The Sacrifice (38 page)

But what about the pick-up truck? He saw a
boy and a girl in the back of it, screaming. The girl was pulled over the edge and sank
into the filthy press of bodies. The boy was clinging on. He looked OK.

No
.

Shadowman gasped as the car was toppled
over.

That was it. The rest of the kids had no
chance. No chance at all. It was all over.

Shadowman was weeping with frustration. He
couldn’t believe that because of Saif’s arrogance and stupidity he’d
had to watch another massacre. Another hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned bunch of
kids being overwhelmed and slaughtered like pigs. He swore at Saif for putting his
people into this danger, for not listening … 

For losing.

Idiots. Beaten by strangers.

And then he felt a cold stab of guilt. For a
second he had been proud of St George, proud of
his
strangers, how good they
were.

The mob was feeding. He recognized the
signs. Picked out St George holding a head in the air as if it was the World Cup.

They were getting better every day. This
level of planning and order was terrifying. The way St George had seemed to know the
cars were coming and had laid a trap.
Had hidden all those mindless
freaks in the nearby buildings. And he’d done it fast.

Like a swarm of ants. A million individuals
forming one single unit with one single mind. That was what they looked like from up
here. A swarm of ants. How could that be? Just days ago they’d been a disorganized
rabble, with no way of communicating with each other. What had changed?

He couldn’t answer any of these
questions right now. The thing was, St George was leading a proper army southwards.
Shadowman had been struck by how close to the centre of town he was. If The Fear kept up
this pace they could be at Buckingham Palace before the morning.

All those kids in town. Grown lazy. Thinking
they’d got rid of all the strangers. How would they cope if St George turned up on
their doorstep? Oh, they could stay indoors, safe behind the palace walls, but how would
they eat? And what would happen if they foolishly sent troops out to deal with the new
threat?

Not just David and his kids, but the ones at
the museum; at the Houses of Parliament. Even John and his pirates at the squatter camp.
They were kids like him. They were all at risk.

No. St George had to be stopped somehow
before he became unstoppable.

It didn’t take the strangers long to
finish feeding. After only a few minutes they were on the move again, leaving behind a
wash of blood across the road, littered with torn clothing and bones. Even the dead
strangers had been eaten. Nothing was wasted.

Nothing.

Except.

There.

Could it be?

The pick-up truck was on its side, smoke
coming from the engine. The other pick-up truck sat there with its doors open. The
sports car was empty. The second 4x4 was untouched, though, and Shadowman was sure he
could just make out the shape of someone sitting inside it. Was it possible that one of
the kids had got in there and the strangers hadn’t been able to get to them? In
their drive to keep moving had they simply left them behind?

They could be wounded. They could need
help.

Shadowman had to see. If he could save just
one kid … 

He packed up his gear and climbed back down
the ladder. It was raining hard now and it made the rungs slippery and dangerous. His
heart was pounding. His head ached. His injured ribs felt like they were digging into
his lungs. Every cut and bruise on his body was complaining.

He tried to go too fast and was nearly at
the bottom when he slipped, wrenching his right knee. He swore. That was all he needed.
It sent shooting pains up his leg.

‘You bloody moron,’ he cursed
himself. ‘Go more carefully.’

He slithered down the last few dripping
rungs and winced as he jumped to the ground. He could walk OK, but it hurt like a
bastard and would slow him down. Jesus, he was becoming just one big mess of wounds.

He limped across the building site, the rain
beating down on his head, and this time it was much harder climbing over the fence. What
with the rain and his desperation and his throbbing knee.

He hobbled on towards the roundabout. The
first flash of lightning lifted up the sky, and as he got to the car a few
seconds later, it was followed by a rolling clap of thunder. He
peered in the car window, wiping away the rain that poured down the glass. There was
definitely someone there. A boy.

‘Open up,’ he shouted. The boy
didn’t move. Shadowman tried the door. Locked. He looked around for something to
smash the window with and saw a baseball bat lying under the sports car. He fished it
out and swung it at the window, but it bounced off without doing any damage. So he tried
the butt end, jabbing it at the window. After a couple of goes it shattered and a shower
of glittering shards tinkled into the road.

‘Are you all right?’

The boy was sitting bolt upright, face
white, his fingers gripping the steering wheel. Terrified.

Shadowman recognized him as one of the gang
who’d been shooting at the mother from the footbridge.

‘Are you OK?’ Shadowman leant
over and gave him a shake. The boy slowly toppled towards him, revealing that his neck
on the other side had been torn out.

He’d made it into the car only to lock
the doors on his friends and die.

What a waste of time. What a waste of a
life. What a stupid, bloody waste.

Shadowman pulled his cloak round himself to
keep the worst of the rain off and limped over the roundabout in the direction that St
George had taken. It was back to this, following The Fear and watching them kill. How
long was this going to go on?

He’d been walking for a couple of
minutes, wondering if his knee was going to hold out, when he suddenly stopped and swore
into the rain.

Moron
.

The car.

He could drive it. Take the weight off his
knee. He’d be safer in a car, more mobile and, let’s face it, drier. OK, so
he’d never driven one before, but how hard could it be with no other vehicles on
the road?

He turned round, setting his face into the
driving rain as a lightning flash ripped across the sky, turning the road brilliantly
white, picking out a group of strangers coming towards him. Fast and purposeful. The
father at their head was wearing a blue business suit, a mobile phone earpiece sitting
on the side of his warty head.

It was Bluetooth and his little gang.
He’d forgotten all about them.

Moron, moron, stupid bloody
moron … 

He slipped his crossbow off his back and
fired a bolt. Didn’t wait to see if he’d hit anything. Just turned and
started jogging, his knee exploding in pain with every footstep.

He couldn’t get to the car now. All he
could do was try to run.

Run for his life.

It was officially called the Millennium
Footbridge, built to celebrate the start of another thousand years, for a city that was
already nearly two thousand years old. A beautiful, architecturally daring new way to
get across the river. A suspension bridge with the supporting cables out to the sides
rather than over the top. It linked the City of London with the Tate Modern art gallery
on the other side. Mr Rosen, a teacher at Rowhurst, Ed’s school, had been obsessed
with modern architecture and was always bringing boys up to town to show them stuff: the
Thames Barrier, the Lloyd’s building, the Gherkin.

And this – the grandly named Millennium
Footbridge.

Only everyone called it the Wobbly Bridge.
When it had first opened, so many people had tried to cross it at the same time it had
set up a rhythm that made the bridge vibrate and wobble. Mr Rosen had loved telling the
kids that story, had even taken them to see the Albert Bridge, further up the Thames,
where there was still an old sign that ordered soldiers from the nearby barracks to
break step when crossing. They weren’t allowed to march in time because the
vibrations could set up a shock wave, like an earthquake, that could bring the bridge
tumbling into the Thames.

There weren’t enough of them today to
do any damage
to the Wobbly Bridge. Only six of them were crossing it.
Bozo had been right. It had been much easier getting here along the South Bank. Any
sickos they’d seen along the way they’d easily avoided and it was only when
they’d got to the bridge that they’d needed to use their weapons.

There had been a small knot of sickos round
the barricade at the southern end, staring dumbly at it. It had been no sweat getting
rid of them. Ed hadn’t even joined in the fight. He and Kyle had stood back and
let Hayden take charge. Let her gain some experience. She’d led the attack well.
She and Adele, Macca and Will had dealt with the sickos quickly and efficiently,
clearing the way so that they could climb over the barricade.

Ed was relieved that the journey back had
been so much less stressful than the journey into town. It was going to be easy from
here. There was a walkway from the north end of the bridge leading right up to St
Paul’s. The cathedral looked impressive, with storm clouds overhead, its white
stones under the great grey dome lit up every now and then by flashes of lightning.

The storm was right on top of them. Rain
thrashed the surface of the river which frothed and foamed beneath their feet.

Ed urged the kids on. They were so close and
it had been a long day. Whatever else they could expect when they got to the cathedral,
at least it would be dry inside.

‘But there’s one rule,’ he
shouted above the noise of the wind whining in the metal struts of the bridge. ‘We
don’t kill kids. Whatever happens, we don’t kill kids. That’s not our
way. If we start killing each other then we’re the same as the grown-ups. We might
as well try to catch the disease and become sickos ourselves.’

He stopped shouting, remembering the girl
he’d killed the other day. Tish’s friend. That had been different, though,
hadn’t it? It was an accident. He hadn’t seen her clearly in the dark and
she was halfway dead anyway … 

At least that’s what he told
himself.

And Matt.

Well, his desire to kill him had gone away
as quickly as it had arrived.

Matt wasn’t worth it.

‘My God!’ Hayden, who had been
leading them over the bridge, stopped in her tracks.

‘What is it?’ Ed shouted, his
hand going to his sword.

‘Look at that … ’ She
was pointing at something on the north bank. Ed squinted through the rain, not sure what
he was looking for, and then realized with a jolt that he’d been looking at it all
along without registering it. What he’d thought was a pile of wet rocks or rubble,
part of Matt’s defences, was in fact sickos. A huge, tightly packed mob of them,
their clothes black with grease and slick from the rain, their bald heads like pebbles
on the shoreline. Ed was reminded of a herd of seals, packed together, too many to
count. They were clustered round the end of the bridge, barely moving.

‘Holy crap,’ said Kyle.

‘Can they get on to the bridge?’
asked Adele, coming close and standing right next to Ed as if he might offer some
protection from this army.

‘If they could they’d already be
here,’ Ed answered her. ‘For now it looks like the defences are holding.
They’re not clever enough to climb the barriers or pull them down. Remember when
we were going along there this morning? How the bridges fly over the roads when they
reach the
riverbank? It looks like this bridge is the same. They
can’t get up to it.’

The sky turned white and empty as lightning
flared across it. It lit up the heaving mass of bodies. For a brief moment Ed caught
sight of a blur of lumpy faces, staring eyes, wet mouths. At least the rain was damping
their stink down. A deafening clap of thunder came hard on the lightning. Felt like it
was right inside their heads.

‘Let’s hurry,’ he said,
and the others didn’t need to be told. They ran on to the end of the bridge and
passed over the sickos. There was a familiar noise coming from them, a rhythmic
rattling, clicking sound, and Ed saw that a lot of them, mainly those nearest the
barricades, were hitting stones together or sticks or bits of metal they’d picked
up.

‘They’re a right banging
outfit,’ said Kyle.

‘This is one weird day,’ said
Macca, coming up fast behind Ed. ‘Keep moving, man.’

Ed took one last look at the inhuman
percussion orchestra and sprinted up the walkway towards … 

Towards what?

Sam was still sitting on his throne. He was
half asleep, drifting in and out of waking dreams. He’d lost all sense of time. He
just wanted this to be over. The music had got inside him, so that he couldn’t
tell the difference between his own heartbeat and the thumping of the drums. His eyes
were misty from the smoke. He was seeing things, shapes forming and re-forming. He had
no idea what was real any more.

And still Matt read from his
book … 

‘ … Then I looked, and there
before me was the Lamb, seated on his throne, and with him were those who had his name
written on their foreheads. And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing
waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists
playing their harps. And they sang a new song before the throne and no one could hear
the music of the song except those who had been redeemed from the
earth … ’

At this, the musicians found fresh energy
and played louder. How were they keeping it up? Hour after hour they clattered on. Sam
had seen a couple get too tired to carry on and their places had been taken by other
kids, but most of them had been at it as long as he’d been sitting here.

Matt waved his hands, urging them to play
louder still.