The Hunted

by Charlie Higson

He gave the pale-faced girl a squeeze. Ed realized who she was now. He’d heard about how she’d been left abandoned in a church and all her friends had been killed. Ollie had saved her and now it looked like she wouldn’t leave his side.

  ‘No way she’s ever going back out there,’ said Ollie. ‘Not after what she’s been through. But Ebenezer here, he’s good. He wants to come.’

  ‘I don’t like it here,’ said Ebenezer, the round-faced kid. He had a strong African accent. ‘Too many dead things in glass boxes. And those Twisted Kids. I don’t like them being here. They are not right. They are not in God’s image. They are not right.’

  Ed had to admit that the kids Blue had brought back with him from the last expedition out of London made him a little uncomfortable as well.

  ‘The disease did something to them in the womb,’ said Ollie. ‘It’s not their fault.’

  ‘They are mutations,’ said Ebenezer.

  ‘They’re kids,’ said Ollie.

  ‘You were on Blue’s expedition, Ebenezer?’ Ed wanted to change the subject.

  ‘Yes. I will go again. It does not scare me. I have seen what is on the road.’

  ‘Ebenezer’s good with a javelin,’ said Ollie. ‘And he knows Ella well from Holloway days.’

  Ed looked to the last member of the group, who seemed to be half asleep.

  ‘What about you?’ he asked and the boy lazily opened his eyes just enough to give Ed a once-over.

  ‘Lewis,’ he said and scratched his bushy Afro. ‘I’m in, dude. I got to know that little girl on the way over here. She’s brave as they come. I liked her. I’ll do it for her and the boy. Small Sam. He done well an’ all. Staying alive. Is all cool. I’ll come.’

  Ed smiled and they bumped fists. Lewis might be dozy-looking, but several people had told Ed what a good fighter he was.

  ‘So that’s six of us then.’ Ed counted on his fingers. ‘Including my lot. Not exactly an army, but the car only seats seven anyway. You ready to leave now?’

  Ebenezer nodded and Lewis shrugged.

  ‘I’d really hoped we could persuade Achilleus. He seems like a pain in the arse, but he’d be really useful from all I hear.’

  ‘Akkie definitely won’t go with you,’ said Ollie.

  ‘You know that?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I thought nothing fazed him.’

  ‘Nothing does,’ said Ollie and he took Ed to one side.

  ‘Akkie, he’s like me and Lettis,’ he said when they were out of earshot of the others.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Ollie nodded. ‘You see that little Irish kid he always has with him?’

  ‘Yeah. Bit of hero worship there.’

  ‘Kid’s called Paddy. We picked him up on the road. He’d been living with some nutters in a crappy camp in Green Park. A right wild bunch. Paddy jumped ship and came with us. He’s a tough little bastard, but, like a lot of kids, he’s not as tough as he’d like everyone to think.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ed asked.

  ‘I think he was having a hard time of it before. Not coping well. He ran away, basically, from the kids he was living with. Achilleus is like a dad to him now. Looks after him. They went out and got caught up in the madness down Heathrow and since they got back Paddy’s been having real bad nightmares. No one says anything, but we’ve all seen it. All heard it. Paddy wakes up screaming and Akkie has to calm him down. Akkie tries to pretend he ain’t got no heart. But underneath … He’s just protecting Paddy. Making it look like it’s his decision not to go. He knows Paddy wouldn’t hold up out there, and he wouldn’t leave him behind. Like me and Lettis here, and you and Sam, I guess.’

  ‘OK.’ Ed rubbed his scar. ‘Listen, Ollie,’ he said. ‘You seem switched on. Can you keep an eye on Sam while I’m gone? I don’t want him doing anything stupid. He ran off once before.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Ollie. ‘I’m on it. God knows how the little shrimp did it, though. Got across London like that.’

  ‘And the rest.’ Ed laughed. ‘That boy is something else, I tell you. You know, there’s even a group of kids living over in St Paul’s Cathedral who think he’s some kind of a god.’

  Ollie laughed. ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’

  ‘I’ll tell you about it one day.’ Ed looked round as Kyle leant on the car horn and yelled out of the window.

  ‘Get a move on!’

  As they walked down to the car, Lewis had a word with Ed.

  ‘He driving, is he?’

  ‘It’s between him and Macca. They both reckon they know how. Why? You drive?’

  ‘Some.’

  Ed mentioned this to the others and the three of them, Lewis, Kyle and Macca, argued about who was going to be in the driver’s seat. In the end they all three had a go, driving up and down the stretch of the Cromwell Road that ran along the front of the museum. Kyle showed off, tried to go too fast and didn’t look like he was in control at all. Macca went the other way and looked too cautious, nervous even. Macca was quite small, with a screwed-up face and untidy hair. He was a great shot, and had perfect eyesight, but he sometimes reckoned he knew more about the world than he actually did, and had a habit of biting off more than he could chew.

  Driving was evidently not one of his skills.

  Lewis was the best and Ed gave him the job. Kyle moaned until Ed told him to shut up and that was that. Lewis was the designated driver.

  At last they were ready to go.

  32

  Ed sat in the front passenger seat, studying a big road map, while Lewis adjusted his seat and checked all the controls. The route was simple – follow the road west until they joined the M4 and then just keep going until the milometer had added twenty miles.

  ‘All set?’ he asked Lewis without looking up.

  ‘Hold up, boss,’ said Kyle from the back and Ed saw Brooke coming down the long ramp from the museum entrance. She’d changed out of the weird old-fashioned dress she’d been wearing since Ed had arrived, and was wearing jeans and trainers with some kind of rugged, zip-up jacket. She had a small pack slung over one shoulder and was carrying a sword in a scabbard in her free hand. She still had a bandage across her forehead, probably as much to hide her scar as to protect it. And she had a knitted cap jammed over it, half covering the white of the bandage. She looked almost boyish. About as different to the girl he’d first met last year as you could get. Back then she’d been a fashion victim, overdressed, over-made-up, mouthy and cruel. In a funny way Ed almost missed the old Brooke. At least he’d known where he was with her.

  ‘You going somewhere?’ he asked when she got to the car and leant in his window.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ she replied.

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘You heard me.’ Brooke had a very determined look about her. She wasn’t going to be told no. ‘I owe you, Ed. If it wasn’t for me DogNut wouldn’t of got himself killed.’

  ‘You don’t owe me. You don’t have to come.’

  ‘You scared I can’t look after myself?’

  ‘I didn’t want to say it, but …’

  Brooke stepped back, yanked the sword from its scabbard and swiped it through the air.

  ‘Since we were attacked by Green Park I’ve been practising,’ she said. ‘Jackson’s been showing me how to fight. Lewis even gave a few tips.’

  Ed looked to Lewis who shrugged.

  ‘She all right,’ he said. ‘She won’t hold us back none.’

  ‘Besides,’ said Brooke, putting the sword away and giving the lads in the back of the car a once-over, ‘I think you could do with having a girl along. This is in danger of looking like a gay day trip. I mean, I don’t want to spoil your bromance at all, but really …’

  ‘I’m not gay,’ said Ebenezer seriously. He looked put out.

  ‘I was joking,’ said Brooke and she laughed, which only made Ebenezer more angry.

  ‘That is not funny,’ he said. ‘Not something to joke about.’

  �
�Ooh, hit a nerve there,’ said Brooke.

  ‘It’s all right, Ebenezer.’ Ed shot Brooke a dirty look. This was more like how she used to be, stirring it up.

  ‘We can fit you in,’ he said and Brooke leant in again.

  ‘It’s not just me,’ she said quietly.

  Ed looked back up towards the museum entrance. ‘There’s more want to come?’ he asked, though there was no sign of anyone else. ‘We can’t fit too many more in the car. Who is it?’

  ‘I thought you wanted more.’

  Ed sighed. ‘That was before I got the car. Who is it anyway?’

  ‘Come on.’ Brooke turned and walked back up the way she’d come. ‘Follow me.’

  33

  Ed followed Brooke up to the birds gallery in the green zone. This was the room that Ed had prepared for Wormwood to live in, but lately the Twisted Kids had moved in with him. And they were all there when he arrived, sitting patiently on plastic chairs. It felt weird being in here with them all together. The stuffed birds didn’t help. Ed had always found birds a little freaky, and they had some real mad ones in the gallery – dodos, vultures with naked faces, an ostrich watching him from behind the glass with giant staring eyes, a whole bush in a cabinet, its branches filled with humming birds. And there, sitting in a semi-circle surrounded by all this, was the strangest collection of humans Ed had ever seen. They really should be in their own museum somewhere.

  At the back was Wormwood, the Green Man himself, still wrapped in the blanket he’d arrived in and wearing the green bowler hat he’d picked up at Shadowman’s hideout. Otherwise he was naked. Ed wondered if it was a trick of the light, but the fuzz of green mould that covered him looked like it might be clearing up a little. Ed still didn’t trust him, though. He had a way of staring hungrily at you with his pale eyes, and clicking his long, horny fingernails together.

  Next to him was his daughter, Fish-Face, with her flattened head, the eyes squeezed round to the sides. She was crushingly shy and hardly ever spoke. She sat there with her neck bent and her face turned to the floor. She wasn’t scary, but she still freaked Ed out, because she appeared to have the ability to read your thoughts. That made him twitchy and uncomfortable, as if he could actually feel her inside his head.

  Then there was Skinner. Skinner didn’t spend much time with the other Twisted Kids. He’d made friends with Achilleus and Paddy. He was the most friendly of the Twisted Kids. He just wanted to get along with everyone and join in. He was always asking questions and trying to help, though his folds of loose skin made him clumsy.

  Finally there was Trinity, who looked like a girl and a boy fused together. They had a third smaller body on their back that they mostly kept hidden. The girl, Trio, and the boy, Trey, were always arguing with each other and could be quite mouthy, especially the girl. Ed had initially thought the third body on their back was dead, but they assured him he wasn’t. He was called Mister Three, and he woke up every now and then in a bad mood apparently. Ed didn’t want to be around when that happened.

  And what did he look like to them? he wondered. A freak, perhaps, with his scarred face pulled out of shape on one side. Brooke didn’t look much better. One day she was going to have to take her bandage off and show the world what had happened to her.

  ‘Is this going to take long?’ Ed leant against a cabinet with his arms folded, making sure they knew how impatient he was.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Trey.

  ‘You hope,’ said his ‘sister’, Trio.

  ‘So?’ Ed just wanted to be out of there. On his way.

  ‘When we left Heathrow …’ said Trio, ‘the Warehouse Queen gave us some orders, which was, like, typical. We were to learn as much as we could about, you know, what you might call the outside world. And what I’m saying, and I don’t mean to be rude, yeah? This is, like, all very impressive and that, but it’s just, really, you know, like, a museum. It’s hardly the big wide world. So we think one of us ought to come with you.’

  Ed sighed. Looked at his shoes. They were wearing out. He’d need to find some new ones soon.

  ‘With all respect,’ he said, ‘we need fighters. I can’t take passengers.’

  ‘We have skills,’ said Skinner.

  ‘Yeah? Like what?’ Ed didn’t want to sound harsh, but he was worried they’d hold things up and he’d have to nanny them all of the way.

  ‘Well, not me personally … obviously,’ said Skinner, sounding defeated. ‘I’m pretty useless. I can’t really do that much.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘But the others.’

  ‘I’m waiting.’

  ‘We know what’s going on,’ said Trey.

  ‘You mean your mind-reading thing?’ Ed looked at Trey and Trio, wondering if they knew what he was thinking right now. ‘The way you can get inside our minds?’

  ‘Not yours,’ said Trey. ‘We can’t read minds as such, ordinary minds.’

  ‘I thought you could.’ Maybe Ed had got it wrong. ‘How does it work then?’

  ‘Sickos,’ said Skinner. ‘That’s what you call them, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Ed found it slightly disconcerting that Skinner had a cat stuffed inside his jumper, its head sticking out of the neck opening, staring at Ed. When Ed had first met Skinner, he’d thought for moment that the cat was part of him, some kind of growth – anything was possible with these kids – and he’d been relieved to discover that it was just a harmless moggy. It still freaked him out, though.

  ‘Some of us can sort of hear them,’ said Skinner. ‘The sickos. Well, we all can, a little. It’s hard to explain, but we can all sort of … It’s like we share thoughts with them. I’m not so good at it. Fish-Face is brilliant. She’s like a radio set. She can tune herself right into what’s going on out there.’

  Ed turned to Fish-Face. ‘How do you do it?’ he asked. ‘What happens?’

  Fish-Face looked embarrassed and turned away, blushing. She wasn’t going to say anything.

  ‘Fish-Face could always do it,’ said Trio. ‘Her and the Queen. And Pencil Neck. He was the worst. He even knew what the rest of us were thinking, and we were like – “Hello? Get out of my head, thank you very much.” And Mister Three …’

  Trinity turned round, showing the small and shrivelled-looking third body that was curled up on their back, poking out of a hole in their jumper, like Skinner’s cat.

  ‘He can virtually talk to them,’ said Trio. ‘Like he was calling them on a mobile phone. “Oh, hello, you sick bastard, how are you doing?” But he’s hardly ever awake and it tires him out.’

  ‘Lately, though,’ said Trey, ‘we’ve all been starting to pick up the grown-ups a bit. Not exactly their thoughts. I mean, they don’t exactly think, do they? But it’s more like, I don’t know, a radio, and if there’s lots of them the signal’s louder …’

  ‘It’s like we know,’ said Skinner. ‘We just know. We’re connected. Like we’re all sharing one big brain.’

  ‘So to answer your question,’ said Trey, ‘we’re not sure how it works, but we reckoned it’d be really useful for you to have one of us along.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Ed wasn’t entirely convinced.

  ‘Doesn’t every military unit need a radio operator?’ said Skinner.

  ‘It’s not really a radio, though, is it?’ Ed protested. ‘You can’t completely communicate.’

  ‘You got anything better?’

  ‘I’ve got fighters. With weapons. I understand that. There’s no voodoo in it.’

  ‘Listen to them,’ said Wormwood, his voice surprisingly normal, coming from such a messed-up-looking guy. ‘Out of the mouths of babes. They’re speaking the truth. They know more than you ever will and they can help you more than sticks and knives. They can protect you from my kind.’

  ‘If I was going to take one of you along,’ said Ed, scanning the row of kids, ‘and I’m not saying I am, which of you would it be?’

  ‘I’m no good,’ said Skinner. ‘And Fish-Face is too shy.’

  ‘T
hat leaves …’ Ed looked at Trinity.

  ‘Us, I’m afraid.’ Both of them nodded, grinning. ‘Reckon you can squeeze us in?’

  ‘I was thinking I could maybe take one more.’ Ed was already picturing how cramped it was going to be in the car. ‘No offence, but you’re more like two, if not three. And Ebenezer ain’t gonna like it.’

  ‘We’ll charm him.’

  ‘You’re gonna have to. Guy’s a bit of a fundamentalist. Thinks you lot are an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. This is going to be one interesting trip.’

  ‘Well now, you wouldn’t want life to get boring, would you?’ said Trey.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ said Ed, ‘I would. I’d like nothing more. A boring, boring life in which nothing happened. But you know what? I’ve had to accept that that is not gonna happen. So let’s get this show on the road.’

  34

  ‘You’re too bony, girl, you’re digging into my ribs like a bag of knives. It’s like sitting next to a skeleton.’

  ‘Yeah, well, at least I don’t stink like a sicko. Jeez, you got no soap at the Tower? Or do you just bathe in pig scat?’

  ‘Oh, you’d know about that, wouldn’t you? I heard you used to go out with a pig.’

  ‘Oh, that is so funny, I almost laughed.’

  ‘Shut it, you two,’ Ed shouted from the front seat.

  It had been like this all the way from the museum. Brooke and Macca getting at each other like a couple of little kids bickering. Ed like a fed-up dad, getting crosser and crosser. He was beginning to wish he’d left Macca behind. It had almost happened. He’d gone from having not enough people to having too many. Macca had offered to give up his seat, but Will had persuaded him not to and volunteered to stay behind himself. He’d pointed out that Macca was better in a fight than him. Will said he’d be more use at the museum working with Einstein.

  Ed had reluctantly agreed with him. He relied on Will, who was sensible and bright, but if it came to a fight Macca was definitely the stronger of the two. Ed just wished he wasn’t such a pain in the arse sometimes.