The Fallen (22 page)

34

Big Mick didn’t like the countryside. Never had. He liked houses and wide roads, cars, offices, shops. They were familiar to him. Home. Not trees and grass and dirt. It didn’t look right and it didn’t smell right. He’d grown up in London. Felt safe among houses. He understood buildings. They had a use. Even if they were full of grown-ups these days.

This was different. He didn’t know what to expect. There was no order to it. Things just growing everywhere. A mess. Confusing. He’d spent all his life in the streets around Holloway, apart from occasional trips down Oxford Street to look at the shops, and one disastrous holiday in Suffolk. He’d never forgotten that. He’d made a new friend at primary school, a boy called Charlie Piper, and when Mick was ten Charlie’s family had asked him if he wanted to go on holiday with them to their caravan park in the countryside. Mick hadn’t been sure, but his parents said he should go.

Worst week of his life.

All right, perhaps not as bad as the week when his mum got sick and killed his dad, but up until then it had been the worst, and he still felt wobbly when he thought about it. It had been wet and uncomfortable and there was mud
everywhere. He’d been terrified of the noises at night, owls and foxes and probably wolves by the sound of it. And worst of all was the boredom. There’d been nothing to do. No TV, no games console, no shops to look at, no corners to hang out on. That was the worst thing about the countryside – no corners.

They’d had picnics on the beach in the rain and the sand had got in his food. They’d gone for walks in the woods and Mick had walked into a tree and poked his eye. He still had a little scar.

Yeah. It had been well bad. Mick had been bored and scared and had missed his mum and dad and his proper, normal food.

He’d stopped being friends with Charlie Piper after that. And it was the first and last time he’d been to the countryside.

Until today.

Although, now he thought about it, he could see they weren’t really in the country, just a big park. There were houses up ahead and streets. He chilled. They were getting back to civilization.

‘Are we still in London?’ he asked Blue, who was walking just ahead of him.

‘Dunno.’ Blue looked around. ‘It’s London airport, innit, Heathrow? And the tube goes there, so I suppose we’re in London. Or right on the edge.’

‘I wish we were back in Holloway.’

‘You homesick, big man?’

‘Yeah, a bit.’

‘That is
moist
, man. You’re our top fighter, Mick. Don’t want you wimping out on me.’

‘I ain’t wimping out, Blue. I’m just saying we was doing all right back in Holloway.’

‘Maybe yes, maybe no,’ said Blue. ‘Was getting harder and harder to find food. In some ways they got a good thing going down at the museum.’

‘We gonna stay there?’

‘Dunno, mate. We’ll see, we’ll see. I’ll tell you, though, Mick, whatever happens, when we get back to the museum we ain’t going anywhere for a bare long time. We are staying put and resting up.’

‘Sounds like a plan.’

‘I’m glad you like it, blood, cos it’s the only one I got.’

They were approaching the edge of the park and Mick could see houses through the trees.

‘You reckon there’s gonna be grown-ups out this way?’ he asked.

‘What do you think?’

‘I think we’ve had an easy start today, but it’s gonna get worse.’

‘It always gets worse,’ said Blue.

‘Yeah. That’s the one thing you can be sure of.’ Mick laughed.

It was quiet when they broke through the line of trees and got out on to the road. There was a row of old-fashioned-looking houses, those ones with fake wooden beams in the walls. They were dark, the windows broken, some of the doors hanging open. Dead and deserted. Cars covered in dirt and dust and bird shit stood on flat tyres.

Soon they came to a good wide road and Mick felt happier. This was an ugly part of town, made for cars rather than people, with lots of small businesses and offices. Didn’t bother Mick, though. It was familiar. The Holloway Road had been pretty butters, with its crappy shops and takeaway food joints.

They’d been walking for about fifteen minutes when they saw their first grown-up. A mother. Standing in an overgrown front garden, staring up at the sky, her arms straight out in front of her, as if reaching for something. They almost walked right past her. It was Mick who spotted her and he swore. The others stopped, made ready for a fight.

‘Leave it,’ said Blue. ‘She ain’t going nowhere. Look at her, she’s like one of them stupid living statues you used to get down Covent Garden.’

‘Are you saying we just ignore it?’ said Einstein. He obviously wanted to get a closer look, but was too scared. ‘Why’s it out in the sunlight like that? You can see her face is burnt.’

He was right. As well as being deformed by the usual growths and swellings, the mother’s skin was blistered and peeling. In fact, as Mick looked at her, he thought he could see her face sort of seething and boiling and twitching. He took a step closer. Maybe her brain had been completely eaten away? Maybe she was like a shell. Nothing inside. If you hit her head it might just crumple …

‘Leave it,’ Blue repeated and carried on walking. The others could do nothing but follow, glancing back over their shoulders at the mother just standing there. Even when they had left her well behind Mick felt a sort of prickle in the back of his neck. He knew she was still there behind him and one thing he’d learnt in the last year was that you never turned your back on a grown-up. It just felt wrong, to leave her there. It was bad luck.

They saw two more grown-ups in the same poses and each time Blue made them hurry past.

‘If they ain’t attacking us we ain’t attacking them. Waste of time.’

Mick was itching, though. He wanted to lash out at something. Wanted to hit something. He carried a big wooden club and had a long knife at his belt. Sometimes the only thing that made him feel OK was to break something. Shake things up.

And then, when they arrived at the Promithios site, he realized he was going to get the chance.

The place was crawling with grown-ups.

35

Their route had taken them to the east of the airport into an area of small businesses, warehouses and factories. There were several car repairers mixed up with companies that had made all sorts of things – windows, swimming-pool pumps, kitchen cabinets, cardboard boxes – as well as places that had serviced the airport and airlines, like caterers and cleaners. Promithios Biomedical was on a slightly grander and more modern complex called a ‘Corporate Park’, which seemed to be mostly made up of big, ugly, windowless buildings clad in metal and concrete. It sat behind a black metal fence, with a gatehouse and big sliding gates, and that’s where the grown-ups were clustered. Maybe twenty of them, out in the sun, scrabbling like mad dogs to get past the fence and inside.

As soon as he saw them, Blue ordered the war party to stop, and they hunkered down behind some parked cars.

‘We could find another way in,’ said Einstein. ‘I mean, we’re going to have to climb over the fence, whatever.’

‘Yeah,’ said Blue. ‘But if we’re going to shift the gear out we’ll need to get rid of that lot. I don’t want to be worrying about them all the time we’re inside.’

‘You’re sure it’s safe to attack them?’ asked Einstein.

‘Course it’s not safe,’ Blue scoffed. ‘But it’s still the best
bet. I’d feel bare happy if we could kick them off the bus. Then we could try and get the gates open; gonna be easier all round if we do that.’

‘They don’t look too handy,’ said Mick. ‘They’re a pretty sick bunch.’

Ollie looked at the grown-ups. They were on the young side. None of them looked much older than thirty. But the disease hadn’t been kind to them. Most of them were missing body parts. One or two had lost so much of their flesh and skin that they looked like living skeletons. Others were fat and bloated, swollen, lumpy and mushy-looking.

‘We need to kill them all,’ said Blue matter-of-factly.

‘All right, all right.’ Einstein was going weirdly hyper, like he couldn’t wait to lay into the grown-ups. Ollie hoped he wouldn’t try to get to the front of the attack. He sidled over to Blue and spoke quietly to him.

‘We got to keep the noobs out of the fight,’ he said.

‘Yeah.’ Blue nodded and sucked his teeth. Then he made a decision.

‘Einstein, you and Emily and Jackson stay back here with Ollie’s team. Keep watch for any other grown-ups who might come up on us from behind.’

‘We can fight,’ said Einstein.

‘Jackson, maybe, but you other two we need unharmed, or else this whole mission has been one big waste of time. And don’t go getting in the way of Ollie.’

‘I’m telling you, we can fight,’ said Einstein.

‘No, you can’t,’ said Blue in a way that told Einstein it was the end of the conversation.

Achilleus pulled his best spear out of the golf-bag and gave Paddy a little shove, sending him stumbling into Einstein.

‘Look after this one as well,’ he said to Ollie, and Paddy knew better than to argue.

‘I don’t want to have to carry me own weapons back,’ Achilleus added, weighing the spear in his hand.

‘Ollie, you know the beef,’ said Blue. ‘Keep spamming them pus-bags and once you’ve softened them up watch our backs.’

‘Sure.’ Ollie wasn’t too happy about babysitting Einstein. His whole idea had been to be responsible only for his small missile unit, but he could see the sense in Blue’s plan.

The kids quickly formed up into a battle line: Achilleus on the right with Blue; Mick on the left; Ollie in the centre; Einstein, Jackson, Emily and Paddy safely behind them.

When Ollie’s team was ready they let fly. Two slingshots and two javelins flew through the air and whacked into the backs of the grown-ups clustered by the gates, and, as four of them went down, the others turned to see what was happening. Ollie had time to fire off another shot, but then had to pull his squad back as the grown-ups advanced surprisingly quickly, teeth bared, claw-like fingers groping the air. They were desperate for food, sent crazy by the sunlight, unafraid of any danger.

Ollie dropped in behind the advancing fighters and checked that Einstein and the others were holding their position.

‘I should be up front,’ said Jackson.

‘You’ll get your chance,’ said Ollie. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘I want to show Achilleus what I can do.’

‘Save it,’ said Ollie.

The rest of the kids slammed into the grown-ups, knocking down the front rank and forcing them back against the
fence. Those who carried longer spears used them to keep the grown-ups at bay while the rest darted in with clubs and knives and shorter spears.

Ollie spotted a father breaking away and trying to escape. He quickly fitted a steel ball to his sling, pulled it back and felt the satisfying snap and twang as he let go. The steel shot smacked into the back of the fleeing father’s neck and knocked him flat.

‘Nice shot,’ said Jackson, and she whistled. The last of the grown-ups tried to run now, but they were hunted down and Jackson couldn’t resist steaming over and taking one down with her own spear, expertly pinning him in the side. She grinned at Achilleus, looking for his approval, but he hadn’t even noticed. He walked straight over to Paddy, checked he was all right, and then handed over his spear to be cleaned.

All of the grown-ups lay dead or dying, the road covered with their blood. Blue and Mick were walking among them, finishing them off.

None of the kids were even scratched. They high-fived and whooped and jeered at the dead bodies.

Einstein approached Blue as he was kneeling down and wiping the blade of his short spear on a fallen mother’s dress.

‘You could have let us help.’ Einstein’s voice was shaking slightly. ‘It wasn’t dangerous.’

‘It wasn’t dangerous because we knew what we were doing,’ said Blue. ‘It only gets dangerous when we mix it up with kids who don’t know how to handle theirself.’ He looked up and stared into Einstein’s face. ‘Like yesterday – you remember, Iron Man? You ended up with one girl killed and one boy badly cut up.’

‘I haven’t forgotten,’ said Einstein.

‘Well, don’t. Ever.’

‘Yeah,’ said Big Mick. ‘This here was easy – but it’s gonna get worse.’

‘The smell of blood might attract more of them,’ said Ollie. ‘So the quicker we get inside, the better. We’ll have to work out a way to get the gates open.’

He, Mick and Blue climbed over the fence, being careful not to get skewered on the sharp spikes along the top. They investigated the mechanism that opened and closed the gates, and after a short discussion Big Mick set to work with his club, hammering away at the machinery until he’d separated it from the gates, which could now be hauled apart by hand. Once all the kids got hold of them they were able to slide them open, and, with a cheer, they were through.

The Promithios complex had an office building at the front with walls made of green reflective glass. Behind it was a big, windowless warehouse covered in what appeared to be grey plastic panelling. It looked like a giant box, with no way in or out.