What?
Jake was waving his arms frantically. Trying to get Mick’s attention.
What?
45
‘It’s from the bible.’ A kid stepped forward and knelt down by the door. One of Ollie’s missile crew, an African guy called Ebenezer, or some mad name like that.
‘Thought it might be,’ said Blue. ‘So what’s it mean?’
‘It’s from the Book of Revelations,’ said Ebenezer. ‘Nobody really knows what any of it means.’
‘If anyone has insight let him calculate the number of the beast,’ Ollie repeated. ‘Is it asking for a number to put in the lock?’
‘The number of the beast?’ said Achilleus. ‘Everyone knows the number of the beast, man.’ And he stuck his hand up in a heavy metal horn sign.
‘Six-six-six.’ He stuck his tongue out and went, ‘Blaaaaah!’
A couple of the kids tittered, and Paddy joined Achilleus, putting both hands up in a stiff-armed rock gesture.
‘We who are about to rock salute you!’ he said in a bad American accent.
‘So what do we do then?’ said Blue, ignoring him. ‘There are five numbers on the lock.’
‘Let’s try all sixes,’ said Ollie. ‘It’s the best guess we’ve got.’
‘Wait.’ Blue held him back.
‘What for?’
What for? If only he knew. It was like playing a new video game for the first time. You never knew what to expect when you opened a door. Usually died the first time you tried it.
Couldn’t stop playing now, though.
‘Nothing. You’re right. Go for it …’
46
Was it the smell that made him turn? The rank stink of rotting grown-ups? Or was it the sudden surge of fleeing cats, belting past him, over him, round him, and disappearing?
They’d come up on him from the gap between the office block and the warehouse building. Almost as many of them as there were cats. Moving quickly for grown-ups, despite being out in the sun. Older ones, knotted and hairless, deformed by swollen flesh, like they’d been pumped full of jelly. One mother had a head so eaten away there was virtually nothing left of it. Mick wondered how she was still walking around. He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the pain in his ankle. Desperate to get to his spear. Even as he went for it, though, he was thinking that maybe he should’ve just run.
Too late for that now.
He got to the spear and pulled it out of the ground. Looked back along the front of the building towards the doors. There were more of them there, coming from the other direction. If he wasn’t fast they’d cut off his route back to safety.
Then he saw Jake come charging out of the doors like the idiot he was.
‘No!’ Mick shouted. ‘Stay back. I’m all right!’
Brandon and Kamahl had waited inside, waving and pointing through the windows. Smart. That’s what he’d have done. No need to risk getting hurt when all he had to do was get to the doors …
He was still taking all this in when the world gave a sort of jolt and he went staggering sideways, head spinning. He struggled to make sense of what had happened and then realized something had hit him in the temple.
One of the grown-ups was carrying a half-brick. Mick put a hand to his throbbing scalp. More blood.
Jesus.
‘Mick!’ Jake was haring towards him.
Distracted by Jake and still dizzy from the first blow, Mick lost sight of the father with the brick, who hit him again. Mick staggered drunkenly, swinging the spear, and then Jake was there, pulling his arm.
‘Come on, Mick, get away from them.’
‘Bloody cats,’ said Mick, confused and disoriented.
‘Come on.’
Mick groaned as the pain pulsed in his head, shaking him back to reality. ‘You shouldn’t have come out,’ he said. ‘I can handle this.’
‘We have to get back inside!’
‘I’ll show them.’
Mick took a deep breath, getting it all back together, head clearing, drove his spear right through the chest bone of the father with the brick, twisted and yanked it free. Laughed. Stooped down to pick up the brick.
‘You want some?’ he shouted and the bulk of the grown-ups were on him. ‘You want to see what I can do with this?’
A mother came at him; he could only tell it was a mother from the remains of the clothes she was wearing. Her face wasn’t a face any more, it was just one huge swollen boil, a featureless blister. He smashed the brick into the part where her nose should have been, cursed as he was sprayed with hot liquid. Saw that there was nothing left of her face; it had burst, exposing the skeletal bones beneath it. Somehow the mother kept upright, though, and her eyes were still intact, staring at him.
‘Go down,’ he screamed and hit her in the mouth with the brick, shattering her teeth. Kept going. Threw the brick at a father. Stuck another in the thigh with his spear.
‘There’s too many to fight.’ Jake was struggling in a clump of adults, working hard with his own spear.
‘Not for me, Jake. This is payback time.’ Like he was in some dumb action movie.
Mick went hard into the mob of grown-ups around Jake, keeping two hands on the shaft of his spear, wide apart, stabbing, butting with the blunt end, smashing the shaft into their stupid, bloated faces.
This was what he was good at.
Someone was by his side, fighting alongside him. He turned to smile, assuming it was Jake. It wasn’t. It was a short father with a bright red face.
‘Get lost,’ Mick snorted and shoved him aside. There was Jake, over by the wall of the warehouse, fighting off the pack of grown-ups, and now Mick saw that they all seemed to be carrying weapons of some sort, stones and sticks, bits of rusted metal.
‘Watch out!’
His fault if Jake got hurt. Had to help him. Shouldn’t be here. What was he doing? Shouldn’t have started this fight.
Jake went down with a small cry of pain, the grown-ups on him, slashing and gouging. Mick kicked into them, pushing with his spear, careful not to stab Jake, who was in this mass of bodies somewhere.
No. Gone.
Where was he?
Jake?
Mick looked around, trying to find some sign of where his friend was. Gasped as something hit him in the neck. Felt a warm flow of blood down under his shirt.
Who did that?
A big father with one eye … Like the cat … Sharp teeth … Bits of jagged glass in each hand. Blood pouring down his forearms. Cutting himself as badly as he’d cut Mick.
Not allowed to stand. Not this one. A spear thrust to the belly. Out and back again and, as the father bent forward, a third jab into the back of the neck. Go down. Die.
So much blood.
Where was Jake?
Just grown-ups, everywhere, backing away from him, defeated, retreating. Cowards. Useless sick morons. Run.
Where was Jake?
Find Jake.
So much blood. He looked down. His clothes were wet. Couldn’t bear to touch the wound on his neck. Scared of what he’d find.
How come they were armed? They’d changed up. That wasn’t fair. Grown-ups didn’t use weapons. Too stupid. Stayed in the dark. Used teeth and fingernails, like animals. No better than cats.
Find Jake.
Still a press of grown-ups by the doors keeping Brandon and Kamahl inside. Good, they were safe. Stay that way. Mick’s job was to keep everyone safe.
So where was Jake?
47
‘I did see Paul, yeah, in the afternoon. I was with Wiki.’
‘Who’s Wiki?’
‘Thomas Rutherford, that’s his real name, not Thomas Hopgood, he’s another Thomas who we’re friends with, we were at school together, me and Wiki, that’s Thomas Rutherford, not Thomas Hopgood, I met Thomas Hopgood here, in the library, I met Wiki at Rowhurst School in Kent, we call him Wiki because he knows everything, like Wikipedia, he’s from northern England, that’s why he has a different accent, we’ve been fr
iends since …’
‘Yeah, yeah, all right. I don’t need his life story.’ Maxie put up her hands to stop the little boy rattling on. She understood now why the other kids called him Jibber-jabber.
‘So you and this Wiki saw Paul in the afternoon?’
‘Yeah, we did, yeah, we were going round trying to get kids to sign up for our event.’
‘What event?’ Maxie interrupted him before he went off on another one.
‘World Book Day,’ said Jibber-jabber with a very serious expression. ‘We were having this all-night book-reading session where we dressed up as our favourite characters from books, I was Bilbo Baggins, from The Hobbit …’
‘Yeah, all right, I know who Bilbo Baggins is.’
‘My costume wasn’t that good really.’
‘So that was you lot in the library the other night?’
‘Yes.’
‘The boy that died, the one they got on the stairs, was he with you?’
‘Sort of,’ said Jibber-jabber. ‘That was James, he only really came along to the event to muck it up, I’m sorry he died, though, he was with Paul when we saw him earlier, the two of them worked with the sickos on the lorry.’
Again Maxie put her hands in the air.
‘Hold up, not so fast. I need to get this straight. Is Wiki around?’
‘He’s waiting outside, he’s next up, we didn’t know who was going to be next, we flipped a coin, I won, so I came in first, that’s all coins are really good for now, isn’t it, I suppose, flipping … and doing magic tricks, of course, I can do a good trick.’
‘Shut up for a second and get him in, will you?’
In a minute Wiki was sitting alongside his friend, two small, serious-looking boys, thin, like most kids were these days, and a little pale.
‘OK,’ said Maxie, fixing on Wiki. ‘Tell us exactly when and where you last saw Paul.’
‘It was on the afternoon of the attack,’ said Wiki. ‘We were signing up names for the event.’
‘We didn’t get many,’ Jibber-jabber butted in.
‘One at a time.’
‘OK,’ said Wiki. ‘We went to the car park, that’s where the lorry was. Einstein kept three sickos on the lorry for his experiments. They were named after the X-Factor judges. James made us go on the lorry to see the sickos. We had to go to show we weren’t scared.’
‘We were scared, though,’ said Jibber-jabber. ‘We didn’t want to go on the lorry, and the sickos were quite horrible, and later on they got out and attacked the library.’
‘We’ll get to that in a bit,’ said Maxie. ‘Tell me about Paul.’
‘Paul was on the lorry,’ said Wiki. ‘He looked after the sickos. He was quite angry about something, and looked ill. He shouted at us, saying books were stupid and the real world was too harsh to be in books. He said we didn’t know about things and that he did. Like he was going to prove it to us.’
‘And the three sickos escaped?’
‘Yes,’ said Wiki. ‘When we were having our event in the library the sickos got in and attacked us. We beat them off, but James ran away and got killed.’
‘And you didn’t see any more of Paul after you were on the lorry?’
‘No.’
Maxie looked round at Justin, who was sitting on her left.
‘I presume these sickos were kept locked up?’
‘Yes, of course. They were chained to the side of the lorry and there were bars and padlocks; the whole thing was really secure. It had to be. We couldn’t risk them getting out. I mean, they couldn’t get out.’
‘Well, they did.’
Justin shrugged. There was no arguing with that.
‘Someone must have opened all those locks,’ said Wiki.
‘Yes.’ Brooke turned to Justin. ‘Paul had keys presumably. Who else?’
‘Keys to the lorry? I’m not sure. James, I think. Einstein must have, but he wouldn’t have let the sickos out, they were too valuable to him.’
‘And James is dead.’ Maxie turned back to the two little boys. ‘You say James was with you in the library when the sickos attacked?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he look to you like he knew anything about what was going on?’
‘No way,’ said Jibber-jabber. ‘He was more scared than the rest of us, acting all tough when all along he was just scared and a wimp basically …’
‘OK, thanks.’ Maxie smiled at the two small boys, sitting there with dirty faces, scruffy hair, eager to please. ‘I think you two might as well go. But if you think of anything else you’ll come and tell us, yeah?’
‘Anything else about what?’ asked Jibber-jabber.
‘We’re trying to find out how the sickos got out.’
‘Oh, right. Yeah. It wasn’t us.’
Maxie smiled. ‘I know it wasn’t you.’
‘Do you think it was Paul Channing?’ asked Wiki.
‘I don’t know,’ said Maxie. ‘What do you think? You saw him last. Do you think he could do something like that?’
Wiki thought about this for a long time, chewing his lip. Then he had a whispered and muttered conversation with Jibber-jabber that turned into a bit of an argument.
‘I know lots of things,’ said Wiki in the end. ‘I know the answers to almost any questions you can ask me about science and facts, and the world, and the Guinness Book of Records, things like that. But I can’t answer your question.’
‘Neither can I,’ said Jibber-jabber.
48
Why was he carrying a shoe? He looked at his feet. He had his own trainers on. So whose shoe was this? It was important. He remembered that. It was important he didn’t drop the shoe.
Where was Jake?
He looked around. Somehow he’d left his home and was on another planet. A huge, empty, alien space. Never known anything like it. The emptiness went on forever. He couldn’t really remember how he’d got here. He’d been trying to get back. Back to his friends at the big glass building. He’d got lost. Way lost. And now he was here.
He flopped down to his knees. God, he was tired. Way off in the distance he could see some white birds. They were huge, gleaming in the sun. Must be the biggest birds he’d ever seen. The rest was emptiness. The sky over him. No end to it.
Find Jake.
His clothes were caked with blood. It was drying, but there was more running down his neck where …
Yes. Where that grown-up had cut him with the broken glass. He must have lost a lot of blood. He was very thirsty. It hurt to swallow.
And they’d taken Jake. Where? He’d lost them.
They’d dragged Jake away and he’d tried to follow. Found he couldn’t walk very well. His balance was shot. He’d stumbled after the grown-ups, but they were quicker. Got out through a big hole in the fence.
So that’s how the bastards had got in.
He remembered them pulling Jake through it. How he’d tried to resist. Still alive. Good boy. Good old Jake. And his foot caught in the wire. They yanked hard and his trainer came off. Mick almost caught up. Then paused to pick up the trainer. Jake would need it, wouldn’t he? To get back.
After that.
He remembered crossing a road, going through trees and bushes into fields, a lake; one moment he’d been among buildings and then … somehow he was in the countryside again. Countryside. He’d wandered around in circles. Couldn’t find the grown-ups, couldn’t find Jake, couldn’t find his way back.
There had been birds circling above the lake. Different ones. Normal birds, not the giants he could see now. Then he’d spotted a grown-up, standing stiff and still, like it was pointing the way. He’d gone over, followed where the grown-up wanted him to go, crawled up a bank on to another road. Walked on for a bit. How long? No idea. No watch. No idea. Where was Jake? Lost him. Lost everyone. Another grown-up, pointing. Keep plodding on. Shirt wet. So much blood. Watched his feet as they moved in front of him, like they were in a film. And in the end everything had disappeared, he’d left his world
and ended up here. Walked right into another dimension. Maybe it was heaven. Or hell?
A big nothing.
Just him and this shoe and the sky.
How could this be? How could anywhere be so big and empty? Apart from the giant white birds. So gigantic they looked like aeroplanes.
He laughed. They were aeroplanes. It all made sense now. He must have got on to the runway at the airport. This wasn’t hell, it was Heathrow Airport. He’d lost his spear. His shirt was red, soaked, sticking to him. Blood pumping down from his neck. Thirstier than he had ever been before.
He should get up. Go over and get on one of those aeroplanes. Fly away from all this. Yeah. One of those planes could fly him somewhere nice. Somewhere hot where there weren’t any sick grown-ups. Just him and his family. Mum and Dad and Ant. Sitting on a beach in Spain, like when they’d stayed in his uncle’s flat. That had been well good. With all them tall buildings, hotels, apartment blocks, shops, all along the back of the beach, keeping him safe. Just like home.
Yeah. It was going to be a cool holiday. He smiled. Showed his ticket to the air hostess. She was nice. Said hello. Beamed at him. He held his mum’s hand. Everything was all right. Mum was there, and Dad, and Ant. Ant hadn’t died. Why had he thought that? Ant was fine. Funny little kid. He said sorry to Ant for thinking he was dead and Ant just smiled at him. They found their seats. Settled down. There were headphones, a TV screen. He looked out of the window. Already they were taking off. Up in the sky. Up where no one could get to you.
He turned to his mum.
‘I’m really looking forward to this holiday. It’s going to be the best.’
‘Yes. Yes, it is. But you won’t need that shoe, love. Let go …’
Oh, right.
He was still holding on to that stupid shoe.
He let go.
Watched as the shoe dropped out of his hand. Slowly, slowly, down out of the sky, slowly turning, through the clouds, disappearing …
… the blood stopped running down his neck and he fell very still.
49