The Fear (2 page)

He hated the sun. It burned his skin, blinded him, sent his thoughts spinning so that he couldn’t think straight. The darkness was warm and comforting, like an old blanket. He would sit slumped on his sofa through all the long day: waiting, dozing, dreaming. And now … Now he had the whole night to break in and get at the toys.

He smiled as he pictured all the fun he was going to have when he got the toys back to his collection. Prodding them, and making them skitter about on the floor. Letting them get away, then pulling them back. He chuckled, the sound a wet gurgle in his throat.

Stuff …

He only wished they would last longer and not break so quickly, because it was hard work catching them. They ran about and made too much noise. Most broke before he could even get them home.

He followed the scent down the street, wiping away the snot that bubbled permanently from his nose. He was dribbling too. Sticky saliva falling on to his stained T-shirt.

Stuff …

It took him ages to make his way down the street, round the corner and on to the next road. Each footfall landing softly on the tarmac. He hoped no one had got there before him. The smell of the toys was very strong.

Here was the place. A shop he used to come to a lot. A gadget shop. Long since cleaned out, but the toys had got inside. He’d come past it last night and the good sweet smell had hit him like a hammer blow. He’d tried to get in, but there were wooden boards nailed across the front.

He had plenty of time tonight, though.

He smiled again.

Stuff …

Good stuff. Cool stuff. More stuff. Nice stuff. More stuff. Stuff stuff stuff.

There was nobody else around. The streets were quiet tonight. He walked over the road, his legs making a swishing sound as they rubbed together. He put his face to the gap between two of the wooden boards and breathed in.

He had to be sure. Sometimes their smell could linger for days, even if they’d moved away.
No
. They were still in there. His toys. He leant his weight against the boards, heard them creak and groan, felt them bend. He moaned with delight. That was the way to do it. Last night he’d made the mistake of trying to pull the boards down with his hands. Better to push. He walked backwards. Put down his bags. Then moved forward, not exactly running, but gaining speed. Until …

THUD.

He hit the boards, heard a crack and then sounds on the other side. Scurrying. Whispered voices. The toys were awake.

He backed off, further this time, then went forward again, the breath hissing through his nose.

THUD.

And again. Again and again and again – slow, unthinking, patient – until at last the wood splintered and fell away from him and he was inside. In the dark.

Stuff … Come on … Where’s the cool stuff?

The smell of the toys was more intense now. Filling his head and making him feel drunk. He closed his eyes and smacked his lips together, then stuck out his tongue, tasting the air. They were nearby. If he could just catch two, maybe three, of the toys, he would have the whole night ahead of him to play with them before he went to sleep. After that? How long? A few days maybe before they broke.

But where were they? He stopped moving and stood very still so that he could listen. There was a scraping sound, a rattling and banging. More whispers. Ssss-sss-sss-sss-ssssssss … He moved towards the sound, groping his way through the darkened shop, past the empty shelves and on into the back.

There they were. Four of them. Trying to open a back door. They’d barricaded themselves in with no way out. He spread his arms wide and belched. The toys all turned round together, their faces white blurs. One of them ran at him, but he barely felt it. Like a moth, bumping at a window. They were shouting. Why did they always shout? Why not just come quietly?

Come on … stuff … make it easy for me …

They were on the small side, easy to carry but easy to break too. He picked one out, trying not to be distracted by the others. The smallest one. He backed it into a corner, while the rest of them battered at his back. Just moths.

There
. He’d got it. He picked it up and tucked it into his armpit, the weight of his arm holding it still. The rest of them carried on hitting him, shouting, their thin voices irritating him. Maybe if they’d run they might have got away from him because they were faster. He would have tracked them all night, slowly and steadily, following their scent, and he knew that the smaller ones couldn’t keep going for long – they always got tired before he did. But these ones had stayed to fight, so this way it would be easier.

Two of them had sticks. The biggest two. Their blows fell harmlessly on his flesh, no more than a tickle. He sighed and swept his free arm wide, flinging one against the wall. He knew that would break it, but he couldn’t take all of them home anyway. The smashed toy fell to the floor and he managed to scoop up the other small one. Two was enough. He tucked it away neatly in the great folds of his flesh.

Maybe he should try for a third, hold it by the neck. Sometimes they broke, though, if he did that.

No. He’d leave the other one. Maybe it would stay close and he could come back for it tomorrow.

He sighed again and headed back towards the front.

The fourth toy followed him through the shop. It had found a bigger stick. It was sharp. The toy was screaming very loudly as it jabbed at him with the stick. It might follow him out on to the street, all the way home, and its noise would attract the others. Then they would fight him for his treasures.

He stopped, turned and pushed his huge belly against the toy, forcing it against the wall. He pressed harder and harder, watching the soft blubber fold itself round the toy until it was invisible. He could feel it wriggling feebly.

It wriggled and wriggled and then, at last, was still.

The collector moved away and the small body stayed pressed into his gut. He took it by the hair and trudged out into the street. It would be no good for playing with, but he could dump it on his food pile.

And so, with a toy under each arm, he dragged the third broken toy down the street towards home.

He would leave the carrier bags where they were. He had plenty more. He had stacks and stacks of them among his stuff. He felt a little pang, though. He hated to leave anything behind.

The toys under his arms kicked and struggled, but by the time he had got to his front door they had stopped, exhausted. He was pleased with himself. This had been a good night’s work. He had more cool stuff. New toys. They would keep him happy for a few days. He dreamt of all the things he would do with them, all the games he would play. First, though, as soon as he got them inside, he would have to snap their little legs. He had learnt the hard way that they could escape if you didn’t do it. Why did they always try to run away? Why wouldn’t they just stay and play nicely? Why did they always have to make things so difficult?

And why, in the end, did they always have to break?

THE ACTION IN THIS BOOK

 

BEGINS FIVE DAYS BEFORE THE

 

INCIDENTS DESCRIBED AT

 

THE END OF
THE DEAD
.

 

All the kids had nightmares. It would have been crazy if they didn’t. They’d seen so many strange and terrible things, after all. Disease and death, fire and darkness and chaos. Their world turned upside-down. They’d seen people they loved destroyed by the sickness – mothers and fathers, older brothers, sisters, best friends. None had escaped its touch. They’d all lost someone and some of them had lost everyone. How could you not have nightmares if you’d watched your parents slowly lose their minds? If you’d watched their bodies being taken over by the disease, watched it blistering the skin, eating away at the flesh, watched it kill them?

Or worse.

Because when they didn’t die, when they lived on as mindless, shambling creatures with decaying bodies and a taste for fresh meat, it was much, much worse.

The kids who’d taken shelter in the Tower of London tried to forget. They tried to delete the memories of all they’d lived through, but when they slept some deep part of their brains kept on reminding them, and suddenly they were back there, reliving it as a loved one got taken by the disease, or as friends were attacked by the hungry things that had once been human. Suddenly they were hiding again from their own families, trying to get away as a mother or a father reached out for them with rotting fingers …

They would talk and struggle in their sleep. They would cry out. There would be screams in the night. Some would sleepwalk and be found in strange places spouting gibberish. More than once someone had woken to find a friend with their hands round their throat.

DogNut was no different. On the night before he was due to leave the Tower he had his old familiar nightmare once again. Why this one? This same dream, night after night? Why would his brain not leave this memory alone? He’d survived more dangerous attacks. Lost closer friends. So why, in the darkness, did the dream come creeping like some low shadow creature into his brain? So that even he, tough and wiry and street-smart and seemingly scared of nothing, would jerk awake, tangled in his bedclothes, crying like a little baby and calling out for his mum.

Every night the dream ran its course. He could never wake himself before that final terrible moment …

Maybe it was the weirdness of what had happened, the fact that he’d seen nothing quite like it before or since. The slow, disgusting, unreal nature of it. It had even felt like a dream at the time.

It had happened soon after he’d arrived at the Tower, when they were all still learning about their surroundings, before they’d turned the business district to the north and west into a forbidden zone. All the big office blocks and skyscrapers were here, even though it was the most ancient part of the city, founded by the Romans some two thousand years ago. It was an area where far-out, modern, hi-tech buildings of glass and steel rubbed up against medieval churches and solid, stone-clad eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings decorated with pillars and columns and statues.

This part of London seemed to contain a special sickness all of its own.

But all those months ago they hadn’t realized …

In his dream DogNut is back there, out on patrol with his friends Ed and Kyle and a boy called Leo. Leo is a chatty kid who’s pretty tough, but also more than a little clumsy. So, although he loves fighting and is always the first to volunteer to go out hunting for food and supplies, he is as much of a danger to his own side in a fight as he is to any attacking sickos. DogNut is always nervous going on patrol with him – he doesn’t pay attention and is noisy and too sure of himself – but today a lot of the other kids are laid up with the flu and he’s the best available.

They walk along a wide street. In his dream it’s black and white, like an old film. Bank notes are blowing in the breeze like confetti. The four of them laugh and try to catch as many of them as they can, even though they are completely worthless now. They follow the trail of money and it leads them to a fancy-looking Victorian building with an imposing front that reminds DogNut of a Greek temple. It’s the money that brings them here. There’s smoke rising from the building, but the boys are curious to look inside. To find the source of the money.

The revolving doors at the entrance are locked. The window next to them, however, has been smashed, and, carefully avoiding the broken glass, they climb inside.

They are in what appears to be a posh bank of some sort. There’s a wide marble floor, with a circular pattern of tiles set into it that looks something like a compass. There are pillars and carved wood, and paintings on the walls, a couple of big dead trees in pots. At the back is a staircase leading up from the lobby, to the left an empty reception desk. There are no signs of any human activity.

Leo is keen to explore further.

He says something about looking for gold.

Notes aren’t much use, but gold will always be valuable …

They walk towards the stairs. And as they get to the middle of the tiled pattern on the floor, there is a crack and the floor begins to crumble beneath their feet. DogNut instinctively grabs on to Leo and they hold each other as the floor collapses. In the dream it happens slowly, they almost float down, but at the time they must have fallen hard and fast.

Right down to the basement.

Miraculously they are unhurt. They’ve landed on something soft. The air is filled with dust so for a few moments DogNut can’t see anything, despite the sunlight filtering down from the floor above.

Ed and Kyle had been walking a little way behind them and haven’t fallen through. DogNut hears Ed calling down to him, asking if he’s all right.

DogNut shouts back that he’s fine.

We landed on something …
He tries to work out what exactly the two of them are standing on … or rather
in
. He’s sunk up to his waist in something warm and slimy. And it’s moving, like some giant animal.

‘What is it?’ says Leo.

‘It’s bad is what it is,’ says DogNut. ‘We got to get out of here.’

‘But what is it?’

‘I don’t want to know. I just want to get out.’

As the air clears, DogNut notices that there’s a sort of luminous glow down here. It helps him to gradually make out his surroundings.

Faces. Too many to count. Looking up at him. He’s sinking in a sea of faces. He realizes that the sticky mess he’s fallen into is
people
. They’re all squashed together, and it’s as if they’ve melted into one single, shapeless blob. They are stacked on top of each other. He can see more faces underneath. Bodies crushed and trampled and squashed beneath the feet of those people at the top.