The Sacrifice

  ‘No. No, I don’t want to. You’re right. I’m sorry. I want to talk to you about the old days, the good old days, the TV and the bedtime stories and the Christmas tree, my three boys, stars in the sky and the big green all around, back there with the bugs and the bats, thinking that was the whole world. Oh yes. Things happened, but we got together and promised not to tell, and we raised the twisted children in secret. And … and everything went wrong. The sickness got in me from the start, I think, and it got in the bugs, and then it got in the men, and they came blinking out of the jungle and the sickness came over the sea and it got in me, and I became the Green Man.’

  ‘You’re losing me, Doctor Green. And I was already lost.’

  ‘It’s important I remember. Good blood will force out bad.’

  ‘You know, Wormy,’ said The Kid, ‘you’re really telling all this to the wrong person. I won’t remember but one word of it and that’ll be the wrong word. Toblerone. I like the stuff about you and the boys and the stories. The other stuff … Save it for the judge. You and me, right now, we need to concentrate on getting the hell out of here.’

  49

  ‘Well, I guess I’m just stupid,’ said the boy in the policeman’s helmet. ‘I should have stayed at St Paul’s with Matt. All that food he’s got there. It’s a survivalist’s dream come true.’

  ‘Where’d it all come from?’ Ed asked.

  ‘Maybe it was something to do with the government hoarding stuff when the disease started? Making sure they kept the City of London going, like in a war or something, you know?’

  The boy, Bozo, had been telling Ed all about Matt’s secret store of supplies, his ‘Tree of Life’. Bozo was a couple of years younger than Ed and the helmet he was wearing was several sizes too big for him, so that it fell over his ears.

  ‘Or maybe Matt was right,’ he went on. ‘Maybe it was a gift from the gods. But it’s definitely what’s keeping him going. I couldn’t stick it any longer, though. “Blah, blah, blah, the Lamb did this, blah, blah, blah, the Lamb did that, there will be endless weeping and sorrow, blah-di-blah-di-blah.”’

  ‘But how do they protect it from grown-ups?’ Ed asked.

  ‘They built a wall, blocked up all the roads, so no oppoes can get close.’

  Bozo drew a circle on Ed’s map with his finger, ringing the cathedral. The two of them were sitting in a great Gothic porch at the front of the Houses of Parliament. The rest of Ed’s group were waiting nearby, all except for Adele who was playing a game with some of the younger kids. Small children seemed to be drawn to her, and their game involved a lot of running up and down a long corridor and screaming. Seeing Adele like this, a blur of happy pink, it was hard to imagine that less than two hours ago she’d been smashing in the skulls of deranged sickos with her club.

  The others were sitting eating the rations they’d brought with them. Nicola hadn’t offered them any food and Ed hadn’t asked for any. It wasn’t up to her to feed every open mouth that tipped up on her doorstep. Food was precious. People fought over food. That’s why Matt was on to such a good thing with his ‘Tree of Life’.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Bozo. ‘Matt may be mad, but he in’t stupid. Not like me. I could still be there, growing nice and fat on all that food or, even better, at Buckingham Palace. Yeah. Used to live there too. David’s like Matt, got it all sorted out – food, water, security. But like the moron I am, I came here. Now I get to vote on everything and listen to speeches and, you know what? It’s nearly as boring as Matt’s sermons. I’m just too stupid to look for something better.’

  ‘Yeah, OK.’ Ed tried to stop him banging on. ‘Can we stick to the cathedral? I need to get there, but there’s grown-ups out on all the streets and now you reckon there’s a wall as well. Could we get over it?’

  ‘If you knew the right spot, but you’d have to fight through oppoes all the way to get there. Matt’s kids know the ways in and out, the barriers you can climb over, the buildings you can go through. You’d be chancing it going in blind, probably wind up as an oppo’s breakfast. No. If you were cleverer than you looked you’d go along the South Bank.’

  Bozo indicated the route on the map, running his fingers along the opposite side of the Thames.

  Ed slowly shook his head. ‘It’s a mess over there,’ he said. ‘Not somewhere we ever go. The fire turned it all upside down.’

  ‘It’s not so bad … ’

  A loud bark followed by an outbreak of snarling and yelping distracted the two of them. Ryan’s hunting dogs were chained up nearby, one of his boys guarding them. Bozo was on gate duty this afternoon, which is why Ed had brought his team down there to talk to him.

  Ryan’s hunter soothed the dogs and looked over apologetically to where Ed and Bozo were sheltering from the rain that had just started to fall.

  Ed returned his attention to the map.

  ‘Are you sure the South Bank’s passable?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s the way to go,’ said Bozo. ‘No kids live in the ruins, so there’s no oppoes around to prey on them. Unless they’re still coming up from the south it’s usually pretty quiet over there. It wouldn’t be too hard to get right the way along the river until you were opposite St Paul’s.’

  ‘I get it.’ Ed was now tracing the route himself. ‘Then we come back over one of the bridges down that way, but we’d still have to deal with the wall.’

  Bozo jabbed a finger at a line on the map. ‘Not if you use the Wobbly Bridge.’

  ‘Why the Wobbly Bridge?’

  ‘It’s one of their ways in and out. They’ve blocked it at the south end, but you can easily climb over the barricade. The cathedral kids go foraging over the river sometimes, for furniture and stuff, materials for the wall. There’s still stuff there; it’s not all completely burnt out if you know where to look.’

  ‘So Matt’s got the wall, what about other defences?’ Ed asked. ‘Does he have soldiers?’

  ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose. Are they any good?’

  ‘Good enough. I mean, he’s not big on fighting. With the Tree of Life, they hardly ever need to go outside the wall, but the cathedral is still surrounded by oppoes. That part of London is nuts.’

  ‘Yeah, don’t I know it.’

  There was the stamp of boots and the rattle of metal on leather as Ryan brought his hunters out of the building. They’d been fed, because they provided something useful. They were a combined security and messenger service for Nicola.

  Ed stood up and slapped palms with Ryan. ‘You sure you don’t want to come with us?’ he asked.

  ‘Nah, sorry, mate.’ Ryan hawked up a big gob of phlegm and spat it out on to the floor of the porch, then pulled down his mask. Ed realized with a jolt that it was made from a dried-out human face.

  ‘I told you my dogs won’t go in there,’ Ryan said. ‘And if my dogs won’t go I won’t go.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  Again Ed didn’t blame him. It wasn’t his fight.

  ‘Can I ask you something, Ryan?’

  ‘Yeah, what?’

  ‘We saw a few grown-ups acting weird today. Standing really still with their arms stretched out, like choirboys who’d had their song sheets snatched away.’

  ‘Yeah, I know what you mean,’ said Ryan. ‘We seen some too lately. Remind me of the dogs. When a dog sees its prey, it goes all stiff and, like, raises one front leg, sticking its nose out.’ He mimed the action, tensed and alert. ‘Is called pointing. That’s what they are, those frozen bastards, they’re pointers.’

  Ed smiled. ‘Yeah, pointers. That does it for me.’ He looked over to where the rain was spattering on to the road. ‘You any idea what it’s like out there now?’

  ‘We just had a look from up top,’ said Ryan. ‘Seems pretty quiet. You going back into the badlands?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘Good luck, soldier.’ Ryan gave a dark laugh. ‘I’ll see you in hell.’

  50

  ‘OK, it’s like this.?
?? Ed pulled his hood up to cover his head. ‘We’ve got to go back into the zone. But thanks to Bozo here we have a safer route. I won’t pretend it’s going to be any better than it was before, though. So if any of you want to duck out I’ll say it again, it’s not a problem. I can’t order any of you to do this.’

  ‘Can we just go,’ said Adele, pushing past him. ‘You know, without thinking about it too much?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Macca. ‘We’ve come this far, we ain’t gonna just abandon you now, are we, Ed? And on top of everything else we’re going to get well wet. So the quicker we get this over with, the better.’

  Ryan’s squad was out in the rain getting their dogs ready. The animals had gone into a frenzy of happy barking and tail wagging. Bozo opened the gates for them and watched as they trooped out.

  ‘I wish they were coming with us,’ said Adele, standing in the rain. She wasn’t dressed for bad weather, and her pink glittery clothes were already starting to look a bit sad.

  ‘We’ll be OK,’ said Will and walked out to join her. The rest of them followed. They said goodbye to Bozo at the gate, hunched their shoulders against the rain and trudged out into the road.

  As they rounded the end of the Houses of Parliament, Ed turned right, towards Westminster Bridge. Kyle fell in beside him.

  ‘So, boss,’ he asked. ‘What do we do if Sam’s there? Do we take him back to the Tower? Or we got to come all the way into town again?’

  Ed adjusted his hood. ‘No more plans,’ he said. ‘We’ll just take things as they come.’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  The bridge looked clear. There were no more sickos coming across for now.

  ‘Hey,’ said Kyle, when they were about halfway to the other side. There were views both ways along the river and he had only just taken in where they were. ‘Does this make you feel all gooey inside?’

  ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘This is close to where we first met, boyfriend.’ Kyle laughed and pointed upriver. ‘We got on the ferry over there. This could even be our anniversary.’

  It was true. The last time Ed had been up this way was a year ago, trying to escape the fire. They’d got bottled up at the next bridge along, Lambeth Bridge, and had been forced into a pitched battle with a horde of sickos who’d been driven there by the flames. Ed had found himself fighting alongside Kyle, who’d been armed with a garden fork. In the end they’d escaped downriver on a tourist boat and he remembered with a stab of anger Matt causing it to crash into a bridge and sink.

  He wondered how he was going to react when he saw Matt again. Wondered what he might be doing to Sam and The Kid. Ed had thought that the threat to Sam was from grown-ups, not children. He felt sick that he’d wasted half a day getting into town.

  Matt. He’d been trouble ever since he got carbon-monoxide poisoning in Rowhurst. A big part of Ed wanted to just go in there and cut him down. Kill him on the spot.

  He had to get there first, though, didn’t he? It wasn’t over yet.

  They were exposed to all the weather could throw at them crossing the bridge. The others pulled on hats and caps and flipped up hoods to keep the rain off, but it trickled down their necks and slowly soaked their clothes.

  ‘Beats washing them,’ said Kyle with a big happy grin. ‘We’re using God’s laundrette.’

  Ed grunted and wiped water from his face. ‘Don’t know how you can be so bloody cheerful.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Kyle, turning his own face up to catch more rain on it. ‘Life is good.’

  ‘Life is crap.’

  ‘This is the first shower I’ve had in over a year,’ said Kyle. ‘Washing don’t seem so important now, does it?’

  ‘Not if you don’t mind stinking.’

  ‘Which I don’t,’ said Kyle and he gave a dirty laugh. ‘I don’t have to worry about that no more, don’t have to worry about nothing. Like using deodorant. And not just any deodorant. Oh no. You had to use the right deodorant, didn’t you? If you didn’t smell of the right deodorant you’d be laughed at. Remember? Everything had to be right. You had to wear the right label jeans. I never knew which was the right label, did I? Changed all the time and I always seemed to get it wrong. “Oh, Kyle, nobody wears Ecko jeans any more, you loser.” Well, now I can wear whatever jeans I like and I can wear them every day if I want. “Oh, Kyle, gross, you were wearing those jeans yesterday, you bum.” These days we got a better idea what’s important. This is a much easier life.’

  ‘What d’you mean, life’s easier? Are you nuts?’

  ‘I never had days like this before,’ said Kyle. ‘This has been a fine day.’

  Ed made a dismissive noise, but Kyle ignored him and ploughed on.

  ‘Man, I was getting so bored at the Tower,’ he said. ‘This is good.’

  Ed couldn’t hold it in. ‘It’s been hell, Kyle,’ he spluttered. ‘We nearly all got killed or didn’t you notice?’

  ‘Yeah, but we didn’t get busted, did we?’ said Kyle. ‘We knocked some heads. We did something. It was a blast.’

  ‘I don’t see on what level you can count what happened today as fun,’ Ed protested.

  ‘You see, that’s where we’re different, you and me,’ said Kyle. ‘Before all this I bet you was well happy.’

  Ed thought about this for a moment.

  ‘I suppose I was.’

  ‘Your life was well sorted, man. You had a nice family, a nice school, you was clever and good-looking, confident.’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Not me,’ said Kyle. ‘I was never happy. Felt like I was carrying a world of shit around on my back. That’s why I say life’s easier now. There’s not so many decisions to make.’

  ‘It’s like a bloody horror film, Kyle. What are you talking about?’

  ‘No, hear me out, man. I weren’t happy at all before all this. Life was confusing. I was a right miserable sod. Always in trouble, didn’t get on at school, couldn’t get my head round lessons, didn’t see the point. Always behind. Trying to catch up. Well, not really trying that hard as it goes. Used to hang out with the losers, the troublemakers, the idiots. They didn’t expect nothing of me. I felt like a zero. My mum always wanted me to do good at school. I let her down.

  ‘I was OK at primary school, I guess. That wasn’t so bad until Year Five, Year Six. We did tests, exams, you know, what d’you call them? SATs and that. Then a lot of my friends, I realized they was cleverer than me, they was gonna do better at secondary school than me. I was OK at football and that, but never brilliant. I was good at art, used to like drawing battle scenes on giant sheets of paper with hundreds of little men, and tanks, and robots, and helicopters. It ain’t easy drawing a helicopter. Teachers used to say why couldn’t I draw something nice?

  ‘The one other thing I was good at was fighting. That was what made things OK. I could batter someone and for a while I was the big man. Never lasted, though. Soon I was back being a miserable loser. Then, when I’ve gone to secondary school, I couldn’t get it on. Was behind in lessons even before they started. I was taken over by these black moods, man. Right down in the pit. Mum made me see a therapist.

  ‘You’re the first person I’ve ever told this to, Ed, and you were the sort of kid I hated at school, the sort I wanted to kill. And if you tell anyone else I saw a therapist I will cut your head off and shove it up your arse. I mean it. Nobody at the time knew. But the thing was, Mum was right, I was depressed. I mentioned to a doctor once that I sometimes had proper dark thoughts. You know. Of killing myself. A lot of kids do, I reckon. Or did. They don’t really mean it, just want to, you know, like, DO SOMETHING. Shake things up. I used to have these dark fantasies of taking a samurai sword, or a machine gun, into school and mowing everyone down, all the clever kids, the smug bastards like you who never had to worry about nothing. I’d give them something to worry about. Brap-brap-brap. Then I’d blow myself up. Go out in glory. Be remembered forever. That’d show the world. Never did, of course, never would have done, but I
had these fantasies and they used to cheer me up.

  ‘I couldn’t ever settle, Ed. Felt uncomfortable in myself. Didn’t know who I was. Struggled to read. Dyslexia. Well, that don’t matter now, does it? The only books I could get on with were war stories. True life stories. And I used to wish that there would be another war and I could be a soldier. I was jealous of the guys in the books, in the Second World War, because their lives were simple. You’re in the army. People tell you what to do. You go out there and do it. Simple. They feed you. They look after you. You’re away from home. From all that real-life crap. Your mum has a go at you, your girlfriend, you got an excuse – “Hey, I’m saving your ass here, leave me be.”

  ‘War is easy. It’s kill or be killed. You don’t have to worry about all the annoying little things that go on in the world, back home – dealing with friendships, who likes who, who said what, putting up with my mum, who was depressed herself, to be fair, worried about money and she took a lot of drugs. That whole boring, difficult, real-life stuff, paying bills and buying the right clothes and learning crap. None of that matters in a war.

  ‘I used to dream this was coming, a war or a big disaster, the zombie apocalypse, whatever. Then I could survive, be a hero, get a gun and hole up in a shack in the mountains, blasting away at anything that moved. I had a zombie survival plan all written up. Yeah. This was the simple life I dreamt of. I prayed that all this would happen some day. And you know what? My dream came true. Kill or be killed. Hunt for your food. Kill the enemy. Nothing else to worry about. Simples. I’m a fighter now, a good fighter, so people respect me. I got status, Ed, I got respect. And nothing to worry about. Let it all come down, I say. I don’t want to go back to what them kids back there in Big Ben was doing – making life complicated. Boring. I just want to be able to go on doing what I’m good at – knocking sickos into the ground. I can make my mark. Show the world I’m a player.’

  ‘You really used to hate people like me?’ Ed asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Kyle. ‘And I bet you hated people like me.’