He’d certainly made that clear the night before. I remembered him turning to me in the village with all the police running amok, killing anyone they came across, and saying, “Find somewhere to hide.” Until someone came and cut my head off or set me on fire. That was as much as he cared about me.
“Where are we going in London?” Jamie asked.
I wanted to know too. Part of me had always wanted to see the capital but at the same time I dreaded it. Miss Keyland had occasionally talked about London. She had shown us pictures of red buses and Piccadilly Circus and the Houses of Parliament. We all knew about the ninth of May, when the terror came. But she had never shown us what had happened next. It was as if she didn’t want us to know what remained.
“You’ll see when you get there,” the Traveller replied. “Don’t expect me to talk about it.”
“St Meredith’s is surrounded,” Jamie said. “And the door isn’t even working.”
“How do you know that?”
“Matt told me. Can the Nexus get me there?”
“Yes.”
“All right. But I’m the one who’s going to tell you when we break in.”
The Traveller looked at Jamie with something close to a scowl. “And how will you know when’s the right time?” he asked.
“I just will.”
The Traveller was going to argue but then he thought better of it. “All right. You’re the boss.”
Was he? I wasn’t actually sure who was in charge. It was the Traveller’s boat. He was the one who had made all the calls so far. He had decided where to stop and even what we were going to eat. But there was something about Jamie that I hadn’t noticed before. Somehow, he seemed stronger than ever. The Traveller was twice his size and probably twice his age. But he was only here for Jamie. We both were, really. He and the Five … that was all that mattered.
We cleared the stuff away and set off again. The Traveller turned a key to start the Lady Jane‘s engine and he must have looked after it well during all those years as it kicked in at once. Jamie and I untied the ropes. We had to push the boat out and then jump on without falling into the river – not as easy as it sounded what with the banks being so uneven.
The landscape opened out on the other side of the bridge, which wasn’t such good news because suddenly the Lady Jane stuck out … you could have seen it for miles. The fog had lifted too. I could see a few scattered buildings, old barns and sheds that might once have belonged to farms but there was nothing moving; no animals, no people. We passed a tractor, rusting, with grass sprouting out of the wheels, then a tangle of barbed wire, then a wall of old tyres. In the books that I had read when I was growing up, the English countryside was somewhere beautiful to visit and to have adventures. You got the impression that the sun was always shining. Well, it wasn’t now. Everything looked hostile and abandoned.
“There it is!” the Traveller called out and pointed and, about a quarter of a mile away, I saw the lock that would take us off the river and into the canals that would in turn lead to London. Again, I’d seen locks in books but I never thought I’d go through one. The canal led between two narrow walls. There was a gate at each end, which had to be opened and closed. The one on our side was open so we would be able to cruise in to what was effectively a deep, rectangular box. Close the gate, fill the inside with water and we would slowly float up. There was a flat surface with a dilapidated house that must have once belonged to the lock keeper, and once we were level with it and the gates were opened we would be able to motor out again, heading south. I did wonder why the lock was called Four Ways, though. You could go left or right along the river or you could head off up the canal. But there was also a track leading across the fields, so maybe that was the fourth direction they had in mind.
The Traveller had wondered whether the lock would still be working. I hoped so. I didn’t like the idea of walking all the way to London. Shouldn’t this secret society, the Nexus, have been looking after the canals? After all, it had always been part of the plan to use them.
“Look…!” This time it was Jamie who had spoken and there was an edge to his voice that told me straight away that he wasn’t going to point out a pretty tree or flowers. He was looking up and, with a sense of unease, I tried to work out what it was that he had seen.
There was nothing. I certainly couldn’t see any helicopters heading our way – anyway, I’d have heard them first. The sky was empty except for a dark cloud, which made me think it was going to rain. But Jamie had definitely seen something. As we cruised down the river with the lock still a good hundred metres away, he stared up and his face was filled with fear.
“What is it?” I asked.
He said nothing. And then I noticed something strange. There was hardly any breeze but the storm cloud was moving very quickly, heading our way. In fact, as I stared at it, I realized it wasn’t a cloud at all. It was changing shape, one minute flat and oblong like a huge pancake, the next twisting itself so that it resembled a snake.
“What is it?” I asked a second time.
“Fly-soldiers,” Jamie replied.
Jamie had talked about fly-soldiers when he was describing the first battle with the Old Ones, ten thousand years before. I knew what they were but I couldn’t believe that I was actually seeing them for myself, in my own world, now. What I was looking at was thousands, maybe millions of insects, making their way towards us in a vast swarm. In the air, they were separate. But when they landed, they would mould themselves into human form and at that moment they would become solid. Fly-soldiers could kill you with a sword made up of flies – yet strike out at them and they would separate and your own weapon would pass through them. Jamie had told me all this. And here they were!
“The lock,” Jamie said. “We have to get into the lock. Maybe they won’t see us…”
“We can’t go any faster,” the Traveller said.
I guessed that the cloud of fly-soldiers was about half a mile away but getting closer all the time. Were they searching for us – or were they simply heading for the village that we had left the day before? And did they have ears? Could they hear us? Suddenly it seemed to me that the Lady Jane‘s engines were making far too much noise. With the countryside so empty, they would be heard as far away as the horizon and the red and green paint simply screamed out: “Here I am!” Why had the Traveller never thought to have the boat camouflaged?
We were still moving painfully slowly. At the same time, the flies seemed to have spread out, filling the sky. The Traveller was standing in front of me, his face set, his hands gripping the tiller. Jamie and I were next to him. I resisted the temptation to crawl back inside the cabin and hide, even though the three of us were obvious targets, standing on the flat platform with the bulk of the boat stretching out in front of us. I could see the entrance to the lock. The high walls would hem us in, concealing us … if only we could reach them in time. The fly-cloud had become an arrow. In a few seconds it would be directly overhead.
The Traveller pulled the tiller. The Lady Jane twisted round and entered the lock. Suddenly there were tall, slimy walls on both sides. I could smell damp and decay. In front of us, water splattered through the gap where the gates met. I heard the engine roar and realized that the Traveller had pulled the throttle into reverse. Even so, we were moving too quickly. There was a loud crash and I was almost thrown off my feet as the bow of the boat hit the gate. Without being asked, Jamie reached forward and twisted the key, turning the engine off.
It seemed like we were in an oversized grave. Water splashed and trickled down all around us. The walls, with their dark brickwork, rose up nine or ten metres and I was sure they would conceal us from anything … provided it didn’t come too close. None of us spoke, not so much as a whisper. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest and knew that this was a different sort of fear from anything I had ever felt. My world had been invaded by something that couldn’t possibly exist. I took a deep breath, then looked up. The little slot of sky
that I could see was clear. The fly-soldiers seemed to have wheeled off in another direction. We hadn’t been seen.
We didn’t move for a few minutes. Then Jamie climbed onto the roof and up a ladder set in the side of the lock. I followed him. We had to close the gates behind us, fill the lock with water, then open the gates ahead. I looked back in the direction we had come and saw the cloud of flies, already half a mile or more away, disappearing into the distance.
“That was close,” I said.
Jamie nodded. “They’ll be back.”
And London was still miles away.
THIRTY-SEVEN
WELCOME TO
LITTLE MOULSFORD
There was no way round the village. The sign was placed right next to the canal and we could see the houses behind it, neatly arranged around a green that was so well tended that it didn’t look real. The houses themselves were all beautiful too. Shrink them down and you would be able to buy them in the expensive toyshops I’d once seen in magazines. They were pink and mauve and lilac, with names like Bide A While and Well Barn. And there was a shop selling antiques, a public house and a little gem of a church, not like the one I’d been used to but perfect in every way, with the stained-glass windows intact and the stonework bright and clean. Look at the church and you would imagine the vicar, smiling and benevolent. He would greet everyone every Sunday. And he would know all their names.
It helped that this was a pleasant day. We had arrived in the afternoon and as always it was cloudy but the sun was doing its best to break through and there was a gentle, warm breeze.
The Traveller didn’t like it. We were forty or fifty miles from London and this wasn’t the sort of scene he had been expecting. He hadn’t said very much but I got the impression that if Little Moulsford had been a flyblown dump with dead bodies lying at the roadside and weeds everywhere, he would have been able to relax more. It was just too perfect. Nowhere in England was like this any more. And we had to pass right through the middle of it. Worse than that, there were three locks in a row that we had to manoeuvre, meaning that we couldn’t even stay in the Lady Jane. As we opened and closed the sluices, we would be horribly exposed.
There were people living here. They had heard us coming and a small crowd of them had gathered at the first lock as we approached. There was nothing really we could do except motor forward, trying to pretend that the three of us were on holiday having a lovely time rather than trying to escape from fly-soldiers, violent death and the end of the world. The villagers looked friendly enough. They were all smiling at us and were dressed as smartly as possible, with neatly cut hair. They also seemed well fed … something I noticed immediately because in my village everyone had always been waiting for the next proper meal.
“Have you got your guns?” the Traveller muttered.
I didn’t really know what he was worried about. These people looked harmless enough. I was actually quite excited to see them – to discover that my village wasn’t the only community that had managed to survive for ten years. But I did have my gun with me, tucked into my waistband. It was an uncomfortable feeling, having it pressing into my flesh. Part of me was afraid that it would go off and shoot me in the thigh but the Traveller had shown me how to put the safety catch on and had assured me the gun couldn’t fire until it was released.
Jamie nodded.
“I’ve got mine,” I said.
“Let’s see what these people want. Don’t trust anyone. Don’t do anything unless I say so.”
We stopped in front of the first lock. The people were standing over us, looking down. A smart, military-looking man in his fifties stepped forward. He seemed to be their leader. He had short grey hair and a moustache. There was a woman standing next to him, exactly the same height, with curly hair. She was wearing a flower-patterned dress and carrying a handbag, and even had a string of pearls and earrings. I had never seen anyone wearing jewellery, except in pictures.
“Good day to you,” the man said. “My name is Michael Higham. Major Michael Higham, as a matter of fact, although heaven knows we don’t stand on ceremony. And may I present my wife, Dorothy? Welcome to Little Moulsford!”
“Thank you,” the Traveller replied.
“It’s not very often we see a boat come this way,” he went on. “The last one was a couple of years ago.”
“It was more like three,” his wife corrected him. She seemed to polish every word before she spoke it. “It was called The Horizon. A very nice boat – on the way to London. Of course, we advised them not to continue.”
“They never came back,” the major added, nodding his head in agreement. He ran his eye over the Lady Jane. “A fine vessel. Forty foot?”
“Forty-five.”
“I can’t believe you managed to find any fuel for her. Where have you come from?”
The Traveller looked back down the canal. “We were in a village about forty miles away. Unfortunately, the water supply failed so we thought we’d try our luck further south.” I realized he was being deliberately vague and he wasn’t telling them the whole truth.
“I wouldn’t go much further south if I were you,” the major said. “The land’s contaminated. As far as we know, we’re the last community between here and the city. But you must join us for supper – you and your two young friends. We’re fortunate. We have our own reservoir for water and our food supplies are holding up pretty well. We see so few people these days! You’ll be very welcome.”
“That’s very kind of you.” I could see that the Traveller didn’t want to accept the invitation, but at the same time there was something about the crowd of people looking down at us that told us that they might turn nasty if we refused. I don’t know what made me think that. There was just something in the air. “We’ll make our way through the locks and moor up on the other side.” He made it sound casual, as if it didn’t really matter very much. “Maybe you can help us with the gates?”
From the way that the Traveller looked at me, out of the corner of his eye, I knew that the only reason he wanted to climb the locks now was so that he could make a quick getaway if needed – not that you could move particularly quickly on a canal boat. But at least if push came to shove, we wouldn’t be too exposed – which is to say, we wouldn’t be up there with our backs turned, pushing and shoving the gate. The major and his wife didn’t seem to mind. Indeed, they took our lock key and handed it to a ten-year-old boy, who ran off and did all the work for us. There was something quite unnerving about the boy – and the way he looked at us with large eyes staring out of a colourless face. He was friendly enough but I got the feeling there was something he knew that we didn’t. After he had opened the gates he took a bone out of his pocket and gnawed it as we motored through.
Twenty minutes later, we were at the top end of the flight. Jamie and I moored the boat and we all stepped off.
The villagers had watched us as we made our progress and I was able to examine them a little more closely. They were all a bit like the major and his wife – very polite and civilized. They didn’t look like survivors at all. Forget the fact that the world had more or less come to an end … they’d be delighted if you’d join them for a drink on the terrace or maybe a game of cards. There were about fifteen of them. The youngest was the boy – his name was Cosmo – who’d helped open the locks. There was a couple who must have been in their eighties. The rest were all middle-aged, and although my first impression had been that they looked healthy, I now decided there was something off-putting about the whole lot of them. It was in their eyes. They were red-rimmed and had a sort of glaze to them. The colour of their skin was odd too. It was waxy. But then, I had to remind myself, even I probably didn’t look too good myself. Nobody did.
“We’ll eat in the pub,” the major told us. “Everyone’s going to want to meet you and hear how you got here. Shall we say six o’clock? With no electricity, we all tend to go to bed early.” He turned to the Traveller. “There are a few things I’d like to talk about
alone, if you don’t mind. Pas devant les enfants! “Not in front of the children. I’d learnt enough French to understand that. “Suppose you come over at five thirty? And they join us later?”
“As you like.”
“Good! Well, I’ll give you a chance to tidy up and whatever, and I’ll see you later. Splendid boat. Tomorrow you must show me around…”
The major and his wife drifted off and the rest of the villagers followed. Only Cosmo remained behind, sitting on one of the lock gates, swinging his legs. He looked innocent, but at the same time I wondered if he was watching us, making sure we didn’t leave.
The Traveller was wary too. “Listen,” he said to us, once we were alone. “It may be that these people mean well. Maybe all they want to do is give us dinner. We have to go along with them, at least to begin with. But just be careful. They seem to be well-fed and they’ve managed to survive – which means they must be smarter than they look. Be on your guard the whole time.”
“Are you going over to meet them?” Jamie asked. He looked, and sounded, unhappy.
“I don’t think I have any choice. I’ll go and see if I can find out what’s going on. Holly, keep your gun with you. And be prepared to use it.”
“They were keeping something from you,” Jamie said. That was exactly what I’d thought, but with him it was more than a hunch. He had used his power to see into their minds. “I wanted to know what they were thinking,” he went on. “There was definitely something there but they managed to conceal it. It was almost as if they didn’t want to think about it. Like they were too ashamed.”
“Let’s hope I can find out,” the Traveller said. “And if I do, I’ll let you know.”
He left about an hour later, setting off for his appointment with the major. The boy was still there, still swinging his legs, chewing on that bone of his again. There was something about him that got on my nerves. Jamie and I stayed on the boat, hoping that the Traveller would get back – but twenty minutes later there was no sign of him. We waited until five to six. Then Jamie made the decision.