‘Are we ready?’ she asked, looking around at the nervous kids who’d gathered there.
‘Course we ain’t,’ said Blue. ‘We never will be.’
Maxie swore to herself. She’d really been hoping that Blue would lie.
43
‘The battle’s on and we are gonna show them what we can do!’
Paddy looked at Achilleus’s spear, sticking straight out from the slice of tree trunk. God – he must have thrown it really hard. It had gone right in. And that old wood, man, it was like iron. Paddy pulled the end of the spear down and let go. It juddered, like twanging a ruler on the edge of your desk, and Paddy enjoyed the noise it made.
‘I’m gonna pull it out,’ he said. ‘Take it back to Akkie. Show him how strong I am.’
‘You’re no way strong enough,’ said Jibber-jabber. ‘You’ll never pull it out. Not in a million years – which is about how old that tree is.’
The other kids laughed. His troop. His team. The kids he was going to lead into battle. And now he had the chance to show them what he was. A hero like his hero, Akkie.
‘Easy’, he said. ‘I am Patrick of the Red Branch Knights. The greatest team of superheroes in Irish legend. I am Cúchulainn, back from the dead, reincarnated in this body!’
‘And I’m Hercules reincarnated,’ said Froggie. ‘He’s come back to life in my body.’ He did a strongman pose, looking to his sister for approval. Zohra laughed. Zohra always laughed at anything Froggie did.
‘I’ll show you,’ said Paddy and he gripped the spear with both hands. All he’d ever wanted was to be tough. He’d grown up in a big family, two brothers and two sisters. He wasn’t the youngest, so he couldn’t be the baby and everyone’s favourite, like Froggie. And he wasn’t the oldest. Couldn’t be the leader of the clan, like his big brother, Daragh. He’d been stuck in the middle, ignored, nothing special. He’d been teased at school for his strong Irish accent. Kids would impersonate him. Teachers would tell him to speak more clearly. He’d wished he had superpowers, that he could suddenly grow bulging muscles and leap up and smash people to the ground. He’d worked out in his room in secret using Daragh’s weights. They’d hurt his arms, but he knew that if he was tough he could be someone.
Not just Akkie’s caddie, carrying his spears around. He’d be a hero like his hero.
Except Achilleus wasn’t going to fight.
He’d kicked Justin out of his room, an old office at the front of the museum, and taken it over. He hardly ever came out. Sat in the dark with the curtains drawn, swearing at anyone who came close.
So now it was up to Paddy to be the hero of the day.
He pulled on the spear. Achilleus had only thrown it at the slice of trunk. It wasn’t like he’d driven it in with a hammer or anything, but it didn’t budge. Not even a millimetre. Paddy realized he was looking like a fool.
‘Come on, superman,’ Froggie shouted. ‘Pull out the spear. Pull out the spear.’
Paddy turned and cursed him, shocking the other kids.
‘Why don’t you pull it out then?’ he said. ‘If you’re so tough. You can’t, can you?’
‘I never said I could,’ Froggie protested.
‘Because you can’t,’ said Paddy.
‘I know.’
‘None of you can.’ Paddy looked around at their faces. ‘Nobody except Achilleus can pull this spear out.’
Yeah, that was it. He loved all the old stories that his dad had told him when he was a kid. His dad had been a poet and a storyteller. He’d told Paddy all the Irish tales, and the Scottish tales, and the African ones, the Welsh, the Indian … even the English ones. Although, every time he did, he’d say, ‘You’ve got to remember, kiddo, that the Irish tales are best.’
Paddy remembered the story of King Arthur. The sword in the stone. That only the rightful king of England could pull it out.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Only Achilleus can pull this out. Because he’s the greatest champion of all. And, when he pulls it out, we’ll win. We’ll defeat the sickos. And I’ll be remembered, and Achilleus will be a hero for all time. Go on!’ he shouted. ‘Any of you. Try it. See if you can pull it out. I’m telling you, you can’t!’
He’d done it now. If any of them did manage to pull the spear out he’d look a right idiot. But he was confident that nobody would. They were all as young as him after all. Jibber-jabber and Wiki tried first. They even both tried pulling on it together. And then Froggie stepped up, for a joke, Zohra clapping and laughing like a mad person.
‘Come on,’ said Paddy. ‘All of you have a go. Maybe one of you is special.’
Next up was The Kid.
‘I’m Bernard Pollard!’ he said proudly.
‘Who’s Bernard Pollard?’ said Paddy.
‘Dunno.’ The Kid shrugged. ‘It just came to me. Sounded like a proper hero’s name.’
‘Bernard Pollard?’
‘All right then,’ said The Kid. ‘Sally Abbey.’
‘Sally Abbey?’
‘Lulu? Twiggy? No! I’m Strongarm MacStrong, the King of Dangerland, brave of heart, and hot of head, and pot of noodles!’
Paddy had no idea what The Kid was on about. He never did. The boy was nuts.
The Kid took hold of the spear and tugged, making an exaggerated straining face, then stepped back.
‘It has defeated me,’ he said. ‘It can’t be done. It’s an impossibility. An improbability. The spear of destiny. The spearmint of gum.’
That only left Small Sam. Everyone was always talking about how Mad Matt thought Sam was some kind of a god. Well, he could prove it now. He could step up and pull that spear right out of there.
‘Go on,’ said Paddy. ‘You’re the chosen one. Grab the spear and lead us all to victory.’
‘I’m not the chosen one,’ said Sam. ‘That’s all just stupid stuff. Matt’s got it all wrong.’
‘But your blood,’ said Zohra. ‘Isn’t there something special in your blood?’
‘Yeah,’ said Froggie. ‘Show us what you can do, Mister Magic Blood. Pull out the spear.’
The others took up a chant – ‘Pull out the spear! Pull out the spear!’
Sam looked embarrassed, but, when it became clear that the only way to get them to shut up was to do what they wanted, he grabbed the spear with both hands and pulled.
Not really making an effort, not expecting it to move …
And of course it didn’t.
Things had all fallen a bit flat, so Paddy fired them up again. That was his job as their leader. Their captain.
‘Nobody can pull it out except the champ,’ he shouted.
‘And what if he doesn’t want to pull it out?’ said Wiki. ‘What then?’
‘He will.’
He had to. Achilleus was Paddy’s hero. And what use was a hero if he shut himself away, not speaking to anyone, not wanting to fight?
If he didn’t come out and fight then he wouldn’t be a hero at all.
44
She’d been told enough times, been to enough meetings where she’d stood up and shouted about how many grown-ups there were out there; she’d watched the new ones arrive on the morning after the blood-red moon, but it was only now, seeing them in the flesh, massed together, that Maxie believed that they were real. An honest-to-God army.
An army on the move.
And she was so scared she wanted to throw up.
She still couldn’t get her head round how many of them there were. It felt like they were going to take over the whole of London.
She couldn’t really remember what it had been like when it all started, a little over a year ago now. So much had happened since then, so many awful, terrifying, disgusting, heartbreaking things. The only way to deal with it was to close your mind down, not talk about it, try to pretend it had never happened.
They’d made it through a year. They’d survived this far. And then everything had changed. She still didn’t really understand why the sickos had all banded together like this, what
they were hoping to do, but it felt like the end. If they couldn’t be stopped there was no way the kids in London were going to be able to hang on here. They’d have to get as far away as they could. But what hope did they have of defeating this horde?
So many. None of the kids had ever had to face an army before.
How could there possibly be enough kids to win this? Even if half of them hadn’t stayed behind at the museum, refusing to fight. The dark mood had even affected the Tower of London kids. If Jordan hadn’t been so scary, and such an effective leader, Maxie thought that quite a few of them would have avoided the fight as well.
Maxie and Blue and their squad were running around the streets, herding the sickos towards Hyde Park, where Jordan was getting his army ready. At least that was the plan. You might as well try to herd an avalanche. Everywhere they turned, everywhere they looked, there were more of them, a huge, dirty, rotting mass of bodies, giving off that God-awful stench and making a horrible shuffling, hissing, murmuring sound as they walked. One mind. One purpose. They were almost marching in step. An ant colony. A swarm of bees. They were intelligent and had no fear of the light.
The kids made no attempt to fight them, to kill any of them. What was the point? What difference would it make taking out one or two? It would just be a massive waste of time. All they could do was watch them, follow them, chart their progress.
And the sickos were arming themselves. Maxie had never seen that before. They would break away from the main mass in ones or twos and become individuals, broken, diseased, maimed, rotting, falling apart, but still somehow functioning. Some would tear up paving slabs, smash them, keep the broken bits of concrete to use as weapons. Others were ripping out iron railings and fence posts and road signs, finding anything they could use to attack with. Breaking into shops, coming out with sports equipment and tools and metal clothes rails.
Maxie watched as one father, his face so eaten away it looked like a bare skull, picked up two pieces of broken glass and held them like daggers, ignoring the blood that flowed down them and dripped on to the ground.
She could hear distant bangs and see smoke rising into the sky. Jordan had built firewalls to try to block off some of the side-streets and contain the sickos.
Was it going to be enough?
The only one tiny good thing about all this was that the sickos were at least heading roughly in the right direction, the direction Jordan wanted them to go, so that he could take them on out in the open.
There was no saying that even if they got to Hyde Park they’d stop there, however. There was no saying what they might do.
Maxie thought back to the day when Small Sam had been kidnapped from the car park behind Waitrose. In her mind that was when it all began to change. The start of this new phase. This new intelligent behaviour.
It hadn’t sunk in back then. She’d been too worried about other things. Worried about what people would think. She was supposed to have been in charge at their camp that day. It was her fault that Sam had been taken. Why hadn’t she been on top of things? Why hadn’t she been more worried about the small kids playing in the car park …?
Because grown-ups never came out during the day.
One or two kids had mentioned it at the time. But it didn’t seem to be such a big deal. It was a freak thing. There were other more important matters to worry about.
But since that day the sickos had changed completely. They’d become this …
This terror.
Trudging relentlessly through the streets.
Towards the park? That was surely just wishful thinking.
And then it struck Maxie that there were other things in that direction. Beyond the park. Like the Natural History Museum. Could that be where they were heading?
Maxie was already exhausted. The stress was wearing her down. It gave her some strength to see Blue nearby. The two of them together. That was important. They were a team. He would look after her and she would look after him. It had been unbearable when he’d gone away on his expedition to Heathrow, and now she wasn’t going to let him out of her sight. She’d become such a pessimist, convinced that everyone she cared about was going to end up dead.
They stopped running. Maxie had lost sight of what they were supposed to be doing. Her legs ached. Her lungs burned. She wasn’t even sure where they were any more. Hoped that somebody in their group knew the way back to the park, to the museum. Blue came over to her, gave her some water.
‘We making any difference?’ Maxie asked and Blue shrugged.
‘We can’t control them, that’s for sure,’ he said. ‘Even if there was more of us. This is nuts. They just gonna go where they wanna go.’
‘We should get back,’ said Maxie, looking around for street names.
‘Back where?’ said Blue.
‘The park, I guess,’ said Maxie. ‘Sooner or later we have to stop arsing around and fight them.’ There was a catch in her voice. Was she tired or did she want to cry?
Blue put his arms round her, and Maxie was reassured by their strength and the warmth of his body. And she realized she was trembling. No – it was him. He leant back and looked her in the eyes.
‘We could just run,’ he said. ‘Turn our backs on all this. You and me, yeah? Get around them and go back up north. What difference are we gonna make? Us two?’
‘Are you serious?’ said Maxie and Blue shrugged again.
‘You must’ve thought it,’ he said.
‘I’m trying not to think at all,’ said Maxie. ‘It’s not just the two of us, though, is it? It’s everyone else, our friends. Every kid in London.’
‘Yeah,’ said Blue and he gave her a wide grin. ‘But it’s a thought, isn’t it? A nice thought. Do away with all this, everyone else, all this hassle. Escape …’
‘Life is hassle,’ said Maxie. ‘You can’t run from it. We go someplace else, we’ll just find something else. Maybe something worse.’
‘What could be worse than this?’ said Blue
‘I have absolutely no sodding idea,’ said Maxie and the two of them laughed.
‘Come on, you lazy slackers!’ Blue yelled at the rest of their group. ‘We got work to do. Let’s get to the park.’ And he winked at Maxie.
‘For a moment there,’ he said quietly, ‘everything felt cool.’
‘It sure did,’ said Maxie. ‘For a moment.’
45
Paddy was marching his troop down the main hall towards the two big doors that led outside. They were formed into two loose ranks and Paddy was shouting orders. Sam wasn’t really listening. Lost in his thoughts. Feeling down again. Thinking of his sister, wondering where she was, fearing that he’d never see her again. The Kid looked at him and took his hand and squeezed it. He was weird, The Kid. In his own words he was half crazy. Most of the babble that came out of his mouth made no sense at all. At least no sense that Sam could see. And yet The Kid knew stuff. And he felt things. He knew when Sam was down and did what he could to lift him up. The Kid was what kept him going. They were a team.
The Kid leant over and whispered in Sam’s ear.
‘I am actually Bernard Pollard,’ he said.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Sam. ‘Is that your real name?’
‘I don’t think so. But the name keeps popping into my head.’
‘OK,’ said Sam.
‘Listen, microbe,’ said The Kid. ‘Don’t wear such a long face and drawers. The sun will come out again, with his hat on, ten shillings and sixpence. He’ll smile at all us Teletubbies. We’ll keep on keeping on. As Gloria Gaylord said, “We will survive.”’
‘If you say so,’ said Sam flatly.
‘Hey, I’m just riffing here, trying to put a smile on you. Them sickos out there, we are going to take them all to Wigan and punt them through the goal posts. The landlord in the sky has a plan for us. He didn’t get us all this way, alive and all, to let us perish like perishing pilchards. We’ll merk them sickos and smirk at the moment. Nice thick gravy.
We’re all just cavemen now. We will paint our story on the walls.’
‘I don’t get you,’ said Sam.
‘Me neither,’ said The Kid. ‘Sometimes I just have to get the words out or they build up inside me and I think I’ll choke on them. I have to say them. Stops me thinking too. Stops me from getting frit.’
‘Frit?’
‘Afraid, a-scared, a-trembling in fright.’
‘Are you scared?’ asked Sam.
‘Holy moly, guacamole. Of course I’m scared. There’s a world of warcraft out there. Old folk on the rampage. By cassocks, revellers and weasels, I’m scared! I hope we can blast them all to kingdom come. And dance a disco dance of triumph.’
‘Silence in the ranks,’ said Paddy and Sam laughed. Where had he got that one from? Silence in the ranks. It was like something from the First World War.
‘We’re gonna show them that even though we’re small we can make a difference,’ said Paddy. ‘We’ll show those sickos.’
‘You’re showing no one nothing, Paddy!’ Everyone stopped. Whitney was blocking the doors, arms folded, weight on one leg, one eyebrow raised. Sam liked Whitney. She could be really, really scary, but she was also one of the kindest of the big kids. She spent ages with Sam and his friends, making sure they were happy, making sure they were eating, washing, looking after themselves. And now she was going to make sure they didn’t fight. Sam had been praying that this would happen. He’d heard the big kids talking. Knew that they’d been letting Paddy play at being a soldier, but there was no way they were going to allow this bunch of squirts to go wandering on to the battlefield to get trampled underfoot.
And Sam was glad Whitney hadn’t forgotten. He never wanted to fight again.
‘You can’t tell us what to do,’ said Paddy. ‘I’m in charge here. I’m the officer.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m your commander-in-chief,’ said Whitney. ‘You ain’t going out there, Paddy. This fight ain’t for you.’