The End (14 page)

‘David could cause problems,’ she murmured to Blue.

‘You
don’t say.’ Blue was sucking his teeth. ‘He could keep his lot and John’s guys out of the fighting. Stay safe inside the palace until it’s over.’

‘Is it worth trying one more time to persuade him not to be an arse?’ said Maxie.

‘One last time.’

Maxie stood up.

‘We have to remember what this is all about,’ she shouted. ‘This is bigger than all of us. We’ve got the chance
of a last battle. To make an end. Make London safe forever. We have to forget our differences. We have to accept a vote.’ She turned to David. ‘We really want you with us.’

‘Like I can trust you,’ he sneered.

‘We fixed your problems,’ said Maxie, trying not to lose her temper and swear at him. ‘We beat Just John for you. As I understand it, he’s still in a truce with you.
We left you stronger than when we arrived. OK, so maybe we didn’t stay at the palace, but all we did for you came out good. So yeah, you
can
trust us. In fact, you could thank us.’

She wished she had more to say, could make a proper argument, but she was convinced now that nothing she said was going to have any effect on David.

She stared at him a moment longer and when it
was clear he wasn’t going to say anything she sat down. Nicola had a few quiet words with a boy next to her who was writing in a big book, and then she addressed the assembled kids again.

‘I don’t think there’s a lot more we can say or do until Jordan gets here,’ she said, and looked to Will and Finn. ‘You’re sure you’re all right to go back out to the Tower and get him? It’ll
be dangerous.’

‘We know,’ said Will. ‘We’ve done that journey before. But we’re prepared to try. From what we’ve heard today most of the streets around here are clear of sickos. We’ll need backup all the same. No way are just the two of us going out there alone. I know Ryan won’t want to come. He said before he was too scared to take his hunters into the badlands, so maybe someone
else here can …’

‘Hey, whoa, hold up there, bro!’ Ryan was on his feet now. Maxie smiled. Clever boy, Will.

‘Never said we was scared,’ said Ryan. ‘Just
careful
. Never been no need for us to go out that way. From what I seen, though, people coming and going along the river
to the east, it’s cool over there now. We’ll go with you. We’ll keep you safe.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah.’

‘As I remember, it was your dogs,’ said Will. ‘You said they were nervous of going that way, into the no-go zone.’

‘My dogs are cool,’ said Ryan. ‘They’ll do what we tell ’em. You can rely on us. No one says Ryan the hunter is a wuss. We’ll get you to the Tower. When will you be ready to go?’

‘We’re ready now,’ said Will, checking with Finn, who nodded. ‘If you are. We
can walk it in a couple of hours.’

‘Yeah,’ said Finn. ‘So long as there really
aren’t
any sickos out that way.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Ryan, starting to walk out of the hall. ‘Saddle up, guys, we going to work!’

17

‘How long’s she been like this?’

‘An hour or so, maybe longer.’

‘You should’ve got me sooner.’

‘Didn’t know how serious it was.’ The girl, Geta, was sheepish.

‘Look at her,’ said Einstein. ‘Doesn’t that look just a little serious to you?’

The captured mother was lying on the floor of the lorry that the museum kids used as a cage. She was writhing and
screaming as if something sharp and toxic was inside her, fighting to get out. Brown bile was dribbling from her mouth and she kept coughing up fat lumps of vile grey phlegm. The stench coming off her was worse than the usual grown-up stink. There was a choking edge to it, like the smell of burning hair. Her eyes had gone a nasty yellow colour.

Ollie had been out in the car park
with Lettis when he’d heard the screaming and yelling coming from the lorry. Lettis had been feeding the chickens. She enjoyed looking after other creatures. It seemed to calm her down and make her forget her own problems. She sometimes managed to catch a hen and pick it up like a pet. If she held them tight and stroked them they
stopped struggling and went into a sort of peaceful
trance.

Lettis had looked scared and haunted when she heard the mother thrashing about and wailing. She’d dropped the chicken she was holding and clung on to Ollie’s shirt. Luckily there were some other kids around who offered to look after Lettis, and Ollie had assured her that he was only going a little way away. When he’d got to the lorry, he’d found a cluster of kids there,
mainly the ones in white coats who worked in Einstein’s lab, but also one or two of the Holloway kids and, standing at the back, the Twisted Kids, Fish-Face and Skinner, looking anxious. Einstein was quizzing Geta, one of the kids whose job it was to look after the mother.

‘What’s going on exactly?’ Ollie asked, climbing on to the lorry. ‘Is she dying?’

‘I hope not,’ said Einstein.
‘We injected her earlier.’

‘Injected her? You’re joking. Injected her with what?’

‘With the first batch of serum we’ve been working on,’ said Einstein.

‘Serum?’

‘Serum, antidote, formula, drug, elixir, remedy, George’s Marvellous Medicine … whatever you want to call it. It was based on some of the blood we took from Small Sam.’

‘Looks like kill or cure to me,’
said Ollie as the mother screeched and arched her back so far it looked like she might break in two.

‘That’s pretty much it,’ said Einstein. ‘It’s a shot in the dark. Obviously I hope it’s cure rather than kill. The Green Man’s been trying to help us. The problem is we don’t understand most of what he’s talking about. If this works,
though, if this makes her even a little bit better
and doesn’t kill her then we could try the antidote on him. If we could clear his mind a little he might really be able to help us.’

‘He’s your best hope,’ said Ollie. ‘You kill him, you’re stuffed.’

‘We’ll keep using this one as a guinea pig,’ said Einstein. ‘Until we perfect it.’

‘Good luck with that,’ said Ollie. ‘She looks about ready to peg it.’

Fish-Face mumbled
something so quietly that Ollie couldn’t tell what it was, and then she peeled off and went back towards the museum buildings. The mother’s eyes opened wide and she looked around fearfully at the kids. She was chained to the side of the lorry. One chain round her neck, another round one ankle, her hands cuffed in front of her.

‘We had her mouth taped shut with gaffer tape,’ said
Geta. ‘So we could get close to her and inject her without getting bitten. We had to pull it off, though; it looked like she was going to choke to death.’

The mother’s eyes darted from one kid to another. Ollie wasn’t used to seeing a grown-up show any emotion, but she was going through the lot – horror, pain, sadness, confusion, fear. She reached out her hands towards Einstein.
He ignored her and she turned and reached out towards Ollie. She looked desperate and strangely intelligent, like someone coming out of a mad fever waking up to the cold light of day. Ollie stepped forward and took her hands. She smiled at him, pathetically grateful, but it only lasted an instant. The smile was suddenly replaced by a look of animal fear and aggression, like a dog with
rabies, and she lunged at Ollie, teeth bared. Ollie was ready for her. He was
always ready. Hadn’t got this far without being careful. He drove the palm of his free hand into her forehead, knocking her back and stunning her.

‘You can’t leave her like this,’ he said to Einstein. ‘I mean, what if you don’t kill her, but drive her into some sick hell? You’ll need to put her out
of her misery.’

‘I can do what I bloody well want, thank you very much, ginge,’ said Einstein. ‘She’s useful to us for our experiments. She’s the only one we’ve got.’

‘No, she isn’t,’ said Ollie. ‘She’s not the only one. You said it yourself: you’ve got the Green Man.’

‘And, as you said, we can’t risk harming him in any way. So can you please just back off? I don’t need
you interfering. All of you, back off. I need room here.’

Ollie climbed down, looked back. Einstein was standing over the mother, who suddenly sat up and stared at him.

‘Help me!’ she shouted. ‘Please help me!’

Einstein laughed and clapped his hands.

‘Jesus, she can speak,’ he said. ‘She can bloody speak.’ He was grinning like a madman. Ollie wondered if this was his
eureka moment. Had months of working in the lab finally paid off? It looked like his antidote had had some positive effect on this woman, cleared her mind, driven the sickness out. But she looked miserable, utterly miserable. Her reason was returning and so was her memory. You could see it in her eyes.

That was the worst, most terrible thing of all. Understanding.

The memories
of all she’d been, all she’d done, were bubbling up inside her. Ollie wondered how you could ever deal with that.

‘I will help you,’ said Einstein. ‘I’m a doctor. I’ll make you well.’

‘Help me, help me, help me! They’re doing things to me. You have to make them go away. You have to make them stop. It’s not right. They’re in me. What have you done to me?’

‘Nothing. I’ve
just made you well,’ said Einstein.

‘Bastard!’ And then the mother flung back her head and screamed, so loudly that Ollie had to step back and cover his ears. It was a deep yell from the depths of her misery and pain. And then she was an animal once more. What was left of her humanity had struggled to the surface. She’d got her face above the water, for just one moment, seen
the sky and the sun shining on the beach – a beautiful tropical island just out of reach – and she’d been too weak to swim there and had sunk back beneath the waves.

She jiggled and shivered, trembled and ground her teeth together noisily. She jerked against her chains, flung herself against the side of the lorry, attacked her face with her fingers, pulling away the skin where
it had gone soft around the growths and boils that covered it. It came away like soggy newspaper, exposing the muscle and bone beneath, and then she gave one final cry and went rigid, her arms and legs stretched out. Grey jelly oozed out of her mouth, her nose, her ears, from under her eyelids. Her body spasmed and jerked as boils erupted all over what was left of her skin.

Ollie swallowed hard. He recognized the symptoms.

‘She’s a burster!’ he shouted, stepping away from the lorry. ‘She’s gonna blow!’

Some of the kids around him jumped back as well. Those who knew what was about to happen. Einstein
didn’t move. He was staying close to the mother, studying her.

‘What are you talking about?’ he said. ‘I’m going to help her.’

‘Good luck,’
said Ollie.

‘The injection’s working,’ said Einstein. ‘She’s just getting rid of the sickness.’

And then it happened. The mother’s body erupted, slowly at first, the skin disintegrating, her insides pushing out, and then it accelerated fast. There was a horrible gurgling sound and she burst, spraying Einstein with a foul, stinking liquid.

Ollie couldn’t help it. He started
to laugh. And the others joined in.

‘I guess it’s kill, then,’ he said.

‘You saw it!’ said Einstein, ignoring the mess, his face spattered with gunk. ‘You saw it yourselves. For a moment she talked. For a moment she was human. It’s a start. We’re getting there. It’s a start.’

‘Yeah, right,’ said Ollie. ‘All you got to do is inject every grown-up in the world and wait
for them to either burst or be cured.’

18

Wormwood was standing in the library, staring out of the windows that overlooked the car park. He hadn’t been able to see exactly what was going on in the lorry, but he could tell from the kids’ reactions and from the vibrations in the air what was happening. Two of the museum kids were acting as his minders today. Some boy with a big nose and another one with a scarred
neck who he thought was called Cameron. They never let him out of their sight, but kept their distance. He’d come in here to find some books and been distracted by the noise from outside.

There was one of his kind down there. A woman. At least there had been. He could feel that her light had gone out. He couldn’t hear her whining noise in his head any more. It had got very loud
and then …
poof
.