The Dead Read online

  Greg came on down the aisle, dribbling, coughing, belching, arms wide.

  Matt was standing his ground in the aisle as the smaller kids surged past him. He was clutching a handful of the torn pages from his Bible.

  ‘Greg! Stop!’ he said, raising an open palm. ‘It doesn’t have to be like this. I can help you. The Lamb can cure you. He can make you better. The Lamb can –’

  Greg lashed out at him with a scything backhander. The slap took Matt full in the face and Greg’s signet ring tore a bloody gash from his eyebrow up into his hairline. Matt went flying and fell down heavily between the seats.

  Zohra, Froggie and Jibber-jabber used the distraction to run to the toilet. They wrenched the door open and darted inside, frantically scrabbling to lock the door behind them.

  Greg snarled and punched his fist through the top of the door. It stuck there, halting him for a moment. He tugged and bellowed and shook like a dog arguing over a bone. Splintered chipboard and plastic tore at his forearm as he tried to pull it free. The cries of the little kids sounded small and distant inside the toilet.

  Greg let out a string of obscenities and looked like he might wrench the whole door off its hinges.

  ‘Out of the way! Coming through!’ It was Bam, charging down the aisle, head lowered, shoulder braced, for all the world as if he was on the rugby pitch going into a tackle.

  Greg looked round just as Bam barged into him and the two of them collapsed in a tangle.

  ‘Get the gun!’ Bam yelled, trying to keep Greg down. Bam was big and strong and heavy, but Greg was heavier and filled with a mad fury. He flailed and spat at Bam, who clung on to him.

  BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG … The sickos outside continued their hammering on the side of the coach.

  Jack vaulted over the writhing bodies in the aisle and sped to the front of the coach. He picked the gun up from where it was lying on the floor and looked around for some shells.

  There was a messy driver’s shelf full of tissues and old sweets and CD cases and maps. Jack tore into it, tossing stuff aside, his hands feeling slow and clumsy. It was hard to think straight with the screams of the kids, the banging from outside, the rain lashing the roof.

  ‘Come on, come on …’

  There. He’d picked it up and tossed it aside before he realized what it was. A box of shotgun shells. He’d never loaded a gun before but had seen it done enough times in films and on the TV for him to have a pretty good idea what to do. You sort of bent the gun in half and shoved the cartridges in the back end of the barrels. He couldn’t for the life of him work out how to break the gun, though.

  He let loose a string of obscenities.

  It must have a catch or a lock of some kind.

  There was a shout and he looked round to see Greg forcing himself to his feet, throwing off Bam. He moved awkwardly. It looked like the arm that had been stuck in the toilet door was dislocated. He turned his whole upper body to his right, as if his head could no longer swivel on his neck.

  Chris Marker was sitting there, frozen in the act of reading his book.

  Two pairs of eyes locked.

  Chris slowly stood up and backed away until he was flattened against the window, his book open in his hands.

  Greg was breathing heavily, blinking, angry and bewildered. He glared at the book. Focusing all his hatred on it.

  Chris calmly closed the covers and then in one swift movement smashed the book’s spine into the bridge of Greg’s nose like a brick, knocking the glass out of Liam’s spectacles. Greg grunted and staggered back on stiff legs before collapsing on to the seats on the other side of the aisle.

  ‘Come on,’ Ed yelled, helping the little kids out of the toilet. ‘Everyone off the bus.’

  ‘No!’ Brooke shouted. ‘There’s more of them out there.’

  BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG …

  Bam limped over to Jack and took the gun off him. He quickly found the release catch and thumbed it forward. He grinned at Jack and broke the gun over his knee before slotting two of the shells into the twin barrels.

  He looked back at Ed, who was halfway down the coach.

  ‘I’ll clear the way outside. You bring Piers!’ he shouted, shoving the rest of the shells into his pocket. He kicked the damaged door open.

  ‘Stay with me!’ he commanded, and stepped off.

  There were two blasts.

  ‘Quickly!’ Jack jumped down after Bam, and the others followed, jostling each other to get off the coach before Greg recovered.

  Ed put a hand on Kwanele’s shoulder as he pushed past, wheeling his luggage. ‘Help me,’ he said.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, you! I can’t carry Piers by myself.’

  ‘He’s bleeding. It’ll ruin my suit.’

  ‘Just shut up and help.’

  They took one of Piers’ arms each and pulled him up out of his seat. He felt like a dead weight. Kwanele cursed as his suitcase got entangled with the legs of one of the seats. Piers gasped and winced in pain, his eyes flickering open.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Ed. ‘We’re getting you off the bus, mate.’

  They dragged him along the aisle. Blocking Brooke and her friends who were struggling forward over the scattered boxes.

  ‘Hurry up,’ Courtney wailed.

  Brooke was shaking uncontrollably. She’d seen what was outside. The boys hadn’t. If they got split up, it would be a disaster and she definitely didn’t want to be left on the coach by herself.

  As they passed Greg, he looked up at them.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ he said, his voice rattling with mucus. He lunged up towards Brooke who shrieked and punched the hammer into his gut. The air went out of him with an OOF and he doubled over in pain.

  The girls pushed past Ed and ran the rest of the way to the doors, nearly falling down the steps in their hurry. Outside in the rain Bam was reloading the shotgun. There were two sickos lying on the pavement, a mother and a teenager, the rest were cowering near at the back of the bus. Pez was with them. His head rocked back and his horrible pink tongue stuck out.

  ‘Move it,’ Bam shouted at the girls. ‘Get away while you can.’

  29

  Ed and Kwanele had nearly made it to the doors, but it was hard going. Piers had passed out again and Kwanele was having trouble holding him up with one arm and wheeling his suitcase with the other. He called for help, but everyone else was already running away from the bus.

  ‘They’ve forgotten about us,’ Kwanele wailed.

  ‘Shut up and keep going,’ Ed grunted. ‘We can’t just leave him.’

  There was a noise behind them. Greg was up again. Trying to work out where everyone had gone.

  He spotted the boys.

  ‘Forget it,’ said Kwanele. ‘I’m out of here.’

  He dropped Piers. Ed screamed at him but he bolted off the bus and ran after the others.

  Ed was left holding Piers’ arm. ‘Piers,’ he sobbed. ‘Come on, Piers, help me … Help me …’

  But Piers was dead to the world.

  Greg was moving slowly towards them. He looked cross-eyed, more confused than ever, his face a mask of blood and pus. Liquid was gurgling in his throat. His breath was rasping and harsh.

  With a superhuman effort Ed got Piers as far as the doors, but then he wouldn’t budge any further. Ed tugged at him, and tugged at him, but it made no difference. In his panic he couldn’t work out what had happened. He hadn’t spotted that Piers’ jacket had caught on a handle.

  ‘Piers,’ he shouted. ‘Piers, come on. Wake up!’

  Greg was getting nearer by the second, his lips curled back from his bloody teeth. He reached out with his good hand towards Ed and seemed to smile.

  Ed looked out. Three big sickos were approaching the doorway. In another moment his way out would be blocked altogether. There was no sign of his friends.

  ‘Piers,’ he yelled, uselessly jerking the boy’s body. Ed was crying in desperation. Greg was so close now he could sme
ll him.

  Ed let go.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, relieved that Piers was unconscious and would have no idea what was going on.

  He jumped off the bus, shoved past the sickos in the street and ran for it. Behind him he could hear Greg raging and roaring, fighting the other adults over Piers’ body.

  Ed kept moving, all the while glancing wildly around for a glimpse of the others. There was a bang and he turned towards the sound. The kids were a little way along the road. Most of them were scrambling over a fence beside a tall white gatepost, while Bam and Jack fought off a second, smaller band of sickos. The noise had been Bam shooting at one of them.

  ‘Hey!’ Ed shouted. ‘Wait for me.’

  They either didn’t hear him or they ignored him.

  Ed sprinted to catch up, feeling sick that he’d abandoned Piers. Bam and Jack were frantically trying to keep the sickos back. There were about six of them, clawing at the boys, snapping their yellow teeth. They were too close for Bam to fire the gun again and he was using it as a club.

  With a yell Ed piled into them, scattering them and knocking two of them over. Bam saw his chance and shot another one.

  ‘Get over the fence,’ Jack shouted. ‘They can’t follow us.’

  Ed vaulted the fence into the small park on the other side. Ahead of him were two massive grey naval guns that must each have been a good six metres long. They stood in front of a building, making it look like some weird stranded battleship. The building was grand and classical in design, with six pillars across the front and a very tall, narrow green dome jutting straight up at the top.

  With a shock of recognition Ed realized he’d been here before with his prep school. It was the Imperial War Museum.

  Jack and Bam followed him over the fence. Bam reloaded and turned to fire a last shot at the sickos on the other side. Not that it mattered. They didn’t have the sense to work out how to get over.

  The three boys ran along the path towards where their friends were waiting for them by the naval guns, lungs burning, rain stinging their faces, their feet slapping on the wet paving stones. Jack and Ed ran side by side, Bam slightly behind.

  ‘What happened to Piers?’ Jack panted.

  ‘You didn’t wait,’ Ed replied.

  ‘You left him?’

  ‘Kwanele ran off. I couldn’t do it by myself. You should have stayed.’

  ‘I was helping the others.’

  ‘You should have stayed.’ Ed arrived at the steps to the museum and stopped, doubled over, resting his hands on his knees. The rest of the kids were hammering on the doors. Kwanele was with them, looking sheepish, his suitcase at his side.

  Ed gave him a dirty look. ‘Thanks for your help, Kwanele.’

  ‘What difference would it have made?’ Kwanele protested. ‘Even if we had got him off the bus? We could not have got away.’

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘The point is we are both still alive.’

  ‘Which is more than can be said for Piers.’

  By now Bam had registered that Piers was missing. ‘Where is he?’ he asked accusingly.

  ‘We had to leave him on the bus,’ Ed explained. ‘We couldn’t move him.’

  Before Bam could say anything else there was a cheer. Someone inside the building had opened the doors. The kids bundled noisily inside.

  Ed hung back for a while, regaining his breath, pulling himself together, not wanting to have to face Bam and Jack. Then walked slowly into the museum past two boys in old army uniforms who were holding the doors open.

  Inside he crossed a small entrance area, up some more steps and came out into the main atrium. There were planes dangling from the ceiling. Jack recognized a Spitfire among them. The white-tiled floor was littered with tanks, vehicles and artillery pieces of all shapes and sizes.

  The rest of the kids from the coach were gazing around in open-mouthed awe. A small group of boys were staring sullenly at them from one side. Like the two boys who had let them in, they were dressed in military uniforms that they’d obviously ‘borrowed’ from an exhibit, and they were heavily armed.

  ‘Who is it?’ came a voice from behind one of the tanks.

  ‘Dunno, some kids,’ said one of the boys in uniform.

  Brooke walked round the tank, followed by the rest of the coach party.

  Three boys of about thirteen were sitting cross-legged on the floor, wrapped in blankets and duvets. They looked like village elders around a campfire. All three of them were equipped with rulers, dice and notebooks, and spread out around them on the gleaming tiles were hundreds of miniature metal soldiers and an odd assortment of bits and pieces that were being used to represent landscape – trees and buildings and roads. They were evidently in the middle of an elaborate war game.

  One was a chubby kid wearing a First World War German helmet, with a spike in the top. Next to him sat a black kid wearing plastic-framed glasses held together at the nose with Elastoplast. He stared, unblinking, at the intruders. The glasses made his eyes look massive, as if they could look right through you. He had a serious expression, verging on blank, and there was a stillness about him. The third boy couldn’t have been more different. He was pale, wiry, fidgety, animated, like a pot on the boil. He scratched his armpit, picked his nose and grinned like a monkey at the new arrivals.

  ‘Fresh meat,’ he said. ‘Yum yum! Groovalicious.’

  ‘Ha, ha,’ said Brooke with all her usual sarcasm. ‘Very funny.’

  ‘I like to think so,’ said the skinny boy. ‘I like to think I ain’t lost it.’

  ‘I doubt you ever had it,’ said Brooke.

  The skinny boy jumped up and offered his palm to Brooke. She refused to slap it.

  ‘I’m DogNut,’ he said. ‘But you can call me “babe”.’

  Brooke shook her head and moved away from him.

  ‘Watch where you’re walking,’ said the black kid in the glasses.

  ‘Ooh, we don’t want to mess up your toys, do we?’ said Brooke.

  ‘No,’ said the boy matter-of-factly, but combined with his cold hard stare it came across as strangely menacing. Brooke faltered, unsure whether to push it any further. There was something about the boy that told her to be careful, an air of authority and quiet power.

  ‘Listen to what the bad man says,’ said DogNut. ‘Believe me, you don’t never want to get on the bad side of Jordan Hordern.’

  ‘That your name?’ said Brooke. ‘Jordan Hordern.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the black kid. ‘What of it?’

  ‘Nothing. Is a good name. Rhymes.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jordan Hordern. ‘I know.’

  ‘Will you be staying for tea?’ asked DogNut in a mock posh voice.

  ‘They’re not staying,’ said Jordan Hordern, turning away from them and concentrating on his game.

  ‘Who says?’ Brooke asked.

  ‘If the man says you ain’t staying,’ said DogNut, ‘you ain’t staying. Like, soz and all, but no one argues with Jordan Hordern, get me?’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ said Jack, pushing past Ed. ‘You don’t own this place. You can’t just kick us out.’

  ‘Can’t I?’

  ‘No way,’ said Brooke. ‘We just excaped from bare sickos out there, man. First we was trapped on a bus with a father who went psycho on us and tried to batter us all, and then there was these, like, freaks in the street and –’

  ‘What were you doing with a father on a bus?’ Jordan Hordern interrupted.

  ‘Well, durr, he was, like, driving, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Don’t you know they’re all mental?’

  ‘We know that now, but he looked OK, he saved me and my girlfriends and he swore down he wasn’t gonna go sick on us.’

  ‘And you trusted him? You’re more stupid than you look.’

  ‘Yeah? And you’re a prick,’ said Brooke.

  Jordan Hordern looked at her curiously and then shrugged. ‘You still ain’t staying.’

  ‘Why’d you
let us in in the first place, then?’ Ed asked.

  ‘Good question.’ Jordan Hordern turned his gaze on to the two guards who had opened the doors. ‘Why did you let them in?’ he asked. ‘You know the rules.’

  The boys looked at their feet, not sure what to say.

  ‘They let us in because they wanted to help us!’ said Jack angrily. ‘Because we’re kids like you. Human beings. Assuming you are human and not some kind of macho robot arsehole.’

  Jordan Hordern’s expression didn’t change.

  ‘Come on,’ said Brooke. ‘You can’t kick us out. We wouldn’t last five minutes out there. We’ll be merked.’

  ‘Not our problem.’

  ‘Well, what is your problem?’ said Jack.

  ‘It’s very simple. And it’s nothing personal,’ said Jordan Hordern. ‘We got enough food and water here for ten people to live an OK life. We got security and heat, and we’re well defended. Any more than ten of us, though, becomes a problem. That clear enough for you?’

  ‘And how long is your food gonna last?’ Jack asked.

  ‘It’ll get us through the winter if we’re careful. With any luck, when it warms up, all the adults will have died off and we can go out and get more.’

  ‘We only being reasonable,’ said DogNut. ‘We looking after number one. That’s how it works now, blood.’

  ‘Have you turned other people away?’ Bam asked. He was bruised from his fight on the bus, and had a gash in one cheek, as well as a nasty wound in his left hand where Greg had bitten him.

  ‘A few,’ said Jordan Hordern.

  ‘Well, you’re not throwing us out.’ Bam sat down in the middle of their game, crushing a battalion of German soldiers.

  ‘Oh, don’t do that,’ DogNut moaned. ‘I was winning for once.’

  ‘We’re not leaving,’ said Bam. ‘You can try and make us, but we’re staying put.’

  Jordan Hordern stared dispassionately at Bam for a few seconds then clapped his hands together. Five more of his boys came over. They were carrying swords and truncheons.