The Fallen (25 page)

Hormones probably. In the end it all came down to hormones. Those pesky little chemicals that made you act like an idiot. Turned you into a nutter or some swooning
girly girl in a pink dress. Her dad had once had a long talk to her about being gay, just because she had short hair and preferred boys’ clothes to frilly skirts and lace. She knew she wasn’t gay. She was always thinking about boys. If anything she thought about them too much and wished with all her heart that she didn’t.

She remembered when life had been easier. At primary school, when you could hang out with other kids and that’s all they were – kids. Boy, girl, black, white, brown, tall, short, clever, stupid, straight, gay – none of that meant anything, they were all the same. Kids. But as she’d got older it got harder. And now here she was, heading deeper into the darkness of this unknown building, with God knows what waiting for them inside, and instead of being alert and thinking about what she’d do if something attacked, she was thinking about Achilleus. An ugly bully who hardly even knew she existed.

‘I was ahead of you,’ she blurted out, without really meaning to. Achilleus didn’t even turn. Just grunted.

‘Huh?’

‘Back there, when the father attacked, yeah? I got him just before you did.’

‘You reckon?’

‘I know.’

‘Paddy?’ Achilleus booted the little Irish kid up the backside to get his attention.

‘Who d’you reckon was quicker? Me or the girl?’

‘You,’ said Paddy. ‘For sure.’

‘He’s biased,’ said Jackson.

‘Are you biased, Paddy?’ Achilleus asked.

‘No way. You was quicker. She was just copying you.’

‘I was not!’ Jackson protested as Achilleus laughed.

They were walking down a long corridor that seemed to run the length of the building, with other corridors off to the sides and windows into open-plan offices. There were glossy framed photographs on the walls, of brightly coloured pills, and smiling, happy, healthy families, nurses and doctors in impossibly clean hospital wards. Smiling. Attractive scientists peering into microscopes. Smiling, smiling, smiling. There were also some slightly random photos of nice landscapes and sunsets. It was clear what message they’d been trying to put across – everything is all right in the world, we will look after you. You’re safe in our hands.

Yeah. Right. Good one.

When it had come down to it the doctors and scientists had been taken just as much by surprise as everyone else. They’d been no help at all. They’d been struck down by the disease along with all the rest of the adults. Died before they could find a cure, or even find out what the disease was, where it had come from.

It had all happened so fast. One day it was all sunsets and smiles, the next …

Night of the living sickos.

At the end of the corridor was a lobby, with lifts on either side and thick glass doors at the back. A sign above the doors read U
NIT
B. E
NTRY TO AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
. To the right of the door was a flat electronic card reader and a small numeric keypad.

Blue shone his torch at the flat black panel of the card reader.

‘Now what?’ Emily asked.

‘Simple,’ said Einstein. ‘We press our access card to the pad then punch in the secret code and – ta-dah – the door will magically swing open.’

Blue gave Einstein a look that said he was just holding back from punching his teeth out. Achilleus went to the doors and studied them up close by the light of Paddy’s torch beam.

Jackson had a thought and pushed past him, gave the doors a gentle nudge. They swung open.

‘You guys never learn, do you?’ she said, walking through.

On the other side of the doors was a stairway that split in two and went down either side of a square central column. There was less decoration in this area. Nobody had bothered to stick up any inspiring pictures. Jackson sniffed the air. Often when you went into a building that had been empty for a long while the air was stale and nasty. Here it didn’t smell of anything. It was as if the sterile, air-conditioned atmosphere the building must have had in the old days was somehow still lingering.

Blue pushed to the front and led them down the stairs, going noticeably more slowly now. At the bottom was another corridor leading straight ahead into darkness.

‘It’s gonna be a pain getting the supplies back up them stairs,’ said Blue, looking back.

‘There must be a way of getting the main warehouse doors open from the inside,’ said Einstein. ‘For when lorries made deliveries or picked stuff up. There must be some proper warehouse doors.’

Blue started walking and the others fell in behind him, still keeping bunched up, the torch beams probing ahead. They didn’t have to go far before the corridor widened out into a storage area with rows of metal shelving stacked with packing materials: flat-pack cardboard boxes, empty plastic crates, rolls of bubble wrap and plastic binding material. Rolls of sticker labels.

Blue shone his torch into every corner and under every shelf.

Nothing.

‘What would a grown-up want to be hiding out down here for?’ said Achilleus. ‘They can’t get in and out, there’s nothing to eat. Unless they wanted to send some parcels to their aunties they wouldn’t have no interest in all this junk.’

‘They make their nests underground,’ said Blue.

‘I know it,’ said Achilleus. ‘This just don’t feel like the sort of place they’d choose.’

‘What about all those sickos outside?’ said Jackson. ‘What were they trying to get in for? What were they after?’

‘They only ever after but one thing,’ said Achilleus. ‘Fresh meat.’

‘You think there might be kids down here?’

‘No way. We’d have seen some signs.’

‘Yeah, well, let’s push on,’ said Blue.

The door out of the storeroom through into the next part of the warehouse complex was also unlocked. It led to a short corridor that ran a little way then turned a corner. Its walls were bare concrete. Bundles of cable and bits of pipework ran along either side and there were various shelves and cabinets spaced out along its length. The further they went into the building the plainer it was and the more nervous the kids became. There was no joking now. No talking.

Halfway to the bend they heard a noise. A shuffling, rustling sound. It went as quickly as it came.

They all froze.

‘What was that?’ said Emily.

‘We don’t know, Emily, OK?’ said Jackson, trying not
to lose her cool. ‘How could we know? It came from round the corner. We’ve never been here before. So just shut up and listen.’

‘Does someone want to go and take a look then?’ said Einstein.

Jackson stepped forward. Said nothing. Just carried on walking slowly towards the corner where the corridor turned.

Well, this was dumb. Weirdo Jackson. Showing off again. Doing something stupid and dangerous to impress the boys. Only this time she had no idea what she was getting into. For the first time today she was actually scared. She heard a scuff behind her and turned round to find Achilleus catching up with her.

‘Can’t let you have all the fun,’ he said.

‘Thanks,’ said Jackson. And she meant it. She was marginally less frightened now.

When they reached the corner they stopped and flattened themselves against the wall. Jackson wiped her face. Dried her hand on her jeans. Felt a droplet of sweat scurry down her back under her sweatshirt.

‘When I say so we both look round,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll keep close to the edge and shine the torch. You go wide and be ready with your spear.’

She wasn’t sure if Achilleus would accept being told what to do by a girl, but he just nodded and said, ‘OK.’

‘OK.’ Jackson swallowed, her mouth painfully dry. ‘Ready … one … two … three.’

On three they both moved, together, Achilleus going quickly to the centre of the corridor, spear up, tensed and ready for a fight, Jackson keeping tight to the wall.

She had no idea what to expect. All she saw, though, was
a rack of shelves fixed to the wall, with thin sheets of metal on them, piled high so that there was only a very narrow space between the shelves. Five, maybe ten centimetres at the most. Not big enough for a human to hide in. She took this all in fast, peering along a gap at head height, her torch beam bouncing off the metal and making strange dancing shapes. She sidestepped, keeping her eyes fixed ahead, and as she did so she caught a glimpse of something on a lower shelf. Out of the corner of her eye. A hint of a hint. She swung the torch beam back. Gone.

But she’d definitely seen something. Something pale. Something alive. She was sure of it. It had been such a brief flash though, that she couldn’t make sense of it. She crouched down and threw more light along the shelf. There was a hurried movement. A quick whip and a wriggle.

‘What are you doing?’ said Achilleus.

‘There was something on the shelves.’

‘What something?’

‘Don’t know. A creature. A face. I definitely felt it was looking at me.’

‘You mean like a rat or something?’

‘No. It was hairless, naked, I don’t know. I didn’t really see it clearly.’

‘A creature?’

‘I’m sure of it. Almost white, with black eyes, set wide apart. Looking at me.’

‘So what was it then?’

‘Like I say, I don’t know, it was like a … It reminded me of something.’

Achilleus came over and looked where she was aiming the beam.

‘There’s nothing there.’

‘There was. It went to the back of the shelves. Look, can you see? There’s an opening there, a hole of some sort.’

‘What’s going on?’

It was Blue. The other kids were coming round the corner to join them now, in ones and twos.

‘Jackson reckons she saw something,’ said Achilleus, poking the point of his spear into the hole. ‘But I reckon she’s imagining it.’

‘I didn’t imagine it. It was alive. It was long and flat, pale skin, dark eyes. It looked at me. I’m sure of it. Its eyes were on me. Very dark. Black, like a snake.’

‘You saw a snake?’ Einstein sounded dubious.

‘Not necessarily a snake, but that’s what it reminded me of, a snake.’

‘What would a snake be doing down here?’ Achilleus scoffed. ‘You’re seeing things, girl.’

‘It was there.’ Jackson tried to move some of the sheets of metal so that she could get to the hole. They were heavy. It would take ages to shift enough of them.

She swore. Maybe Achilleus was right. Maybe she
had
imagined it. Snakes couldn’t survive in places like this. They needed sun and heat. And those eyes. Not really a snake’s eyes. Too intelligent.

She shook her head to clear it, grabbed a water bottle from her pack and glugged half of it down. She remembered being in bed, when she was little, seeing things in the darkness, making monsters out of dressing gowns and toys, curtains.

‘OK,’ Blue shouted. ‘It’s pretty clear there’s nothing down here. We got to stop getting all jumpy over every little thing. We need to get on quick, find the gear and get gone.’

‘I think you’d better look at this.’

Everyone turned to Ollie. He’d been to the end of the corridor to check out what lay ahead.

‘What is it?’ said Blue.

‘Come see.’

There was another set of doors, with words scrawled on them, painted with what looked like blood. Dark red, sloppy and dripping.

The kids read the words, their torch beams crawling over them. Not knowing what to think.

Wev’e got what your after. If you really want it you have to porve it. So come and gettit if you think you can. We are waiting 4 you
.

41

Why were they taking so long down there? How far could it be to the warehouse? Why weren’t they back yet?

The truth was Mick had no idea how long they’d been gone. He didn’t have a watch. Hardly anyone wore a watch these days, because there was no way of setting them to the real time. Pick any three clocks at random and you could bet they’d all be showing different times. Or, most likely, stopped. In fact Mick had never worn a watch. Not even in the old days. His uncle had given him one for his birthday once, but he’d never even tried it on. What was the point when you had a phone? But now, without any electricity, the phones didn’t work any more, and the clocks all showed different times, or sat frozen at the point when the juice had dried up.

So he could only guess at how long the others had been gone. It could have been five minutes; it could have been half an hour. He was getting twitchy. Couldn’t stop thinking about the cut on his arm. About germs and bacteria and Ant, nearly dying in his hospital bed …

He looked at his three friends, Brandon, Jake and Kamahl. Boys he’d known for years, had fought alongside, his
team
. Boys who looked up to him. Trusted him to be there for them. They were sitting on a cluster of benches chatting casually to each other. He called over to them.

‘Is it hot in here?’

Jake shrugged.

‘You’re not hot?’

‘I’m all right,’ said Kamahl.

‘Yeah,’ said Mick. ‘It’s not hot, is it?’

‘Nah.’

He started to drum a rhythm on his thighs, slapping them. He’d show he wasn’t scared of any stupid bacteria. He’d drum them out of there.