The Fallen (5 page)

Their madly slashing torch beams lit up a surreal fleet of creatures dangling from the ceiling: dolphins, sharks, killer whales, whale skeletons and, right in the middle, a gigantic life-sized model of a blue whale that dwarfed the stuffed elephants standing beneath it.

Her numbers were down. Most of the museum kids in her group had run off. She was left with Big Mick’s fighting force and just two of the locals. She had no idea how many mothers and fathers were in here, scrambling and hissing among the exhibits. The kids were fighting on all sides and Maxie was too intent on trying not to get hurt to see what anyone else was up to. She knocked two fathers down and gave a little scream as she found herself face to face with a hippo, the teeth in its lower jaw as big as any tyrannosaurus’s.

She swore and looked round. Big Mick was backed into a corner with no space to manoeuvre.

‘We have to stick together,’ she shouted. ‘Don’t get split up!’ And she waded in to help Mick, spearing a mother in the back and twisting her weapon to free it. Big Mick swung at the mother’s head as she went down and thanked Maxie.

‘Listen!’ he said and turned towards the door.

Maxie could just make out noise in the corridor. Commotion. Her mood lifted. Maybe help had arrived?

‘Keep going!’ she yelled, kicking another mother in the gut. ‘They haven’t forgotten us.’

Achilleus was going as fast as he could, but still lagging behind the rest of the group. He was right at the back with Paddy, his breath wheezing in his throat.

‘You all right, Akkie?’ Paddy asked and Achilleus slapped him round the back of the head.

‘Course I’m all right,’ he snarled. ‘Keep moving. I just don’t want to get ahead of you.’

‘I can go faster.’

‘Shut up, Paddy.’

But Achilleus couldn’t go on. His vision was blurring, everything going dark around him. His legs felt loose and rubbery. He had to stop. He rested, leaning on a stuffed lion. He was sweating, his head pounding, his throat dry. He closed his eyes for a second, but that just made him more aware of the throbbing in his head. He forced them open again. Glared at Paddy.

‘What you waiting for, caddie? There’s work to do.’

He staggered on and they caught up with the rest of his group who had stopped by the entrance to another gallery.

‘Whassup?’ he asked Jackson.

‘There’s kids fighting in the whale room,’ she said. ‘And more sickos in the corridor.’

‘Where’s my mates?’ Achilleus said. ‘Where’s Maxie?’

‘In the gallery.’

‘Get her out first,’ said Achilleus. ‘Then chase the sickos. I’ll keep a team here and guard the door.’

Jackson took a fighting party into the gallery and Achilleus looked at Paddy. He was sagging under the weight of the golf-bag stuffed with weapons.

‘Come on, Paddywhack,’ he said. ‘You can’t rest now. There’s work to be done.’ Achilleus swayed on his feet and leant against the wall. A wave of freezing sickness passed over him. His head filled with fireflies and he felt himself losing consciousness.

‘Bloody whales,’ he said, and passed out.

6

Blue was coming out of the door that led back into the main part of the museum when Boggle, who was leading the way, froze.

‘Now what?’

A horde of grown-ups was stumbling by, moving as fast as they could. They’d been forced round from the whale gallery and were now crossing the café and heading for the main hall.

‘Too many of them.’ Boggle held the kids back behind the door. Blue could sense the fear in him.

‘We got to take them on,’ said Blue, trying to push past him. ‘You can’t leave them running around the place.’

‘OK, OK,’ said Boggle. ‘Let them pass and we’ll go after them. Hit them from behind, yeah?’

‘So long as we ain’t hiding back here all night.’

They waited for the last of them to pass then crept out through the door and checked there were no more grown-ups around. It seemed to be all clear.

‘We need to be careful,’ said Boggle. ‘There looked to be at least twenty of them.’

They moved slowly and cautiously through the café, trying not to make a sound, but then a long, high scream filled the night and Blue was running.

Sod that. No more being careful.

He raced between the scattered tables and chairs and back out into the main hall, glanced wildly around, looking for where the grown-ups had gone, where the scream had come from. At first the hall looked empty, but then he realized the pack had headed up the stairs towards the next floor.

And that was where the scream had come from. A kid who looked like he was dressed as Harry Potter, with glasses and everything, was being torn apart by the mob.

‘Jesus,’ Blue spat and he jumped up the stairs three at a time. There were too many grown-ups for him to get close to the boy, though. They were crowding round him where he had fallen on the steps. He didn’t seem to be moving, and wasn’t making any more noise.

Blue was desperate. As fast as he pulled one grown-up out of the way, another one filled the gap. They were ignoring him, intent on getting at their prey.

‘Help me!’ Blue roared, dragging another diseased body clear. And then he was aware of other kids running up the stairs behind him.

With the backup, Blue was able to batter his way to the heart of the pack where he managed to free some space around the boy. He knew instantly that he was too late, though. The kid was missing an eye and his throat had been torn out. They’d made a horrible mess of his stomach as well.

Blue cursed and started hammering the grown-ups, who were now turning their attention to him. He had to abandon the boy’s body and back away down the steps with the others from his team who’d come to help.

All the other kids were now congregating in the hall below. Blue turned and saw Jackson, the girl who’d been in charge.

‘Where’d Harry Potter come from?’ he called down to her.

‘Oh crap,’ said Jackson. ‘There was a group in the library. I’d forgotten all about them. God knows what’s happening in there.’

‘You need to take your lot and go get them,’ Blue shouted. ‘The rest of us will stay here and deal with these goons. Let’s get this done.’

With the help of the reinforcements, Maxie had managed to clear the grown-ups out of the whale room, and as she led her gang outside she found Achilleus lying on the floor with a worried-looking Paddy kneeling over him. She grunted with shock. It was as if a cold, dark hand had gripped her throat.

Not Achilleus … 

She hadn’t always liked the boy – he was rude and a bully, a show-off, and he had a bad mouth on him – but he was the best fighter she’d ever seen, utterly fearless in battle and clever with it. To get this far without losing anyone only to have Akkie wind up dead was more than she could bear. Without Achilleus they were in big trouble.

And then she saw his chest rising and falling.

‘What happened?’ she said.

‘He just fainted,’ said Paddy. ‘Just like that. I think he’s all right, though.’

‘Thank God.’ Maxie sat down next to Achilleus and Paddy, leaning against the wall. Full of tiredness.

‘We better get him back to the others,’ said Big Mick, strolling over. ‘It looks like we got rid of all the grown-ups from round here, but we don’t know.’

‘One second,’ said Maxie. ‘Give me one second of quiet.’

‘Let’s hope this is the last of it,’ said Mick. ‘I’m whacked.’

‘Yeah. Help me up.’ Maxie stuck out a hand and Mick pulled her to her feet. After a brief discussion they picked up Achilleus between them, got their shoulders under his armpits and dragged him down the corridor, his feet scraping along the floor.

They were the last. Following where the others had gone, they looped round to the back of the café and on through into the main hall where everyone else was regrouping.

It was a mess. Blue was hacking at something on the stairs; a steady stream of blood was dripping down to where fresh bodies lay at the bottom. The stink of it hung in the air, and worse.

A mutilated father was crawling across the floor towards the main doors, a trail of slime snaking out behind him. Big Mick let go of Achilleus, walked over to the father, put his foot on the back of his head and jabbed his spear down into his spine.

As Maxie lowered Achilleus down on a bench, he stirred and opened his eyes, disoriented and embarrassed. He shrugged Maxie off.

‘Leave me alone, won’t you?’ he muttered. ‘I’m all right.’

He rubbed his head, looking around at the scene of carnage.

‘You got any water, caddie?’

Paddy fished out a half-empty plastic bottle from his golf-bag and gave it to Achilleus, who drained it in one long gulp.

‘Did we win?’ he said and tossed the bottle to one side.

‘Think so,’ said Blue from halfway up the stairs. There was a shout from above and they saw Jackson returning
with another bunch of kids, younger for the most part and wearing a weird variety of fancy-dress outfits. Like characters in a cheesy school play.

‘What’s going on in this place?’ said Achilleus. ‘What they all dressed up like that for?’

‘They were having a World Book Day event,’ Boggle explained, and Achilleus burst out laughing.

‘They was what?’

‘Celebrating World Book Day. They’re dressed as their favourite characters from books, I think.’

Achilleus’ loud, mocking laughter almost distracted everyone from the fact that they had missed a grown-up. A big, ugly mother, wounded but not down, had been skulking at the top of the stairs, hidden among some display cabinets. As the last of the World Book Day kids came past her, she suddenly darted out and grabbed hold of a girl carrying a thick, leather-bound book.

Most of the kids were too surprised to do anything, but Ollie had never relaxed. He was always alert, always watching, always ready, and without thinking he had fitted a steel ball in his sling, pulled it back and loosed off a shot before anyone else had reacted.

With a meaty thwack, the ball hit the mother in the temple and she croaked and let go of the kid, reeling drunkenly. Blue bounded up the steps and finished her off with three quick blows. The little girl, meanwhile, was down the stairs like a startled hare and she ran straight into Ollie, who held on to her.

Jackson came down with the other kids.

‘Are you OK, Lettis?’ she said to the little girl and she nodded her head without saying anything. Jackson thanked Ollie, who simply shrugged.

‘We’ve done enough for one night, I reckon,’ said Jackson. ‘I can’t face any more dead meat. We’ll sort the bodies out in the morning. We should all get up into the minerals gallery. We’ll be safe there. But you’ll have to move some more beds in.’

‘Wrong,’ said Achilleus. ‘
You
are gonna have to move some more beds in. We just saved your sorry arses. We want to be shown a little appreciation, yeah, a little respect.’

With that he stood up, tilted his face towards the distant ceiling and yelled, his voice echoing and unexpectedly loud in the vast, yawning space.

‘Check me, Hogwarts, the SAS have just rode into town. My name is Achilleus. Don’t you never forget it.
Achilleus
. And I expect to be treated like a king. You get me? I ain’t taking no more crap from anyone. Ever!’

In the darkness of the balcony above, nobody had noticed Justin, the boy in charge at the museum, slip out from his rooms and come to look down at the new arrivals.

He leant on the balustrade and tapped his teeth with a fingernail.

He hoped this wasn’t going to mean trouble.

7

Ella, Monkey-Boy and Blu-Tack Bill were sitting on a bed, huddled next to each other, their puppy, Godzilla, asleep in Ella’s lap. He was warm and very still, only now and then twitching and shivering. They focused all their attention on him. As long as he was quiet, they could tell themselves that there was nothing to fear. They took turns stroking him, careful not to wake him up.

The local kids had set up a little camp for them inside the minerals gallery. The gallery was divided by two rows of square pillars and between the pillars were long display cabinets full of rocks and crystals and weird lumps of metal. The museum kids had made some of the spaces between the cabinets private by fixing up sheets and screens and walls of plywood and cardboard. A couple of oil lamps and some scattered tea lights gave off a warm orange glow, so that the gallery had the feeling of a sleeping shanty town at night.