The Enemy (10 page)

He peered around the end of the bar. Nothing. No movement. Only those dark shapes on the floor. He tiptoed to the door, passing through a wet patch. He didn’t like to think what it might be, but it made his feet suck and squelch.

It sounded horribly loud to him, but he couldn’t stop.

Keep moving, Sam. Just get out of here.

He was at the door. It was open.

Thank God.

He’d made it.

So long, you dirty bastards.

He went through. It was pitch-black out here; he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. He told himself that it was al right. Nothing would jump out at him, because nothing could see him.

It didn’t help.

He was petrified. If he hadn’t peed himself earlier, he would have done it now. His heart was beating so hard he could feel his whole body shaking, and in the dead silence the blood surging in his ears was deafening. He’d always been scared of the dark. His mom had told him not to worry.

“If you can’t see the monsters, they can’t see you.”

Back then there had been no monsters. Not real ones. Only imaginary.

Now ...

He held his breath and inched forward, his hands stretched out in front of him, feeling the floor with his feet.

He came to a step.

Stairs.

Good. They would take him down, away from this awful place.

One step ... two steps ...

It would be a long climb, but maybe there would be windows soon.

Step fol owed step fol owed step. He started to move quicker as he grew more confident. Finding a rhythm.

He came to a wal and was confused for a moment until he realized that the stairs turned a corner. He reached out his hands, groping in the darkness.

They touched something warm and soft.

What was it?

It moved.

No ...

He turned around. He had to get away. There was only one thing it could be—a grown-up.

He started to cry. He couldn’t run, not in the dark. He fel to his hands and knees and crawled like a dog. His eyes screwed shut. The grown-up was coming after him; he could hear its feet scraping, its breath rasping.

Sam felt strong hands grip his ankle. He kicked out. Got away. Sped up.

But where could he go? Upstairs there were only more grown-ups.

If he moved to the side and kept stil , maybe this one would go past him. He tried it. But the grown-up was already there, on the step next to him.

Sam shouted in panic and scurried up the steps as fast as he could. He was back at the door to the directors’ box. There was movement on the other side. The grown-ups were waking up.

It was al over. He should never have shouted.

He blundered into the room, the weak light seeming suddenly bright after the inky blackness of the stairwel .

There was a wet slurp behind him. He turned. The grown-up was fil ing the whole doorway. He was huge, a tal father, wel over six feet. He was wearing a long, soiled overcoat and had a huge black beard and no teeth. He opened his mouth in a silent howl and grabbed Sam, clutching him to his chest.

Another father blundered across the room and tried to snatch Sam back. The giant swatted him away.

More grown-ups came on now, with hunched backs and bent legs too feeble to hold their weight.

The giant must be an intruder, come to steal food. The group in the directors’ box didn’t like it. They swarmed around him, their strength in numbers, as he pushed them away and lashed out at them. Sam was being crushed against his hot damp chest. The mother who had first snatched him got hold of an arm and tugged. Sam felt like he was going to be torn in half.

“Get off me! Get off!” he shouted, but the sound of his voice only seemed to send the grown-ups into a frenzy. Sam was surrounded by a stinking, fetid mass of bodies, hands clawing at him, faces looming close. But nothing could make the giant let go.

Sam’s hand holding the butterfly pin was clamped in the fold of the giant’s arm. Then he remembered the lighter. With his free hand he groped in his pocket until he found it. He prayed that it would work.

He pressed the button. Nothing. He pressed again. Stil nothing.

Again ...
Click-click-click
...

A spark.

Come on. Come on.

There were spots dancing in front of Sam’s eyes. His ears were singing. He couldn’t breathe. Any moment now he was going to pass out.

Again he pressed, and this time a smal orange flame sprang into life.

He raised his hand and put the flame to the giant’s beard.

The effect was spectacular. There was a blinding, scorching flare as the beard crackled and sizzled. The giant yelped and dropped Sam, batting at the flames and sparks with his huge, grubby hands.

Sam was in danger of being trampled underfoot. The giant was hopping and dancing around. Sam flinched clear as hands reached out for him. He realized he stil had the lighter clutched in his hand, with the flame lit. He held tight to the bottom of the giant’s coat and put the flame to it. In a few seconds it was alight.

The giant stumbled across the room as the flames spread up his coat. Some of the other grown-ups kept a fearful distance, others jumped on his back. Soon a ful -scale battle was raging, the remaining bits of furniture were being smashed to pieces and set alight. A fat mother seemed to actual y explode as if her clothing had been trapping flammable gases.

Flaming bodies ran in panic. The giant was a living firebal . The room was lit up bright as day, and Sam could see the ful horror of it. The blood and filth and bits of dead bodies.

It was like a vision of hel .

He didn’t stay to watch.

“Die, you dirty bastards!” he yel ed, and in a moment he was back on the stairs, holding his lighter up to see where he was going. Its feeble light slowly dimmed as the last of the fuel ran out, but he was hurrying down, three steps at a time.

There was a shriek behind him. He looked around. Flames were leaping down the stairwel , and burning grown-ups were coming after him.

Run, Sam, run. . . .

I
’m not coming.”

“What do you mean you’re not coming?”

“I’m not leaving this place, Arran. It’s home. It’s safe. I like it here. I’m not leaving and you can’t make me.”

“Cal um, you can’t stay here by yourself.”

“I won’t be by myself. Others wil want to stay, just you see. I won’t be alone. Not everyone wants to go.”

“But they’re al outside, waiting. It’s arranged.”

“Ask them,” said Cal um. “Ask them if they real y want to go, or if they’d rather stay here with me.”

“We took a vote on it,” said Arran wearily.

“No we didn’t. We voted on whether to go into the center of town or into the countryside. You never asked them if they’d al rather just stay here. So ask them.”

“You ask them,” said Arran.

“No,” said Cal um. “I’m not going out there. I’m happy here.” He sat down and folded his arms.

“Wel , what if one or two did want to stay?” said Arran. “How would you survive, Cal um? It’s crazy.”

“I’l tel you what’s crazy,” said Cal um angrily. “You lot, going off out there, just because some weird kid in a patchwork suit turns up. It’s like that fairy story The Pied Piper of Hamelin, where he takes the kids away and, I don’t know, eats them, or something.”

“That’s not what happens.”

“Yeah, wel , whatever, it hasn’t got a happy ending. Why did you listen to that idiot? Hmm? Why did you believe him? He’s obviously lying.”

Arran looked around the supermarket, where he had spent the last year of his life. They were on the shop floor, surrounded by row upon row of empty shelving. He was sick of the sight of the place.

“Cal um,” he said steadily, “anything’s better than staying here and dying one by one.”

“It doesn’t have to be like that. You do what you want, Arran, but I’m staying.”

“You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” The thought of getting out of here fil ed Arran with a light, airy feeling. He’d had a bad night. The pain in his neck had steadily grown worse.

He didn’t know if he’d slept at al . Now his head was throbbing, his eyes were dry and sore, and he was sweating heavily. The last thing he wanted to do was hang around here worrying about himself.

He looked at Cal um, sitting stubbornly in an old armchair, as if nothing in the world could shift him.

“What if the grown-ups get in?” he said.

“They won’t try and get in if they think there’s no one here.”

“They’re bound to try, though, and I mean . . . Jesus, Cal um, come on, what wil you eat?”

“I can scavenge just like you did. If there’s less of us, there’s less mouths to feed. It’l be easier, actual y.”

“Yes, and what if it’s just you? What then?”

“It won’t be. Loads of other kids wil want to stay. You’re forcing us out and we don’t like it.”

Arran sighed.

“Al right. I’l ask them,” he said.

He walked outside into the sunshine. Al the Waitrose kids and the Morrisons crew were assembled there—fiftyseven of them in al . Carrying sleeping bags and backpacks, food, water, and weapons.

“Cal um says he’s not coming,” Arran announced. There were groans from the kids.

“Typical.”

“He only ever thinks about himself.”

“Leave him. He’s not a fighter. We can live without him.”

“We can’t just leave him here, though,” said Maxie. “He’l die.”

“So what?” said Achil eus. “Let’s get going.”

Arran shouted them down. “Does anyone else want to stay?”

No one.

The kids stood in silence, shaking their heads.

“You sure?” said Arran. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want. Who’d rather stay here with Cal um?”

Stil no one.

Arran closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. There was nothing for it: he would just have to persuade Cal um to come. He strode back inside.

Bernie turned to Ben. They looked very pale out here. Their black clothes accentuated the whiteness of their skin. They hardly ever went outside.

“Shame to be leaving it al ,” said Bernie. “Everything we built.”

“We can build more,” said Ben. “If Jester’s tel ing the truth, we can make loads of cool stuff in the palace. We can rebuild the whole of London. We’l be famous. They’l put up statues of us.”

“Yeah, but . . . the speaking tubes, the barriers, the stoves we rigged up in the canteen, the new signaling system we were working on. It took us ages.”

“You want to stay?” said Ben.

Bernie looked wistful y over toward the supermarket.

“No,” she said. “I want to be a mil ion miles from here. It reminds me too much of everything we’ve lost. Al the friends who’ve died. Al the bad times.”

“It’s a fresh start,” said Ben. “We’l build newer and better stuff.”

“Yeah.” Bernie smiled and put an arm around Ben.

Nearby, a group of little kids was clustered around one of the Morrisons crew. A tiny six-year-old cal ed Joel, who had an even tinier puppy wrapped in an old jacket in his arms.

“Oh, he’s so cute.”

“Look at him, he’s licking my hand.”

“What’s his name?”

“Godzil a,” said Joel, and they al laughed.

Maxie looked on and smiled. They’d kept dogs in Waitrose at first, as guard dogs and companions, but it had gotten too difficult to feed them, and they’d become semi wild. In the end they’d had to turn them loose. They were probably dead now, along with most of the other pets that had relied on humans.

Maxie noticed a kid on the edge of the group, not joining in. He just stood there, wide-eyed, molding a big lump of Blu Tack putty in his hands. She went over to him and crouched down.

“What’s your name?” she asked. The boy stared at her but didn’t speak. Instead he rol ed the Blu Tack out into a long rope between his fingers.

“He don’t speak,” said Blue, walking up. “Not since his mom and dad died.”

“Poor little guy.”

“He’s not deaf or nothing.”

“No.”

“We cal him Blu-Tack Bil . He’s always playing with the stuff. Only thing that keeps him happy.”

Maxie smiled at Bil and noticed that he had formed the Blu Tack into a letter
B
.
B
for Bil .

“I suppose we’re al going to have to get to know each other,” Maxie said to Blue.

“Guess so.”

“I’m Maxie, by the way.”

“S’al right, girl. I know who you are.”

Maxie smiled awkwardly, not sure how to take this. Blue scared her slightly. He reminded her of boys from before, the ones that shouted at you in the street and laughed with their friends when you tried to ignore them.

“Are you, like, Arran’s girlfriend?” Blue asked.

“No,” said Maxie, a little too quickly and a little too indignantly. “Why would you think that?”

“Dunno. You’re, like, his second in command.”

“Is Whitney your girlfriend?”

“Whitney? No way.” Blue laughed.

Maxie made a face that said “Wel , then.”

Arran came out of the shop, a dark look on his face.

Maxie went over to him. “No luck?” she asked.

“He won’t budge.”

“We could force him.”

“What’s the point? If he doesn’t want to come, he doesn’t have to.”