He fingered the little silver crucifix he wore around his neck under his top.
I am a soldier of Christ, he thought. He will be my shield.
‘Do it.’
Kyle was gripping his battleaxe, pumped up and ready to go. He didn’t care how many of them were out there. He didn’t think like that. Didn’t really have much of an imagination. He could see the ones at the windows – he would deal with them first. They would be the first to die.
And then …
Let it come down. See what happened next. Deal with it.
It would be him and Ed, side by side, like it had always been, ever since they’d teamed up at the battle of Lambeth Bridge. All Kyle had had as a weapon back then was his trusty garden fork. It had been enough. The two of them had slaughtered the sickos. No problem. It had been a blast. And there had been an army of them then as well. It would be no different tonight. They’d cut their way through and show those sickos who was boss.
He was ready.
Ready for anything.
He made a face at the window-lickers. Gave them the finger and swore at the stupid bastards.
‘Kiss my axe,’ he whispered and laughed.
‘Do it.’
Lewis was studying his shotgun, making sure the safety catch was off, checking the two triggers, one behind the other, so there were no snags. One pull for the first barrel, another pull for the second. He’d never fired a shotgun before, but had seen enough films and played enough computer games to understand the concept. It was pretty straightforward. Not a lot to go wrong. As long as he remembered to keep the butt tight to his shoulder. He’d seen a million hilarious YouTube clips of people firing guns who didn’t know how to hold them right. Got smashed in the teeth, knocked over, knocked out.
He knew the kick these things had.
Two pulls.
Bam-Bam …
And then what? There were four other kids in the car and he’d only ever been in a proper fight with one of them before. Ebenezer. A good missile merchant. A key member of Ollie’s team from Waitrose. This was going to be a dirty fight, though, close up, a melee, no room for fancy long-range missile tactics.
Brooke he knew about. She was OK. Not the world’s greatest fighter, but he could count on her to hold her own and not run screaming and put the rest of them in danger trying to look after her.
Kyle. Well, as far as Lewis could tell, Kyle was a psycho. And psychos were useful in a fight. As long as they were on your side.
It was Ed he was most worried about.
Good at giving orders.
Could he fight?
Well, they were about to find out.
‘Do it.’
Brooke muttered something under her breath, tugged the handle and slid the door all the way back. A waft of hot, stinking air came into the car, and the noise of them, a murmuring, hissing, gurgling sound. There was a solid wall of grown-ups standing there, surprised by this sudden change. Lewis jammed the butt of the shotgun into his shoulder, squeezed the first trigger. Rocked back.
The blast was deafening. There was a bright flash and a whole section of the grown-ups fell away in a confusion of smoke and blood.
He carried on pulling, felt the second trigger, squeezed.
Another bright flash, an ear-popping bang, a gout of smoke as the pellets from the shell sprayed out, in a widening cone, and another load of grown-ups simply weren’t there any more.
For a brief moment there was emptiness by the side of the car. Silence, except for the ringing in his ears. Above it all, Lewis could see the moon, a strange red colour, like someone had painted it with blood. And then Ed and Kyle were out of the car. Ed with his sword, Kyle with his axe, roaring a battle cry, already swinging the big heavy blade to the right and left.
Lewis tried to remember who was next out, what was the plan? It had all happened so fast and the gun blasts had rattled his brains.
Was it him or Brooke out next?
‘Go!’ Brooke shouted. ‘Go, Lewis, go.’
That was it, yes. Drop the gun. Grab the sword. Get out. Fight.
The grown-ups had fallen away at first, but were now surging back towards the car, attracted by the noise and movement. Lewis chopped and slashed and stabbed, forcing his way through them, making space for Brooke and Ebenezer, who pulled the car door shut behind him with a heavy clunk.
Brooke looked panicked. The reality of so many rabid grown-ups was overwhelming. They pressed in from all around, hot and damp and putrid. Lewis was aware of eyes and teeth, grasping hands with long fingernails, drool and snot and pus. His katana, sharp as a razor, cut into them, chopping off bits of flesh, drawing red lines across faces, ripping through clothing, sinking into soft bellies and spilling guts.
‘This is too much,’ Ebenezer shouted. ‘There are too many.’
He was holding his javelin two-handed, jabbing with the point, keeping the grown-ups back, but not doing a lot of damage. Brooke was scared, but working her short sword, holding her own. This was defence, not attack. They needed to move.
And then a space was opened up again. Ed and Kyle had cleared a way through up front, and Lewis wondered why he’d ever had any doubts about Ed.
The two of them were a killing machine, cutting through the grown-ups like a piece of farm machinery, not stopping, not seeming to think, working together in sync as if they shared one brain, protecting each other and timing their swings so that they didn’t get tangled. There was an open area all around them, carpeted with fallen bodies. Their blades and clothing were already wet with blood, and they were shouting for the others to catch up.
Lewis, Ebenezer and Brooke fell in with them. Ed and Kyle driving on at the front, Lewis and Brooke taking the flanks, Ebenezer turning to face backwards and protect their rear.
The grown-ups didn’t have the brains to hold back, just kept on coming, throwing themselves on to the kids’ weapons. They blundered in too close and got cut or stabbed, or blinded by a slash across the face.
Lewis could hear Kyle laughing and Ed grunting with each strike, as step by painful step they forced their way towards a gap in the hedge.
Brooke was wailing like someone on a roller-coaster, waving her sword madly, all idea of technique forgotten. Ebenezer was calling out to God. Lewis kept quiet, concentrating, getting into a rhythm, learning the best way to use the katana – a slash to the right, to the left, back to the right and then in with the point.
Somehow Ed got them off the road and into the fields where the grown-ups were less tightly packed. They could move faster now, driving through the scattered mothers and fathers, leaving behind a trail of dead and wounded. Lewis was already shattered. This was hard work – running and fighting. He could hear Brooke screaming with each swing of her blade, moving closer to panic. They had to hold it together. If you lost your nerve you were dead.
He risked glancing ahead. There were the buildings they were aiming for, on the other side of the field, a cluster of them behind a row of low trees. A long way, though. Two hundred metres maybe. With grown-ups all the way.
And then he heard a cry as Ebenezer stumbled. Jogging backwards over this uneven ground was much harder than on the road. Lewis had to stop and haul him up, leaving their side unprotected for a moment. The grown-ups weren’t fast, but they were coming steadily from every direction. It was like trying to hold back water. You swept it away and it just flowed right in again. He got Ebenezer to his feet, but he could already feel hands grabbing at his armour. He was glad of it. It made him feel slightly clumsy, but it kept him protected. The grown-ups were near enough for him to feel the heat of their breath and hear the saliva rattling in their throats. The fat, bloated body of a father pressed against him and Lewis pummelled it with his elbow. There was no room for him to get his blade up and all he could do was hammer at the grown-up with the pommel. Ebenezer was having similar problems. His javelin was even harder to use this close up. He was using it like a staff and shoving grown-ups away with it.
&nb
sp; Lewis was amazed at how quickly they’d got swamped. The field had looked half empty to begin with, and now he couldn’t move. Brooke came to him, yelling at the grown-ups and whacking them with her own sword, and for a few seconds Lewis thought he was saved, and then he was down, knocked over by a bald mother carrying a branch. Now they were on top of him and he was lost in a tangle of legs and shuffling feet. It was too dark to see anything and, as he thrashed about, he felt fingers rake his face.
And then a shout.
‘Keep your head down.’ It was Ed.
Lewis pressed himself to the ground, not wanting to be decapitated by that heavy sword, got a faceful of grass and dirt. There were thuds and shrieks from above him. Bodies fell away and blood showered down on him. An arm fell at his side. Two legs, not attached to a body.
‘Up! Up! Up!’ Ed again and he heard Kyle’s voice too, bellowing obscenities at the grown-ups. Lewis got to his feet and forced himself up. Ed and Kyle had cleared a patch around him, cutting bodies down like grass. Ed was swinging his sword with both hands, his scarred face something out of a horror film, splashed with blood. His eyes had taken on a crazy gleam. He looked like a completely different person.
‘Move it!’ he shouted, no hint of friendliness in his voice. It was a barked command. ‘This way!’
The field had opened up a little. The grown-ups had formed into a clump where Lewis and Ebenezer had stopped, leaving the rest of the ground relatively clear. The mob was milling in a confused knot, tripping over the fallen, unaware that Lewis and Ebenezer and Brooke had got away.
The five of them were running now, Ebenezer no longer bothering to watch their backs. They had to get to the buildings. They needed to get under cover, somewhere they could defend. Lewis knocked down a grown-up who got in his way. Ebenezer stabbed him with the point of his javelin as he leapt over the body. Brooke swiped her sword into the face of a mother who wailed as she spun away, hands over her eyes.
Up ahead Kyle’s axe was swinging like a pendulum in front of him, grunting with each swing, daring any grown-ups to come close. And right at the front was Ed, sword held high over his head, yelling a wordless chant of death. Lewis saw him swerve towards a mother, bringing his sword arcing down, and cutting her head clean off her shoulders. It flew through the air and bounced as it hit the ground.
Ed didn’t stop running.
They were going to make it. The trees were getting closer and closer.
Ed had dragged them clear and achieved the impossible.
They crashed into the treeline, scrambling through low branches, high-stepping over bushes and brambles.
And then stopped dead.
There was a three-metre chain-link fence on the other side, topped with vicious overhanging lines of razor wire.
51
Lewis stared at the fence. Ed swore. No way through here.
Kyle took a swing at the fence with his axe, which sparked and bounced off harmlessly.
‘Huh!’ he said, turning to grin at the others. ‘Did you see that? Cool.’
Nobody else laughed.
No way through at all.
‘We’ll have to work our way round to the gate.’ Ed’s voice was harsh and croaky. ‘There must be a way in. Stay together, we’re doing well. Keep it up. We’ll get in there.’
‘Did you see my axe spark like that?’ said Kyle.
‘Shut up, Kyle.’ Ed strode back out into the open. Lewis followed. There was a line of grown-ups advancing towards them, strung out all the way across the field. Stumbling, moronic, relentless, only one thing on their minds. No way of reasoning with them. No way of stopping them. Ed was good, but he couldn’t kill them all.
And there was nowhere to run. Wherever they turned there would be more of them. It was like every grown-up in the world had come out tonight, under the blood-red moon.
Lewis saw a mother who seemed to be leading them. She was very tall, with long, straight, black hair that hung down to her waist. She tottered on, slightly ahead of the rest, arms straight and stiff at her sides. Her face narrow, nose like a great fin, eyes bulging and dark. They locked on Lewis and he felt a weird shiver of nausea pass through him. For a moment his fingers went all tingly and his brain buzzed. He thought he was going to faint, or throw up, or freeze …
He wasn’t there any more.
He was just watching a film of all this.
Not real.
The tall woman came on.
She was on a screen.
‘Lewis!’ A shout from Kyle brought him crashing back to reality. He’d been left behind by the others. He swore and ran to catch up. They were hurrying alongside the line of trees. Lewis could see the end maybe thirty metres ahead. A corner. But what was around the corner?
More bloody grown-ups no doubt. What else?
And the ones in the field were moving towards the corner as well, to cut them off. They weren’t running, but they were seething across the open ground from every direction.
And when Lewis rounded the corner all he saw was pretty much what he’d been expecting – more of them. Only closer. And once again the kids had a fight on their hands. Lewis’s arm was sore. The blade wasn’t heavy, but he had to keep working it, using both hands mostly on the long handle. Right, left, right again and stab. Twist and out and start again. The blade was horribly sharp and seemed to be able to cut through anything without much problem. Clothing, skin, muscle, sinews, bone. He swung and slashed and stabbed and swung again, slicing a father’s hand clean off. He kicked another in the guts, elbowed a third.
‘I can’t keep this up,’ he heard Brooke gasp. Tried to see where she was. Saw her surrounded by a gang of mothers and fathers, poking at them with her sword. Ebenezer had seen it too and the two of them steamed in, pulling bodies away, chopping at them, until they’d got Brooke clear. And there were Ed and Kyle, tirelessly harvesting the bastards. Lewis looked around. All he could see were grown-ups, plodding towards them. The kids were stuck here now, unable to move in any direction, and no closer to finding a way into the buildings.
He had a sickening urge to just drop his sword and give up. Stop fighting. Let it be. How were things ever going to be any different? Even if they somehow got away from this lot there would be others. And others. More and more of them, too many to kill. But then he saw Ebenezer get in trouble and he was running towards him, sword at the ready. He cut Ebenezer clear. And now Brooke was surrounded again.
There was going to be no end to this.
And then he saw bodies falling, out in the fields, as if they were tripping over some hidden wire. Or puppets having their strings cut. Grown-ups were going down all around them. He heard hard thwacking sounds, like someone beating a leather sofa with a belt. Missiles were streaking through the air.
Someone was shooting at them. He saw an arrow whizz across the field and embed itself in a mother’s chest. Then another hit her as she fell.
More and more of them were falling and Lewis saw figures advancing from the left. An organized fighting unit. Must be other kids. Orders were being shouted. More grown-ups going down, the rest of them milling in confusion, not knowing which kids to attack.
Lewis smiled for the first time that night.
Maybe they were going to make it after all.
52
Ed was in a killing frenzy. He’d shut down his conscious brain, withdrawn into the dark space where he let his animal side loose. He was aware, though, that something was going on. The rhythm of the fight had changed. The sickos were losing. Ed was being helped. There were arrows in the air.
He turned to look where they were coming from.
A group of archers was coming towards them, with smaller, more agile girls and boys running ahead of them, darting in and out of the sickos, picking up arrows from the ground, and plucking them from fallen bodies.
‘This way! Over here!’ A girl wearing a leather jacket shouted at them. She was tall and slim, with long dark hair and pale skin, and appeared to be in charge. Ed moved mec
hanically in her direction.
‘Go to them!’ he shouted to his team, his voice painful and hoarse in his dry throat. And they were running again, smashing sickos out of the way. Ed didn’t check whether the others were with him. He just had to trust that they were. At least Kyle was at his side, keeping up. Always wanted to be at the front.
‘Looks like not all the local kids are arseholes,’ he shouted and Ed didn’t reply. He didn’t want to speak. He didn’t care. The blood moon was in the sky and in his heart.
There were maybe twenty-five kids there, not counting the younger ones who were still haring around, picking up arrows, too swift for the sickos to catch. And the archers were keeping up a steady rain of arrows.
‘Get in behind us,’ the girl in charge yelled and Ed did as he was told, finally checking that all four of his crew were safe. There was Kyle, then Brooke, Ebenezer and Lewis, bringing up the rear. Alive and alert, wild-eyed, laughing manically.
Saved.
Ed wished he felt something more than emptiness.
‘When I say run, we run,’ the girl commanded.
‘Where to?’ asked Brooke, bent double and gasping for breath.
‘Just follow us,’ said the girl. ‘This is the rear of the grown-ups’ army. If we head in the right direction we can get away from them. You ready?’
‘Do it,’ Ed grunted.
‘Now!’ the girl shouted. ‘Run.’
And the archers turned and started running, around to the back of the buildings, through an open gate into another field, where there were only a few scattered sickos. One or two standing like sentinels. The kids pounded through the long grass and weeds. Ed’s lot were worn out, but something kept them going and they managed to keep up at the front of the pack. The archers crossed the field on to a lane. They seemed to know where they were going. And once on the lane they could go even faster.
The Hunted Page 27