The Sacrifice (15 page)

There was a boy at the centre of the six,
watching Sam as he was led down the aisle. He was the only kid in the whole cathedral
who looked at Sam.

Slowly he swam into focus out of the smoke
haze, a sharp, hard object, as if carved from stone like one of the white marble
statues.

He was smiling.

He looked to be about fifteen. Quite short,
though there was something about him, a stillness, a confidence that made him seem
taller than he was. He was skinny, almost like a skeleton, with a narrow, bony face. His
head was shaved and his skin was so pale it was almost transparent. Sam could see blue
veins beneath it. His eyes were sunk deep in purple sockets above his long straight nose
and looked dreamy, shining.

He had a black scab on his forehead, crusty
and oozing pus from one infected spot.

‘Welcome,’ he said, dropping to
his knees, but keeping his eyes fixed on Sam the whole time. He then raised his hands up
towards Sam, as if begging.

‘Welcome,’ he said again.
‘We’ve been waiting for you. My name is Matt and it is my honour to welcome
the Lamb to his Temple.’

Shadowman couldn’t sleep. He’d
been trying to match his own rhythms exactly to The Fear, but he still found it hard
when he was exposed and couldn’t do anything to block out the sun. He was in the
cab of a lorry that was parked opposite a small tyre centre on the edge of an industrial
estate in Kilburn. The tyre centre sat behind a large forecourt. It had an open-fronted
area where cars would have been fitted with new tyres, and behind that was a warehouse
piled high with tyres and car parts. That was where The Fear were sleeping. Shadowman
could picture them, all crowded in there, pressed up against each other.

He’d nearly been caught out in the
open by a small raiding party yesterday and had just managed to duck into the lorry
before he was seen. He’d waited ages for them to go away and in the end had
decided he might as well stay in here. With the doors locked, there was no danger of any
strangers getting at him and he was high enough to get a good view of the tyre
centre.

Beyond the warehouse were railway tracks
running up from West Hampstead station. A wall and a high barbedwire fence blocked
access to the tracks, so there was no danger of the horde going out that way and giving
him the slip when it got dark. St George had been leading his army
through the local housing estates, working his way from street to street. They
hadn’t found any kids since they’d left the school the other night. And
Shadowman was happy for it to stay that way. However, while the lack of fresh food was
making the horde sluggish, it also made them angry and unpredictable. There were a lot
of them to feed. They occasionally found scraps in the houses they raided, but it was
clear that what they really craved was children.

Shadowman tried to straighten out and
groaned, rubbing a stiff muscle in his neck. He’d been trying to sleep across the
front seats. Unfortunately the lorry wasn’t big enough to have its own bed in the
cab. It was squashed and uncomfortable in here and the low afternoon sun was now shining
directly in through the windscreen.

He sat up and looked out. All quiet. A flat,
dead, dull street. He picked up his binoculars from the dashboard and trained them on
the tyre warehouse. Nothing moved. It would be at least another hour before it was dark
and they would stir.

He thought he might risk getting out and
stretching his legs. He didn’t want to get cramp. He took the plastic bottle out
of his pack and drank a little water. Broke his rules and ate a hard, dry biscuit
he’d found in a sealed tin in someone’s kitchen the day before. He was
trying to save the biscuits and only eat them at mealtimes, but he was feeling at a low
ebb. The sugar hit him and he felt a fizz of dizzy light-headedness. He mashed the
biscuit against the roof of his mouth with his tongue, turning it into a paste so that
it would last longer.

He took a last look around, then popped the
lock on the passenger door and swung it open. He climbed down the steps and carefully
closed the door, trying not to make any sound.

He sniffed the air. If any strangers were
close he’d detect them. He was becoming more like them every day, relying on his
animal senses. He thought he could vaguely sense the bulk of them, over the road in the
warehouse, detect a warm, rotten smell wafting in the afternoon air. He was probably
imagining it. They were all inside. It was unlikely their stink would reach him
here.

He pulled his home-made camouflage cloak
round his body and set off to explore. The Fear had stopped abruptly last night before
he’d had a chance to scope the area out properly.

He moved quickly and silently around the
nearby streets, getting his bearings, learning the lie of the land. It was important to
know your territory. Plus, it was possible The Fear might use the tyre warehouse as a
base for a while, so he needed to find a better place to sleep. Just in case.

Be prepared
.

He selected a three-storey block of flats
not far from the lorry. It was easy enough to break in with the tools he always carried
with him and he made his way to the top front corner flat. The windows here would offer
the best view of the tyre centre.

There was a musty, mouldy smell in the
airless flat. It had been left too long with the doors and windows sealed. He waited a
good minute before going in, letting out any noxious fumes and allowing the fresh air
in.

Then he took a deep breath and stepped in
through the door, his knife held tight in his hand.

You never knew what you’d find when
you entered a flat like this.

The first thing he saw were two corpses
sitting side by side on the sofa. They were holding hands. Rats and
maggots and bacteria had long since eaten their flesh away, leaving only the bones,
leathery patches of skin and the ragged hair on the top of their skulls.

There were the remains of a meal laid out on
the low table in front of them. Plates with dark smears of something, inedible bits and
pieces.

Once Shadowman might have been panicked by
something like this – panicked, revolted and scared – but he’d got used to all
sorts of sights in the last year.

You didn’t need to be scared of dead
things.

He nodded to the corpses and said,
‘Afternoon.’

What really would have panicked him was if
one of the corpses had replied.

Well, thankfully a lot of weird stuff had
gone down in the last year, but, as far as he knew, people didn’t come back from
the dead. Some people called the strangers zombies, but they weren’t the walking
dead and if you killed one it didn’t get up again.

He wondered how long it would be before the
scales tipped and all the strangers were wiped out, from their disease, from hunger or
from being killed by children. At the moment they might just have the upper hand; kids
lived in constant fear. It couldn’t last forever, though, could it?

Unless … Unless … Unless … 

St George’s mob were showing worrying
signs of … 

What was it?

Organization?

Intelligence?

Motivation?

The scariest thing was that they were
changing. Was the disease entering a new phase? That’s why Shadowman had
to keep on their tail. Learn as much about them as he could. Start
planning how to stop them.

He went over to the window and checked the
view.

There was the warehouse. Good. He had clear
sight of the forecourt and into the workshop area. This was perfect. A shame he
hadn’t had time to come here the night before. He had an uninterrupted view both
ways along the street. He could see the top of the lorry, the railway tracks, what
looked like a shopping centre some distance off to the right. And there … 

Something moving.

He checked the sky. Still too light for the
strangers to be up and about. He lifted his binoculars to his eyes and scanned the
streets.

Where was it? Had he imagined
it?

He was pretty sure he had spotted a movement
and he was pretty sure it had been a person.

Now there was nothing.

He moved the glasses slowly,
methodically … 

Yes. There.
He could see a human
shape. Someone was squatting down. Hiding behind a garden wall in the shadow of a big
tree.

Strangers didn’t hide. Not like
that.

A kid then?

If it
was
kids he’d have to
warn them not to go blundering about and wake the adults. He couldn’t shout out a
warning for the same reason. St George’s troops could be up and on the move
surprisingly quickly if they scented prey.

Shadowman stared at the spot where
he’d seen the person, but whoever it was had shrunk back further behind the wall
and now he could see nothing.

He swore. He would have to go down and find
them, although that held dangers of its own. If it was a hunting party of kids,
patrolling their streets, they would be ready for the attack. They might go for him
before they knew who he was. It was safer to strike first than risk being attacked by a
stranger.

A stranger
. That’s what he
was to them.

He unslung his crossbow from his back and
headed over to the door, saying goodbye to the two lovebirds on the sofa on his way out.
He moved fast down the stairs, then went more cautiously out into the street. Keeping
close to the buildings, using any cover he could find, his crossbow up and ready. He was
soon at the garden he’d been watching from above. A narrow, overgrown strip
between a low front wall and a house.

There was nobody there. Apart from a
kid’s bike with one wheel missing, the garden was an empty tangle of long grass
and weeds.

Had he imagined it then? Humans were very
good at seeing patterns in random shapes. Faces in clouds, monsters in a pile of rumpled
sheets, the image of Jesus Christ on a piece of toast. Had he created a living person
out of some shadows and weeds?

He had to admit that he’d been lonely
lately, with only the shambling Fear for company. St George and his lieutenants,
Bluetooth, Man U and Spike. He really didn’t need any imaginary friends right
now.

He hopped over the wall into the garden,
looking for some clues, anything that told him a person had been there. There was
nothing obvious. He looked closer.
Yes
. He wasn’t losing it. A flattened
patch, where the grass and weeds had been crushed.

Someone
had
been here.

Unless it was a dog or a cat.

He suddenly flinched as a shape moved fast
past him and then another. He froze.

It was only two squirrels chasing each
other. He smiled and let his breath out in a rush. Watched as the squirrels scampered up
the tree, darted about up there, chattering. Then one jumped down into the road and
dashed across to the other side.

And that was when Shadowman saw the three
kids.

Instinct kicked in. The habit of survival.
Without it he would have been dead long ago. He’d ducked down behind the wall
before he’d even thought of doing it. He waited, and when nothing happened, he
risked peeping over the bricks.

The three kids weren’t looking his
way. They were camped behind a car and all their attention was focused on the tyre
centre. Shadowman had a quick look around, in case there were more of them.

Couldn’t see anyone else.

Now he studied the kids more closely. They
were two boys and a girl, about his age. One boy carried a crossbow similar to his own,
the other had a home-made spear and the girl carried an iron bar.

They looked pretty streetwise. They’d
have to be to have survived this long. They all had long hair, tied back behind their
heads, and were wearing protective bike leathers pumped up with skateboard elbow and
knee pads. The boy with the spear also had on what looked like a police stab-proof vest
over his jacket. Shadowman would have loved one of them.

Another movement caught his eye. It was a
father. Old and skinny, nearly naked. He wandered out of the tyre centre and began to
cross the forecourt.

That was bad. They were waking up.

There was a whizzing noise and the father
fell over, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his ribs.

What were these kids doing? Attacking his
strangers? What had been the point of that? The father had been old and
weak … 

Shadowman stopped himself. Was he really
feeling sorry for a stranger?

It was the kids he had to worry about.

They were still crouching behind the car.
The boy had reloaded his bow. Now the girl said something and they moved forward.
Started to creep towards the gate into the tyre centre forecourt.

No, you idiots. Not in there.

He had to warn them. This wasn’t a
small nest of dozy adults. This was The Fear. There were nearly a hundred strangers in
there. Tough and organized. The kids wouldn’t last two seconds. To take on an army
you needed an army of your own.

He was shafted either way. If he did nothing
the kids would stumble in there and be overwhelmed. If he shouted out then the strangers
would surely hear him and that would bring them out like a swarm of disturbed bees.

He hissed through his teeth … 

‘
Sssss
 … ’

Nothing. They hadn’t heard him.

He raised himself up a little higher. Tried
a hoarse whisper.

‘Hey … ’

Still nothing.

He picked up a small stone. Threw it at the
girl. It hit her in the back, made a little
pock
sound.

The boy with the crossbow spun round, bringing
the bow up as he turned, and he fired the bolt straight at Shadowman all in one swift,
clean movement.

Damn, he was fast.

But Shadowman was faster. He dropped to the
ground and the bolt whizzed harmlessly over the top of the wall and embedded itself in
the side of the house.