Paul eased him to the floor and then dragged him over to the door. He stopped to get his breath, fumbling for the keys in his pocket. It was hot down here. It always was. Even in winter it was a couple of degrees warmer than upstairs.
And it smelt.
It was them. The sickos that lived down here. Lurking in the abandoned rooms underneath the museum. For the most part the kids just ignored them, safe in the knowledge that the diseased, mushy-brained grown-ups could never open the locked doors.
Not the sickos, no.
But he could.
The lamp that Jamie had been carrying had blown out when he’d dropped it. Paul picked it up and relit it. He put it on the floor close to the door and pushed the key into the lock. He turned it. This was the last door. Once he’d done this he would go up to the car park and let the three sickos off the lorry. And after that he could sit back and watch the fun.
He pulled the door open. There was a knot of sickos pressed up against it on the other side. Crushed together in a tight huddle. One stared at him, but the two nearest ones looked blind. They were thin as skeletons and slow moving. Their skin was pale, hardly blemished by sickness, their eyes sunk deep in dark sockets. Paul noticed a skittering movement among them and saw that rats were crawling all over them. One fat greasy specimen hung off a mother’s ear, its teeth gripping the lobe. She didn’t seem to notice. Another sat up, straight-backed, on the shoulder of a young father, sniffing the warm air. And then it went back to where it had been gnawing a hole in the father’s skin.
One rat jumped down and trotted off, a lump of unidentifiable grey flesh in its mouth.
The sickos started to stir. Those that were able to crawled towards him; others simply stretched out their hands; one or two appeared to be dead. One came close and sniffed him, then moved on. Paul spat on him and then dragged Jamie’s body closer.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘It’s supper time. Eat your fill. Get your strength up. You’ve work to do. There’s more like this up there. A whole building full of them.’
The rest of the sickos started to move, breaking away from the huddle, ignoring Paul and slithering towards Jamie’s body. One put his hands on him, feeling with blind fingers over his face, and as he did so Jamie’s eyes fluttered open.
Even after all that he still wasn’t dead.
Never mind. He soon would be.
He looked at Paul with a helpless expression. Tried to say something. A mother put her fingers in his mouth.
Paul leant over him. ‘I want to show you something, Jamie,’ he said. ‘My little secret.’
He held on to the top of his roll-neck jumper and pulled it down, then lifted the lamp to illuminate his exposed skin.
There was a horrific scar below his right ear. It hadn’t healed properly. Pus oozed from a sticky hole. The skin was ragged and lumpy around it. It was a mess, but you could still tell what had caused it. The scar was in the unmistakable shape of two sets of teeth.
Paul laughed. ‘That’s what they do to you,’ he said. ‘The grown-ups. That’s what my one on the lorry did, before I muzzled him. That’s what they’ll do to you.’
He straightened the neck of his jumper and stood up. Jamie’s eyes pleaded with him.
Paul turned and started to walk away along the corridor.
It was time to let the night come down.
74
Shadowman had gone round the room in the flat making sure the strangers were all dead, methodically cutting the throats of any who showed signs of life. And then a noise had drawn him to the window.
St George was doing a sort of war dance on top of a car. He was stamping up and down, hammering out a rhythm with his feet, lit by the lurid reds and yellows of the dancing flames from the burning supermarket.
His army was transfixed, watching him with upturned faces. He was their god. One by one they’d joined in with him, stamping, beating their fists in the air, and now they were systematically wrecking every car on the street in an orgy of senseless violence.
Shadowman was shaking uncontrollably. His head felt light. Nausea rose in his gullet and he fought the urge to pass out. He was sopping with sweat and blood and worse. There were tears dripping off his chin. He was crying, biting his tongue to keep from howling. Finally his knees buckled and he collapsed on to the bed, unable to stand any longer. He curled up into a foetus, hugging his knees. Around him on the floor lay six dead bodies.
He realized that he had been absolutely terrified. Scared beyond all understanding. He had been in a place he never wanted to go again. They had done that to him, St George and his bloody army. And they were going to do it to others. They were going to spread their terror wherever they went.
He had killed one of St George’s lieutenants. And he wasn’t going to let it end there. He would overcome his terror. He would kill the rest of them, when he could, one by one – Man U, Spike, Bluetooth – he’d find a way. A way to punish them for what they’d done to his friends.
And when he got the chance he would kill St George.
And then he would go to the palace and look for Jester and kill him too. Snuff him out for his betrayal. That was what would keep him going. That was what would get him up off this gore-spattered bed. He would ignore his wounds, his hunger and his thirst. Revenge would drive him on.
He forced himself back to the window. The army was starting to march off. He had to follow them. That was his role now.
He would do it.
Even though they scared him to death.
He packed up his weapons. Took a drink of water from his canteen.
He was ready.
The army had a name now. He’d known it all along.
Known what to call them.
The Fear.
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First published 2011
Copyright © Charlie Higson, 2011
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