The Enemy

It didn’t help.

Whenever he closed his eyes he could see the grown-up back at the pool. Those eyes. That intelligent look… That sound. Had it been trying to speak?

‘Mwuh…’

And then it lunged at him, teeth bared, and he jerked his eyes open.

Tried to work out what was going on.

The patchwork boy was speaking.

‘Fourteen years ago, something happened,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘As far as we know, everybody on the planet got diseased, but it’s taken all this time for the symptoms to show. Fourteen years.’

‘Or else something stopped happening,’ said Ollie.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Either something happened fourteen years ago that made everyone ill,’ Ollie went on slowly. ‘Or something stopped happening that had been making people ill. So that anyone born after then was all right.’

‘I suppose so,’ said the patchwork kid.

‘It’s not fourteen years.’ Everyone looked at Whitney. ‘I ain’t been counting the days – but it’s been a year – year and a half – since the disease first showed.’

‘Doesn’t make any difference,’ said Patchwork. ‘Basically the adults are all either dead or diseased and us kids have got to look after ourselves.’

‘We don’t know that,’ said Small Sam’s little sister, Ella. ‘We don’t know if the whole world’s like this, do we?’

‘There must be some grown-ups around who aren’t sick,’ said Monkey-Boy. ‘They’ll rescue us.’

‘Like Whitney said, it’s been over a year,’ said Freak, his voice sounding like it was coming from a million miles away. ‘If anyone was coming to save us I think they’d have showed up by now, don’t you? Instead, all we’ve got is this guy. Joseph and his coat of manky colours.’

‘No one’s going to help us,’ said Patchwork. ‘I can promise you that. Everyone over the age of fourteen got sick and died.’

‘Not everyone,’ said Whitney.

Patchwork shrugged. ‘Some of the adults are just taking longer to die than others, that’s all. They’ve become Strangers.’

‘What are you talking about now?’ said Blue.

‘I guess you call them something different. The adults who are diseased but not dead yet. Like that lot outside earlier.’

‘We call them grown-ups,’ said Blue. ‘Cos that’s what they are.’

‘To us they’re Strangers. We were always told about “stranger danger”. And this lot truly are dangerous. God must really have it in for us.’

‘I don’t think God would do something like that,’ said Ella.

‘Maybe it was God,’ said Patchwork. ‘Maybe it was something else.’

‘Like a meteor from space, or something,’ Ella suggested.

‘I think it was to do with global warming,’ said Bernie. ‘I think it was an ecological disaster.’

‘I think it was a disease, like AIDS,’ said Maeve.

‘Could be,’ said Patchwork. ‘But we have a theory that it was foreigners, terrorists, or something.’

‘Yeah,’ said Achilleus. ‘Like a bomb, man. A chemical bomb, or some new biological weapon that went wrong.’

‘Nah. It was the scientists,’ said Blue. ‘Mucking about with stuff, GM crops and all that. Nanotechnology.’

‘That’s just stupid,’ said Bernie. ‘Scientists did a lot of good for mankind.’

‘Who you calling stupid, you emo loser?’

A rumble of voices broke out and Maxie had to shout over it.

‘Let’s not fight.’ She sounded like a tired and fed-up parent.

Arran smiled. Maxie was right. With so much bad stuff going down it was ridiculous to be squabbling among themselves. He liked Maxie. He had done from the start. She was the type of girl he used to hang out with, before all this kicked off. Now he was so stressed all the time he had no energy left to think about that sort of thing. He could tell she wasn’t interested in him, anyway. To her he was just the guy in charge. She probably resented him for being number one. If he hadn’t been around maybe she would have been top dog.

He closed his eyes.

He shouldn’t think like that. He really had no idea what Maxie might feel about anything. The poison in his system was messing with his mind.

Earlier, when Maxie had touched his neck he’d felt a little jolt. It was so long since he’d been touched like that. It was kind and soft and gentle. Maybe he’d blushed. He hoped she hadn’t noticed anything.

He tried to imagine what it would have been like if he’d met her before. Putting on his best clothes, going on a date, maybe to see a film, or a band, or up to the Heath.

He imagined kissing her.

Don’t go there, Arran, you’ll only make yourself sad.

The noise died down and Whitney took charge. ‘Let’s hear what the scarecrow’s got to say,’ she said, turning her hard stare on the patchwork boy.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘So, for all your clever talk, you don’t know what caused it then?’ Whitney asked. ‘The sickness.’

Patchwork shook his head. ‘No one knows. How could we? We’re just kids. Adults used to tell us things, in newspapers, on the news, on TV, at school. But now there’s no adults left to tell us anything. And you can look at that as a good thing or a bad thing.’

‘It’s a disaster,’ said Maxie.

‘Is it? This is our world now.’

‘It’s a crap world,’ said Callum and a few of the kids laughed.

‘Not where I’ve come from,’ said Patchwork.

‘So where have you come from?’ said Ollie.

‘Buckingham Palace.’

There was a snort of laughter followed by a chorus of jeering and mocking from the assembled kids. Patchwork just smiled.

‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘Why not? The Queen’s dead, all the people that looked after her, all the guards in their bearskin hats, the police, the tourists… No more adults telling us what to do. There’s just us kids. And we can do what we like.’

10

‘You really trying to tell us you live in Buckingham Palace?’ said Whitney, her deep brown eyes softening into a smile.

‘Yeah. It’s cool. It’s got a lake and a garden with a big wall round it with spikes on the top. It’s safe. We grow food in the garden, we drink water from the lake, we sleep in the Queen’s beds. Nobody can get in and there’s enough of us to keep the place secure. We got our own guards, now. We’re making a fresh start.’

‘So what are you doing here then?’ said Ollie.

‘We figured there must be other kids like us out there,’ said Patchwork. ‘Kids who survived. And the more of us we can get together, the better it’ll be. It’ll be safer. We can grow more food and work together to gradually rebuild the city. We can start to make London new again. Next to the Palace is St James’s Park, there’s enough space there to plant fields, if we’ve only got enough people. So I was sent, to find other kids, tell them about what we’re doing and bring them back.’

‘Yeah, well, we’ve got news for you,’ said Callum. ‘We ain’t going. Why would we ever leave this place? We don’t need your Buckingham Palace, thank you very much. We got Waitrose.’

‘Shut up, Callum,’ said Achilleus. ‘Let’s listen to the man.’

‘You’ve come all the way across town by yourself?’ said Ollie, not convinced.

Patchwork’s face clouded over.

‘There was five of us to start with,’ he said. ‘We thought all of London would be like where we come from – sorted. We didn’t realize how dangerous it was out here. How many Strangers there were.’

‘Why?’ said Ella. ‘What’s it like where you come from?’

‘I told you. It’s safe. Most of the Strangers have disappeared from the centre of town. We killed loads of them early on. Those that are left keep out of our way. They’re beaten. But it was mad getting here. We had to come through the badlands. They picked us off one by one. I lost Alfie just today. He was the last one. There’s only me left.’