The Enemy

He swallowed hard. It was obvious he was trying not to cry. Nobody spoke for a while. In the end Ollie broke the silence. He squatted down and spoke gently to Patchwork.

‘How many other kids have you found on the way?’ he said. ‘How many have you sent back?’

Patchwork sniffed. ‘None. You’re the first. The original plan was to carry on going round London recruiting all the kids that were left. But it’s too dangerous for that.’ He smiled and looked up at Ollie. ‘You lot, though, you could really make a difference. Together we could get back easy. You know how to look after yourselves. You’re good fighters. The best I’ve ever seen. I can take you there. I can take you to safety.’

‘Let me ask you a question,’ said Arran, his voice sounding hoarse and croaky. Everyone turned to him; it was the first thing he’d said since the meeting began.

‘What?’

‘Why should we go into the centre of town? Why shouldn’t we just leave London? Go to the countryside? Surely we’ve got a better chance of surviving out there. That’s where all the grown-ups were trying to get to when they started dying.’

‘Exactly,’ said Patchwork. ‘And I reckon that’s where they all went. The centre of London is empty, there’s none of them around, but the further out we got, the more of them we found. I reckon if you tried to get out of town you’d just come across more and more of them. It’s miles before you hit any proper countryside, but into town from here, how far is it? Five or six miles at the most. You could walk it in two hours if you didn’t have to fight any Strangers. Who knows what you’d find out there if you did manage to leave London? But in the centre, where I’ve come from, I can tell you what it’s like – it’s safe.’

‘How do we know you’re not lying?’ said Ollie.

‘What would I gain by that?’

‘Du

‘Yeah,’ said Blue. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Some people call me Jester, some call me Magic-Man…’

‘Some call him twat,’ said Achilleus and there was a fresh round of laughter.

Jester nodded. ‘Yeah, some might call me that. I’ve been called worse. You can laugh at me if you want, or you can listen.’

‘We’d need proof before we left this place and went marching off across London,’ said Ollie.

‘I’ve got proof.’

‘Yeah?’

‘I’ve got pictures.’

‘What sort of pictures?’

‘From an old Polaroid camera. Photographs.’

‘Show us.’

Jester took his satchel off his shoulder and opened it. He rummaged around, then produced a buff-coloured folder. From inside it he took out a handful of square, glossy photos. He passed them to Ollie who flicked through them, a smile slowly spreading across his face. He brought them over to Arran who had to lean forward into the light to see them properly.

They weren’t faked. You couldn’t fake a Polaroid. It wasn’t like the old days where you could use a computer to do anything you liked. There was no Photoshop any more, not without the electricity to power the computers. Photoshop was just one more thing that had seemed really important at the time, but which now was completely irrelevant. Useless.

These pictures were the real thing. They showed Buckingham Palace and a group of happy, healthy-looking kids – posing at the front in the parade ground, sitting round a big grand table inside eating lunch, working in the gardens, swimming in the lake, playing football. It looked like an impossible paradise. A glimpse into another world.

Arran felt a lump in his throat. His hands were shaking. He gave the photos back to Ollie who gave them in turn to Blue. Soon they were being passed from one excited kid to another, all gri

Arran’s eyes were misting up. What he had been shown was unimaginable. It was hope. If what this guy was saying was true then maybe things would be different in the future. Maybe he and Maxie would have a chance. Earlier it had seemed that there was no way out, that they would all slowly die here in this miserable empty supermarket. Picked off one by one, killed by disease, by grown-ups or dogs, or each other.

Was there really a way out?

He barely listened as Ollie questioned Jester further, getting more details.

He was remembering what life had been like before. In his parents’ big house in Dartmouth Park. Playing on the Heath with his mates. Going into Camden to mooch around the market. Hanging out on the streets, chatting. Eating Sunday lunch with his mum and dad.

His mum and dad…

He couldn’t picture exactly what his dad had looked like. He had been a busy man and was hardly ever at home. But Mum…

He could never forget her face.

It was the face he had seen at the pool.

His mother.

No.

It wasn’t true. He’d imagined it. No way that – thing – could have been his mother. It was a trick of the light.

He realized there were tears streaming down his face. He was glad that nobody could see him. He had turned into a little kid again and just wanted his mum to wrap her arms around him. Speak softly to him. Sing him to sleep.

The thing at the pool, though, if it had been his mother, had tried to kill him.

‘Mwuh…’

He wiped his face, dried the tears. If his eyes looked red they would assume it was because of his wound.

‘We’re going,’ he said firmly and everyone looked at him. ‘I don’t care if Jester is making it up. I don’t care if there’s nothing there at the other end. We can’t stay here any longer. In the morning we pack up everything and we go.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Maeve. She wasn’t like the other kids. She wasn’t a Londoner. She’d been visiting friends in Camden when everything had kicked off and had been stuck here ever since. ‘Shouldn’t we discuss this a bit more?’

‘What’s to discuss?’ said Arran.

‘Well, I just think it’s crazy,’ said Maeve.

‘Maybe,’ said Arran. ‘But I’m not staying here.’

‘What you said before. About going to the countryside. Surely, if we’re going anywhere, that’s what we should do. The city’s crawling with grown-ups. The only food we can find is tins and dried packets and the half-rotten crap we find in abandoned houses. This is no kind of life.’

‘I told you,’ said Jester, sounding exasperated. ‘We’re growing food at the palace. It’s all sorted. You go anywhere else, you’re going into the unknown.’

‘I grew up in the country,’ said Maeve. ‘I know it. We need to get away from the city and go to where we can properly farm things, and keep animals. We need space and clean air. We need to get out of London.’

‘One day, maybe,’ said Arran. ‘But we have to take it one step at a time. If Jester’s right, and it’s safe in the centre, if we can make camp at the palace and get strong, then we can prepare. I don’t know – send out scouts, like Jester, only better armed – find the best route…’

‘Why wait?’ said Maeve. ‘If we head into the centre of London we’re going the wrong way. Can’t you see that?’

‘It’s what we’re doing,’ said Arran, who felt exhausted and had had enough talking for one night.

‘Maeve’s got a point, though,’ said Maxie. ‘If we link up with the Morrisons crew we’ll be strong. We’d have a good chance of getting out. It might be our only chance. To properly start a new life.’

‘We should vote on it,’ said Maeve.

‘OK, OK,’ said Arran, who just wanted to go to sleep. ‘But these are city kids, Maeve. All they know is London. Some of them have never even been out of the city.’

‘Well I have,’ said Maeve, ‘and take it from me, it’s not the centre of the world. Our only chance for a decent future is to get out. I’ve been arguing for this since we set up camp here. Now’s our chance to do it properly. If we head north up the A1 and then follow the M1, in two or three days we’d be clear of the city.’