The End

  Ben and Bernie were both armed with clubs, Jackson had insisted on it, but they weren’t fighters.

  ‘We’ll find out what we’re up against,’ said Jackson. ‘But if there’s too many of them we’ll get out fast and come back with a proper fighting unit.’

  ‘How many’s too many?’ asked Ben.

  ‘Like, one,’ said Bernie.

  ‘I’ll let you know,’ said Jackson. ‘But if I start running you get right behind me.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Bernie. ‘We’ll be in front.’

  Jackson followed her nose and her instinct and they slowly, slowly, moved through the museum. They passed a display of computers and an ancient Mini that had been cut in half to show its workings, a porcelain bowl rescued from Hiroshima after the first atomic bomb dropped …

  She had to admit she felt nervous, not so much for herself but for the other two. She didn’t want to be responsible for losing their engineers. If it kicked off big time they wouldn’t be as fast as her, despite what Bernie had said. The emos had made it this far without coming to any harm, so they couldn’t be completely hopeless, but, even so, she wished she’d brought along more backup.

  What she really wished was that she could have brought Achilleus along. Perfect excuse. No. She had to stop thinking about that boy. He was bad news. Arrogant, rude, ugly. Why was she so attracted to those types? The bad ones. Was it that she thought the nice, good-looking ones wouldn’t be interested in her? Except Achilleus wasn’t interested in her either. Good joke. She’d keep on trying, though. It had driven her mother spare, the boys she came home with. One had been four years older than her and had stolen her mum’s purse.

  ‘You are not to see him again!’

  Jackson had always ignored anything her mother had to say. She’d been a bit of a bitch to her, if you wanted the God’s own truth. And after Dad had left home her mum hadn’t ever really had any control over her. The harder she’d tried to put Jackson in pretty dresses and get her to grow her hair long, the more Jackson had dressed like a boy and cut her hair short. She did it herself in the bathroom mirror with a pair of scissors. She’d always fancied getting a razor cut like Achilleus; maybe she’d ask him to do one for her.

  Concentrate, girl. Mind on the matter.

  ‘There.’ Jackson stopped and pointed at an Apollo rocket capsule.

  Something had made a nest in there. There was movement. Whatever it was – and Jackson had a pretty good idea what that might be – it appeared to be sleeping.

  She carefully checked out the nearby area. Seemed all clear. You could never be too careful, though.

  ‘We’re going to scare it out,’ she said.

  ‘Are we?’ said Bernie.

  ‘You know you asked how many was too many?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘This isn’t it. This I can handle. Best to get it now while we’ve got it cornered.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  Jackson could see both kids shaking. The emos were scared. She was scared. It never went away.

  ‘What do we do?’ said Bernie.

  ‘Like I said. Scare it out. Wake the mother up.’

  Ben and Bernie started to bang on the sides of the pod. At last a head appeared at the open door, confused more than dangerous. It was a mother, with a puffy, swollen head, all her hair missing, most of her teeth – which they saw when she opened her mouth wide at them, half a yawn, half a silent snarl – one eye gone and half her nose. She crawled out from her nest. She had a big upper body but shrivelled, skinny legs that could hardly support her. Her arms had swollen up like balloons. She was a balloon animal with deflated legs.

  Luckily she appeared to be alone. Abandoned. She limped and shuffled towards Jackson, mouth stretching open and closed, open and closed. She stank. All she had on was some filthy underwear, unchanged in a year, and her body was a mess. Jackson didn’t want to look at her any longer than she had to.

  Jackson didn’t want to touch her either, if she could help it. Didn’t want to have to heave her horrible, diseased body outside and dump it in some far back alley to rot in peace.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, beckoning to the mother. ‘Come to Jackson. There’s a good mother. Follow me.’

  As she backed away, spear held out at the ready, she called over to the emos.

  ‘Check the pod for any more of them.’

  They moved in quickly, prodding and poking around.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Then let’s get out of here. We’re going to walk this lady into the courtyard where we can get some help to deal with her.’

  ‘We’re with you.’

  They went back down the length of the galleries, the mother blinking in the light from the tall windows at the end of the building. But still she came on, a rope of saliva slowly lowering from her mouth, swaying from side to side as she walked. Ben and Bernie followed along behind, keeping a safe distance from her, but prodding her if she stopped.

  Jackson made her way to the door that led outside. She wasn’t sure the mother would want to go out into the daylight so once she’d opened the door she switched places with Ben and Bernie. They went out as bait and she persuaded the mother to follow them by sticking the point of her spear into her back, causing little buttons of blood to well up.

  At last the mother stumbled out and stood there in the courtyard between the two museums, shrinking from the sun, screwing up her face. Blisters were already starting to appear on her forehead. She was burning easily.

  ‘She needs to put some sunblock on,’ said Bernie and she giggled with relief. There were other kids around and already some were walking over to see what was going on.

  There was a small group of younger kids over by the chicken runs, holding back. Some bigger kids were hanging round the lorry where Einstein had kept the captive sickos he used for his experiments. Before they’d got out and caused havoc in the library, that is.

  Jackson called over to the younger kids. ‘Get inside. We’ve got a live sicko here.’

  The little kids didn’t need to be told twice, but two of the older ones from the lorry joined a group that was approaching.

  ‘Give me a hand here,’ Jackson shouted to them. ‘We need to kill this mother.’

  ‘No, wait!’ said one of the kids. ‘We need sickos. Can you get her on to the lorry?’

  ‘Not without some help.’

  ‘I’ll round up a team. How many do you need?’

  ‘The more the merrier.’

  ‘No prob. Keep her here and don’t damage her if you can.’

  Damage her? Jackson hated sickos. Killed them whenever she had the opportunity, but she had to admit she felt almost sorry for this one. How much pain must she be in, her body wrecked and ruined like that? And now she was going to be held captive like an animal. Einstein would take her blood, inject her with stuff and generally use her like a lab monkey.

  ‘Are they sure about this?’ said Ben, staring at the mother, who was whimpering and cringing from the sun.

  ‘Nothing to do with me,’ said Jackson. ‘You said it. I’m just a warrior. I’m not an engineer like you, and I’m certainly not a scientist like Einstein. It was down to me I’d put her out of her misery. But it’s not. She’s Einstein’s baby now. Once she’s safely locked up on the lorry I’ll take a crew in and we’ll make a proper sweep of the Science Museum. And after that …? The future’s all yours.’

  14

  This guy, Saif, was slumped in a big armchair like he was some doomed king sitting in his throne on the cover of a fantasy novel. His long, curly black hair was hanging down around his dark face which wore an expression that was presumably meant to be brooding and slightly menacing but came across as grumpy and just a little stupid.

  He was eyeing up Shadowman and Jester. Had been for some time. Being dramatic, theatrically stringing out the wait. Jester was trying not to laugh.

  ‘So you’re back,’ Saif said at last, fixing his eyes on Shadowman.

  They were
in the main living quarters inside IKEA. The local kids had used all the furniture here to make a recognizable sort of home, and this more open, central area was done out like a throne room.

  ‘I’m back,’ said Shadowman. ‘And this is … someone who’s come with me.’ Jester smiled. Shadowman couldn’t bring himself to describe him as his friend.

  ‘Someone who’s come with you?’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Jester, putting on his most open smile. ‘Shadowman’s told me all about you.’

  Indeed, he had. He’d told Jester all about how he’d brought one of Saif’s fighters back here after he was wounded by St George’s army. How he’d tried to warn Saif about St George and how Saif had ignored him and attacked the grown-ups anyway. Like Jester, he hadn’t believed that ‘zombies’, as he called them, could get organized.

  And then Shadowman had told Jester how he’d watched the whole thing unfold from a vantage point high up on a crane. Watched Saif’s guys being massacred. Hadn’t even been sure whether Saif himself had got away.

  Well, he had. And here he was. Large as life.

  ‘What did he tell you about me?’ Saif said.

  ‘He told me what a great set-up you have here,’ said Jester. ‘What awesome fighters you are.’ Jester was good at this sort of thing. Diplomacy. Shadowman had agreed to leave him to it.

  ‘You got a name?’ Said asked.

  ‘Most people call me Jester.’

  ‘That right?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Well, “Jester”, did he also tell you how we didn’t listen to him?’

  ‘He did, yeah. He saw what happened to you actually.’

  ‘That right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And he’s come back to rub it in, has he? “I told you so,” and all that crap?’

  ‘No,’ said Jester. ‘Not at all. He’s come back to offer you revenge, as it goes.’

  ‘Revenge on what?’

  ‘Revenge on the zombies who killed your friends.’

  ‘You two are an army, are you? You some kind of superman, Jester? You gonna take them down all by yourself?’

  ‘No,’ said Jester. ‘But there are lots of kids in the centre of town. And they all want the same thing as you.’

  ‘That right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Shadowman. Jester could see that he was growing impatient. ‘That’s right.’

  Jester read the situation. Saif had shown himself to be a fool last time. Hadn’t listened to Shadowman. And now he was trying to save face. Shadowman was running out of patience. Perhaps the time for diplomacy was over.

  ‘We can make our own army,’ said Shadowman, ‘and destroy St George once and for all.’

  ‘We’ve been keeping spies on them,’ said another boy, and Shadowman nodded at him in a friendly way.

  ‘You all right, Dan?’ he said.

  ‘I’m cool.’

  Shadowman had told Jester that Dan had been about the only kid here who’d been nice to him, after Shadowman has rescued Dan’s friend, Johnny.

  ‘So you know they’ve stopped moving?’ said Shadowman.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Dan. ‘They been camped up in Kilburn cemetery for days now. They ain’t going nowhere.’

  ‘They will, though,’ said Shadowman. ‘When they’re ready.’

  ‘Yeah?’ said Saif, with a sneer. ‘You know that, do you? Oh, I forgot. You close with them suckers. You almost one of them.’

  ‘I know them,’ said Shadowman. ‘And, yeah, maybe I will rub it in just a little bit. You behaved like an arsehole last time, Saif; you completely ignored me. I was right, and you were wrong. That’s the truth. I’m surprised they let you stay in charge, to be honest. How many of your people did you get killed?’

  Saif jumped up from his chair and stalked over to Shadowman. He ended up about a centimetre away, eyeballing him, trying to make him back down. Jester would have lasted five seconds. Shadowman didn’t even blink.

  ‘Well, I am in charge here,’ said Saif. ‘Was never any argument. Because there’s no one better.’

  ‘In that case you’re gonna be smart enough to listen to me this time,’ said Shadowman. ‘You show me some respect, I’ll show you some.’

  Shadowman held his hand out to Saif. Saif stared down at it for a long moment, then laughed and shook it hard and quick.

  ‘What you want from me, hard man?’ he said.

  ‘Right now St George is waiting for something,’ said Shadowman. ‘He’s not given up. He’s growing stronger. Getting ready. I just know that when he’s ready he’s gonna make his move.’

  ‘And do what?’

  ‘That I don’t know. But I hope that before he does we’ve got time to unite all the kids in London. To create our own army and be ready to take him on.’

  ‘And where do I come in?’

  ‘There may be things that come up and we’ll need your help, but for now I want you to carry on doing what you’re doing. Keep watch on him. And when he does move I want you to come into town and tell us. And then I want you to stand next to us. Stand up and fight them.’

  15

  ‘Come on, line up straight. You don’t look like soldiers, you look like a useless bunch of little kids.’

  Wiki giggled. ‘I don’t mean to disrespect you, Paddy,’ he said. ‘But we are a bunch of little kids.’

  ‘You won’t be when I’ve finished with you,’ said Paddy. He hated his troop talking back to him. ‘We’re going to lead the children’s crusade and help wipe the sickos off the planet.’

  He was strutting up and down in front of the ragged line of kids, waving one of Akkie’s spears around. Trying to act like an officer. Trying to kick them into shape. His troop. The troop he called the Youngbloods.

  His dog was sitting patiently nearby, watching him as he walked up and down, her tongue hanging out. It was a warm day.

  For now he was calling her Bright Eyes, because most of the others refused to call her Ripper. When he thought of a better name for her, he’d change it.

  Standing in the front line of his troop were Sam and The Kid, then Yo-Yo, and Zohra with her little brother, Froggie. Then Jibber-jabber and Wiki and Blu-Tack Bill. Behind them, in a second rank, were some of the other kids who’d come from Holloway and a bunch of the smaller kids from the museum. They were twenty in all, and none of them were any good at being soldiers. Blu-Tack Bill was the worst. He had no interest in drilling or fighting, or even standing still. He kept wandering off or sitting down. Paddy had got quite cross with him at first and shouted at him several times. Once he’d realized it wasn’t going to make any difference, and that nothing he said or did was going to make Bill keep in step with everyone else, he’d just been ignoring him.

  The Kid was probably the keenest, but that didn’t make him the best. Somehow he got everything wrong or misunderstood or took it the wrong way, and the harder he tried, the keener he was, the worse he got. Paddy was ignoring him now as well. The thing was – Paddy didn’t really know what he was doing himself. He tried to give orders, but he’d only picked them up from watching war films and playing computer games. He didn’t really know what most of the commands meant and he kept forgetting how he’d used them before, and ended up giving the same command to mean something completely different. He just hoped the troop didn’t notice.

  He got them marching, shouting things at them like ‘assume the position’, ‘blue on blue’, ‘present arms’, ‘extraction point’, ‘watch your six’ and ‘fubar’.

  ‘Can’t we just do some fighting?’ Sam asked when they stopped for a rest. ‘Drilling’s boring and a waste of time. What difference does it make if we can march in step with each other? Or put our spears on our shoulders at the same time? That won’t help us in a battle.’

  ‘It’s all about discipline, soldier,’ said Paddy. ‘It’s about making you obey orders quickly without having to think.’

  ‘But if a grown-up’s attacking me I can’t wait for an order to defend myself. I’ll just do
it, surely? And anyway the orders don’t make any sense. Eyes right and slope arms and fire in the hole. What we need to learn is how to use our weapons properly.’

  ‘All right, all right. We’ll do that. We’ll do some more drilling tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ said Wiki. ‘You mean we’ve got to do this every day?’

  ‘Of course we’ve got to do this every day. How else are you going to learn to be soldiers otherwise?’

  ‘Actually I don’t really want to be a soldier,’ said Wiki.

  ‘Me neither,’ said Jibber-jabber. ‘It’s boring.’

  ‘But we’re going to fight now.’

  ‘Fighting’s boring too.’

  ‘I like fighting,’ said The Kid. ‘The old one two, in out in, snickersnee, snickers bar, have at thee, varlet, I regret that I have but one life to give, they don’t like it up ’em, Ken clean-air system, whammo!’ The Kid illustrated this outburst by throwing some fighting moves and fake punches that scared no one.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Paddy. ‘What he said. Probably. Let’s do it then. Fall in!’

  Nobody moved.

  ‘I’m really confused now,’ said Sam. ‘I can’t remember what we’re supposed to do when you shout “fall in”, and the more you shout it, the less sense it makes.’

  They were outside the museum, over to the west side, in front of the new extension. Sam could see the huge white concrete pod thing behind its high glass wall, and right up there at the top was where Einstein and his team of scientists were trying to find a cure for the disease.

  Sam had been really freaked out when the Green Man had said that he was the one who would save them, that he had something in his blood that could fight the disease. The Green Man said he could smell it. Had known it from the start. Sam had never wanted to be special, never wanted to be different. All he wanted was to find Ella and for the two of them to be safe together. Other kids looked at him funnily now, and he knew the older ones, the fighters, were trying to protect him. Einstein had taken some of his blood. He hadn’t liked that at all. He didn’t like needles. He didn’t like blood, even though he’d seen buckets of it this past year. And worse. Somehow it was different when it was your own. Einstein had made very sure everything was clean and sterilized and used a load of antiseptic and a brand-new needle. Sam had no idea what they were going to do with his blood, but they were up there now, working away.