the bodies on the ground. The girl sat up. Then tried to stand. With a jolt Shadowman realized that he recognized her. There was something distinctive about the way she moved. He strained at the binoculars, wishing he could see more clearly.

  Then the girl shouted defiantly at the grown-ups.

  There was no mistaking that voice.

  It was Kate.

  The dead boy must be Tom.

  Then Shadowman’s view was completely obscured as the strangers crowded together, snarling and hissing, jostling to get closer to their catch. Kate stopped shouting. He knew what the strangers would be doing now. He’d seen it often enough before. The way they tore bodies apart to get at the meat and the blood. Gouging with their fingernails, ripping with their teeth, pulling limbs away from bodies with their adult strength. It was a long, slow and messy business.

  Without any knives it’s hard work butchering a human body.

  Shadowman noticed that he was weeping. He beat the sides of his head with his fists. He felt so utterly useless. Maybe he should have sacrificed himself, just to show Kate he cared.

  In despair he aimed his crossbow at the shapeless mass of bodies and pulled the trigger. The bolt shot through the night air, invisible and silent. He had no idea if he’d hit anything, but in a moment a pack broke away from the feeding frenzy. He watched them lolloping this way and that, confused, directionless. They couldn’t possibly have seen where the bolt had come from, though, and soon gave up to go back to their meal.

  Shadowman fitted another bolt and kept the bow trained on them.

  Idiot. What had he achieved other than losing one of his precious bolts? He doubted they’d find him up here – they wouldn’t know where to look – but even so …

  Stupid.

  If he was going to survive, he was going to have to close his emotions off. If he panicked, if he lost control, if he attacked in a stupid rage, they would kill him, just as easily as they’d killed Tom and Kate.

  Kill him and eat him.

  And he couldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t. He was witnessing something new here, something terrifying, and when he’d seen enough he had to warn other kids about it.

  The grown-ups were getting their act together.

  57

  ‘You sure you’re not coming?’

  ‘I’m sure. I was lucky to get here like this.’ Finn raised his arm, which now hung in a clean new sling. ‘I’m not risking it out there on the streets again until it’s fully healed. And you’ve got to admit there’s a better chance of that happening here than back at the Tower.’

  ‘You just like having them nerd girls play nursey-nursey with you.’

  Finn laughed and put his good hand on DogNut’s shoulder. ‘I’m knackered, Doggo,’ he said. ‘It’s only when you stop it hits you. Feel like I could sleep for a thousand years. I probably shouldn’t have come in the first place. I mean, I haven’t exactly been a lot of use, have I?’

  ‘Couldn’t have done it without you, Finn. You carried me … Quite literally.’

  ‘Things would have been different if I’d had two arms.’

  ‘You gonna keep on looking for your mates when you’re feeling better?’

  ‘I need to talk to some of them hunters, see what they think. Where I should look. If there’s any point.’

  The two of them were sitting in the sun on the steps outside the museum. DogNut had his armour ready, his pack by his side and he was cleaning his sword.

  ‘I’m sorry you never found them,’ he said, holding the blade up to the light.

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m glad you found what you were looking for, Doggo.’

  ‘I ain’t so sure about that,’ said DogNut, and he scratched his bony head. ‘I found something, but it wasn’t what I expected. I think maybe I was supposed to have stayed at the Tower. I don’t know. Is all too deep for me. It just don’t feel right here.’

  ‘Are Felix and Marco going back with you?’

  ‘Yeah. We’ll stick together. We’re a team. Go back where we belong.’

  ‘And Courtney?’

  ‘Yeah. And Courtney.’

  ‘You gonna be all right? Just the four of you?’

  ‘We’ll be OK. We made a deal with Justin. Robbie’s gonna come with us, excort us part of the way. He’s OK, you know, Robbie is. Didn’t get him at first. But turns out we got a lot in common. Neither of us wants to be king of the world.’

  ‘So which way are you going back?’

  ‘We gonna cut across to Hyde Park Corner, the same way we came up from the palace, then head along to Trafalgar Square and shoot down to the river from there. That’s where we’ll say goodbye to Robbie.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘No probs. It’s a straight run to the Tower from there, and we’ll have the river protecting our right-hand side. It sucks that we ain’t got our lovely rowboat no more, but we setting off nice and early and, well – we made it here, didn’t we? We’ll make it back.’

  ‘Good luck,’ said Finn, and he gave DogNut a hug. ‘Say hello to everyone for me, won’t you?’

  ‘Will do, soldier. And, remember, we all heroes now, whatever happens!’

  Courtney was waiting for DogNut with Marco and Felix down near the main gates. She looked up at him, the daft boy, all skinny like a big awkward lizard. He should have been on display in one of the glass cases here. He was almost a fossil already, just hard bones with no flesh on them. Since he’d told her he was going to go back to the Tower and leave Brooke behind a great happiness and calm had settled on her. She hated that it took someone else to make her feel this way, but that was how it was. She had a tough fight ahead of her still convincing bony-boy that she was someone he might actually want to hook up with, and be more than just a mate, his battle buddy. She had time now, though. Time and space. There was a big hole in his thoughts and feelings where Brooke had used to be. She just had to fill that hole.

  She smiled. She was much bigger than Brooke. She was really going to have to squeeze herself to fit in a Brooke-sized hole.

  She watched as DogNut said his goodbyes to Finn and trotted down the steps, slipping his sword into its scabbard. And then he did something she never expected. He kissed her. Just once. Quickly. On the lips.

  ‘What was that for?’

  ‘You had the kind of face that was asking for it,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘It means I’m in a good mood today, gyal. You wanna argue about it?’

  No. Courtney didn’t want to argue. Instead she kissed him back, then giggled like a five-year-old. Marco and Felix made some crude remarks and DogNut swore at them good-naturedly.

  Then it was all hustle and bustle as they checked their weapons, strapped on their odd pieces of armour, slung their packs across their backs and marched over to where Robbie was chatting to his mates by the gatehouse.

  ‘All set?’ he asked when they walked up.

  ‘All set,’ said DogNut, and he grinned at Robbie. ‘Look at you. You can’t wait to get rid of us, can you?’

  Robbie laughed. ‘It ain’t like that.’

  ‘Ain’t it? I reckon you only agreed to excort us to the river just to make sure we was really going.’

  ‘Well … Now you put it like that.’

  ‘Yeah. You know it, soldier. Just remember we might come back one day, though, screw up your life one more time.’

  Robbie laughed again. ‘I like you, DogNut,’ he said. ‘You’re a mad bastard but I like you.’

  ‘Cool. So shall we go?’

  ‘We’re just waiting for one more,’ said
Robbie, looking over towards the museum.

  DogNut counted heads. There were three other boys and Jackson.

  ‘One, two, three, four, five. That’s what you said, wasn’t it? Five guys named Mo.’

  ‘There’s one more added on.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘She.’

  ‘You got more like Jackson? Yeah! Now you talking. She is one mean girl.’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Who then?’

  Robbie didn’t need to answer. Instead he nodded towards the museum steps where Brooke was hurrying down, a narrow, decorative sword in one hand. She had changed out of her weird, old-fashioned dress into heavy boots, jeans and sweatshirt and her hair was tied back. She had a pack ready over her shoulder.

  Courtney couldn’t believe it. What was she playing at? But DogNut smiled widely.

  ‘You look the business,’ he said when she arrived. ‘But what you doing, girl?’

  ‘What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m coming with you.’

  ‘You joining the excort?’

  ‘No. Like I said, Donut, I’m coming with you.’

  ‘With me? How d’you mean exactly? With me?’

  ‘You are really special-needs sometimes, Donut. Try and keep up. I am coming to the Tower.’

  Courtney felt like screaming at Brooke, telling her to stay where she belonged, but instead she just smiled. ‘That’s great,’ she said.

  ‘Thought you’d like to have me along,’ Brooke beamed. ‘And watch your arses for you.’

  ‘I’ll watch your arse.’ DogNut leered and Brooke gave him a dirty look.

  ‘I still don’t get it, though,’ DogNut went on. ‘I thought you liked it here. I thought this was it for you.’