She got cocky, started taking risks, making rules, ordering her kids to do stupid things.
It had got her killed. Her and most of the kids in the house.
Shadowman had had to move on. Tried various groups of other kids, but always found he preferred being alone. The last place he’d been living had been a wild camp of hooligans run by a headcase called John. He was violent, stupid, unfair, but his people did what he told them, looked up to him even.
Then there was David, lording it up at Buckingham Palace, thinking he was king of the shit heap. That guy was definitely nuts, like every dictator that had gone before him. Nero, Caligula, Henry the Eighth, Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Margaret Thatcher, Colonel Gaddafi, that crazy North Korean bastard who was in Team America, Kim Jong whatever.
The dear leader.
They all thought they were God. Nothing could knock them down. But they all got knocked down. They all lost it in the end. They were no more God than he was.
Overconfidence could kill you, believing you were invincible. Shadowman was all too aware of that. You had to speak softly and carry a big stick.
Who had said that? It was a quote from somewhere. Just another power-crazed tyrant probably.
All that power, that long run of good luck, had made Saif overconfident. Stuck there behind his high fence in his cosy blue box. He couldn’t get it into his head that things might change, might not always stay the way he wanted them to be. Which was pretty dim when you considered what had happened a year ago.
The whole bloody world had changed, hadn’t it? So why couldn’t Saif see that it could change again?
Saif was a moron and Shadowman was going to have to live with that. He was not going to keep on hitting his head against the wall.
Leave them to it.
In the end he hadn’t wanted to stay at IKEA anyway. It had weirded him out, waking up in that fake room. He didn’t feel comfortable in a real bed, with clean sheets, any more. And he hadn’t been made welcome. The kids had their castle and they didn’t want any outsiders coming in and taking what was theirs. Only Johnny and his friend Dan had wanted to listen to what he had to say. They’d shown him some kindness and tried to make him feel welcome. They’d said they could make Saif change his mind about kicking Shadowman out, but he’d told them not to bother. He didn’t belong there.
At least he’d got something out of it, though. He’d refilled his water bottle and picked up some fresh supplies. Johnny and Dan had seen to that, apologizing all the while. He’d tried to assure them that it didn’t matter and the last thing he did was try to warn Johnny one final time.
‘Don’t let Saif attack the horde unprepared,’ he’d said as he was leaving. ‘At least get him to check them out for himself before he goes blundering in there without enough muscle. Even with cars and weapons twenty-five kids is not enough to take on … you know … ’ He had been going to say ‘St George’, but worried about how that might make him look. Giving names to zombies again.
So he’d left it hanging. Johnny knew what he meant.
‘I’ll do what I can,’ he said. ‘But once Saif has an idea in his head you can’t shift it.’
‘You don’t say.’
It felt good to be back on the streets, alone. It felt right, though walking was painful at first. He’d downed some painkillers. They weren’t enough, only knocked the edges off his pain. Both his legs were cut and bruised and his chest was extremely sore. He thought he’d maybe cracked a rib or two. Gradually his muscles loosened, the pain dimmed and walking became easier. It was late afternoon and the sky was darkening, not just with the sun going down; the clouds were thickening, massing for a storm by the look of it. That was something else he’d learnt in the last year, how to read the weather. Hadn’t ever really given it a thought before. Hardly ever even looked up at the sky.
He’d only been going a few minutes when he spotted his first sentinel. A father with a collapsed belly hanging over the filthy, tattered remains of his jeans. He had adopted the standard pose – arms out, head slightly tilted back, eyes staring – though with one difference. He was missing a hand. A cloud of flies buzzed round the rotten stump. Crawled up his arm.
He ignored them.
‘All right, Stumpy,’ Shadowman said as he walked past and laughed at his little joke.
He spotted three more sentinels along the way, despite switching routes and trying different roads. They seemed to be everywhere. He got the impression that they were fanning out from a central point. Presumably that would be where the bulk of The Fear were. If they’d moved on from the tyre centre he should be able to find them by following the sentinels.
He remembered what Johnny had said about ants, and wondered if the sentinels really were part of some kind of primitive communication network, reaching out to other strangers and drawing them in to join St George’s army. He’d certainly seen a few lone wanderers heading in the same direction he was, plodding along in broad daylight. One of them was even carrying the body of a small child. Like a cat bringing an offering of a dead mouse.
He had to find out what was going on. He couldn’t live in ignorance like Saif. The sentinels were the most obvious indication that the strangers were changing, getting better organized. If The Fear were somehow using the sentinels to attract other strangers their army could grow very quickly. How many would they be now? Shadowman and Jaz’s crew had taken down a few yesterday. Twenty maybe? But would that make much difference?
There was only one way to find out, which was why he was heading back to the tyre centre. Of course the horde might have moved on, but all the signs told him otherwise.
It took him a long while to get to his look-out flat and as he got closer there were more strangers about. He had to be very careful he didn’t blunder into a big group of them. He went slowly and didn’t take any chances. So it was nearly two hours after leaving IKEA before he was safely up in the flat. Nothing had changed; his puke was still there, drying on the carpet. And starting to honk. The dead couple were still on the sofa, holding hands and staring sightlessly at a dead television.
He went to the window, put his binoculars to his eyes and looked out.
The Fear were still there. The sentinels were out in the road and there was a steady trickle of new strangers shuffling up and going into the building.
Shadowman wondered what would happen next. If The Fear stuck to their normal routine they’d come out as darkness fell and start to hunt. Which way would they go tonight? If there were sentinels as far north as IKEA then St George might know about the kids there.
Was that how it worked? Had they really become that sorted? A swarm of ants ready to clear the whole area. That was scary.
It would be impossible to attack Saif’s kids if they stayed put behind their defences. Would St George know that? How clever had he become? What might he be planning to do?
It wasn’t long before Shadowman got his answer. He was watching the front of the tyre centre, only about twenty minutes later, when he saw dark shapes emerging. At first a slow trickle, then a great mass of them. Too many to count. Shadowman couldn’t be sure, but it looked like they’d at least doubled in number.
St George was at the front, with two of his lieutenants, Man U and Spike. As usual, no words were spoken, no commands given, but the strangers knew exactly what to do, even though a lot of them must have been new arrivals. They spilt into the road and for a moment it looked like they might go either way, left towards IKEA or right towards …
Towards where? The road ran roughly north to south, which meant that if they went right, and kept on going, they’d eventually reach the centre of town.
Now he was being ridiculous. Putting his own thoughts and fears into St George’s head. They could go anywhere.
He waited, scanning the faces of the horde with his binoculars. The weak sunlight was burning their skin, ripening the spots, painting red-raw streaks across their cheeks. They didn’t seem to care any more, though. Something wa
s more important to them than the pain; something was driving them on.
They had a purpose.
At last St George started walking. Right. South. Directly past the block of flats where Shadowman was hiding. He felt like one of those dictators, surveying his troops. They didn’t exactly march, they were too far gone for that, but there was a definite sense of order about them.
It took a long while for them all to pass. At the back were the stragglers, the weaker ones, the older ones, the most diseased. Bluetooth was with them, in his dirty blue suit. He had a small group of fitter strangers with him, almost as if he was herding the weaklings along.
Just like a medieval army on the march, with oxen ready to be slaughtered when they were needed to feed the troops.
At last all that was left were the sentinels in the road, still standing there. Waiting. Shadowman packed up his gear and went down the stairs. Moved cautiously out into the road.
Froze.
There was a stranger coming from the north, limping along all by himself.
Shadowman ducked down out of sight. Realized he recognized the lone walker; it was Stumpy, towing a cloud of flies in his wake. He walked right past Shadowman, who let him go.
Once he was sure it was OK to move he came out from behind the wall and crossed over the road to the tyre centre, curious to see how The Fear had left it. The stink as he got close was appalling; a huge number of diseased adults had been in there for two days. He covered his mouth and nose with his cloak and crept in.
He wished he had squashed his curiosity. There were bones everywhere – animal bones, children’s bones, adult bones – all mixed in with human waste, clothing, hair, vile bits and pieces.
A movement.
They hadn’t all left.
A twisted little stranger with bent arms and legs, his shirt front coated in drool, was crawling about, picking over the remains for something to eat. He had big watery eyes and a few strands of long lank hair stuck to his face.
He smiled at Shadowman. A warm, welcoming smile.
All the frustration, pain, rage and fear of the last twenty-four hours welled up inside Shadowman. He walked over to the father and smashed his skull in with his machete.
‘I’m not one of you,’ he said.
And then he heard the rumble of engines.
45
‘So you’re the bogeyman, are you? The Green Man. Green bogeyman. Mister Wormwood. The toad in the hole. I can hear you moving there in the dark. I’ve sharp ears and a sharper blade. I seen you, before my flames died down, licking your lips. You want your dinner, don’t you? But you try and come for me and I’ll cut you and burn you and make you cry. Is that understood?’
‘I wasn’t doing anything. I was just –’
‘I know what you were doing. Don’t play me for a fool. Sit back down and listen, cos you and me, Mister Green, we’ve got some talking to do. A lot to catch up on. I’ve got some questions to ask you, Old Wormwood.’
‘I’ve got questions too, little hairy kid. I’ve been too long down here. Don’t know what’s going on in the world. I hear them sometimes up there, chattering. Louder and louder lately. I try to say hello, but they’re too stupid. It’s like talking to the bugs back in the big green.’
‘Well, that’s why you don’t want to eat me just yet, do you? I ain’t stupid. I ain’t a bug. I can answer your questions. Let’s talk first, yeah? Before dinner. You and me?’
‘Mm. I do have some questions. I surely do.’
‘Fair’s fair and all that, bogeyman. Here’s how it works. You ask one question, I ask one question. Play it straight and I’ll play straight by you. Way I see it, Mad Matt and his microlights, they ain’t been playing straight with you. They keep you locked up here.’
‘It’s not fair. You’re right. It’s really not fair. I’m an important person, a VIP. I was king of the jungle. Something like that.’
‘You think you’re king of the Kop, Wormhole, so how come you’re buried underground like the worm you took your moniker from? You’re the underground man. You’re dead and buried, sunshine. Except there ain’t no sunshine any more. Just dust and darkness. And The Kid can’t believe that’s what you want, Colonel Bogey. He thinks you want to walk in the sunshine.’
‘Not the sunshine. No, not that. The sunshine hurts. Brings on the itch.’
‘And when you itch, you got to scratch. Scratchy and itchy, that’s you. The big itch. The jolly green giant.’
‘You’re confusing me.’
‘I’m confusing myself.’
‘I hate them. They say they worship me, but they keep me down here like, like a, like a … ’
‘Like a bad smell. A toerag. A dirty secret. Mrs Rochester. The mad one in the family.’
‘It’s not right, Kid, I should be shown some respect.’
‘You should, Wormy, you really should.’
‘It’s like this, though. I’ve sort of forgotten who I am.’
‘You’re flotsam and jetsam, squire. You’re on the seabed, sleeping with the fishes. Blind to everything.’
‘I don’t understand a word you’re saying.’
‘The feeling, as my granddad used to say, is mutual. We’re both experts at spouting gibberish, which means we spikka da same lingo, you and me, and neither of us can follow the threads. Ain’t that a laugh? We’ve got to iron some things out.’
‘I’m so, so hungry, Kid. I’ve got to eat. You smell so good. I want to hear the news, but … ’
‘Sit still.’
‘Sorry.’
‘When you’re sitting down again, you can ask away, Wormy.’
‘I’m sitting now.’
‘Good. So what do you want to know?’
‘What’s going on? Tell me what’s going on. It’s so long since I’ve seen a newspaper.’
‘Same as it ever was. Dog eat dog. The cycle of boom and bust.’
‘I could eat a dog, but I’d rather eat you. They bring me dogs sometimes. Tough they are. Perhaps you could sit here? With me. You sound so crunchable.’
‘We’ve got to get to the bottom of this, Wormy. You want to eat me? Well, I’m just a scrap, a gristly morsel, one bite and I’m gone. Poof. Gone with the wind. You will fart me out and sneeze and you will be emptier than you were before.’
‘I need to eat. I need to eat you.’
‘I’m a scrap. All they feed you is scraps. You don’t want scraps, you’re the king underground. The fishing king, fishing for herring and trout, but only catching boots and old bicycles. And shrimps. Which is all I am. Just a shrimp. My very good friend, Sam-i-am, he reckons I’m the smallest of the small. I reckon he’s the smallest. Who knows the answer? Thing is, though, we’re the bottom of the heap, the tiniest, we are plankton.’
‘Plankton? That makes me the whale.’
‘And I am Jonah. Soon to be inside you. Or are we Pinocchio and Gepetto, the two of us, in our boat in the belly of the whale? This cellar with its ribs and arches. Could be a whale, d’you think?’
‘You’re confusing me again. I can’t keep up.’
‘Just go with it, Wormy.’
‘Tell me what’s going on. You said we would take turns. Asking questions.’
‘I did, I did. But it’s my turn now. I ask one, you ask one. You’ve had yours.’
‘Have I? What was my question?’
‘That’s cheating, Wormy, that’s another question.’
‘Sorry. What’s your question then, Kid?’
‘I’ve a riddle for you. What sleeps in a hole and wakes up in hole and spends its day in a hole?’
‘I don’t know. A worm?’
‘Prezackly. A worm. Mister worm king himself, emperor worm. Wormwood. That’s you. You are naught but a worm in a hole.’
‘You’re bamboozling me.’
‘We’re just a couple of old bamboozlers, bamboozling each other in the dark. Now it’s your turn. Next question, worm.’
‘All right. I’ve a riddle for you as well. And if you
don’t answer it I get to eat you.’
‘That doesn’t seem exactly fair.’
‘The world isn’t fair. Have you not noticed? This is my house. My house, my rules. I’m holding all the cards. I could crush you like one of the bugs that used to be my friends.’
‘All right, baldy, keep your hair on. Riddle-me-ree.’
‘He-he-he … Who am I?’
‘Easy, you are the Green Man, the bogeyman, Wormwood, old Wormy, old snotter, crusty snotrag, the jolly green giant, Colonel Bogey, the goblin king in his mountain hall, the Cyclops in his cave, the underground man, emperor worm, Alberich the dwarf, watching over his hoard of gold.’
‘No, who am I really?’
‘The troll under the bridge.’
‘What?’
‘Three billy goats came over your bridge, remember? And you were skulking down under there, up to your arse cheeks in cold water. Warty old troll. And the first billy goat gruff, he was the littlest, he comes trip-trap-trotting over. And what does he say to you?’
‘I know this story.’
‘Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.’
‘I used to tell it to my boys at night.’
‘You had kids, Wormy? Pray tell. I am all ears, like an elephant. I never forget. Tell me once, tell me twice, tell me three times. Then take it to the bridge.’
‘Stop. Stop your babble for a minute. I want to remember … My three boys.’
‘Tell me about it, wormhole, tell me about your three billy goats gruff, the big one, the middle one and the little one. Your three sweet boys.’
‘At night, yes, it’s clear to me now, I remember, I would go to my boys’ bedrooms. Three boys. You’re right. There were three boys. I won’t tell you about the other one. That one came out all wrong. But the boys … I read them stories, and each one grew up and I lost them. I lost them way back there.’
‘Keep going.’
‘Except the youngest. He was still my boy when … when … ’
‘Don’t think on the bad bits, when the sickness came, remember back when they were all three boys.’
‘Yes. Yes, I will. It’s a good memory. You see, at night, I’d read them stories. The oldest first. I’d read him stories at night until he got too old for it … Each Peach Pear Plum, Peepo!, Paddington Bear … and then he grew up, didn’t want me to read to him any more, so there was the next one and the same thing happened. He grew up too. Not the youngest, though. He was always young. Always will be, because I got sick and the world turned upside down, and … ’