The Enemy

‘You can’t know everything. You can’t always be expected to know the best way to…’ Maxie stopped herself. It wasn’t helping. ‘We should call a meeting. Talk about it.’

‘Later,’ said Arran. ‘I’m tired.’ He closed his eyes for a moment. Maxie took the opportunity to study his wound. It looked nasty, a row of weeping black holes surrounded by yellow and purple bruising. She touched him gently with her fingertips.

‘Does that hurt?’

Arran winced, then nodded.

‘You need to have it looked at,’ said Maxie. ‘Come on.’

They went upstairs. The floor above the shop was mostly a storage area, but there were offices here, the canteen and access to the roof terrace. One of the offices had been turned into a sick-bay and they kept a basic medical kit there. TCP and Savlon, painkillers, Paracetamol and bandages. They found Maeve sitting at a desk staring out of the window. Maeve acted as nurse and doctor. Her parents had both been doctors and she’d picked up bits and pieces from them. She knew more than any of the other kids, so in their world she was an expert.

Arran showed her the damage and she went to work. She cleaned the cuts, put on some disinfectant and taped a bandage over it, then gave him something for the pain. She said nothing. They all three knew that it was serious. There would be an anxious wait to see whether the wound got infected. Three kids had died from infections since they’d been holed up here. To lose Arran in the same way would be a catastrophe.

Maxie didn’t know what she’d do without him.

7

That evening the kids held a meeting in the courtyard on the roof. They had made the area as civilized as they could manage, adding to what was already here with stuff they’d scrounged from nearby buildings. There were plants in raised beds and pots, garden furniture to sit on, some tables and two big barbecues where they did most of their cooking.

They had a few solar-powered lamps and candles in jars, and had lit a fire in the barrel from inside a washing-machine that Ben and Bernie had turned into a brazier.

Small Sam’s sister, Ella, was sobbing quietly in a corner. Maeve had an arm round her, but most of the others just ignored her. They had all lost someone. They didn’t want to be reminded.

Maxie tried hard. Tried not to glance over at the little girl. Tried not to think how awful she must be feeling. And it wasn’t only Ella. Freak was lurking in the shadows in another corner. He hadn’t said a word since they’d got back.

‘As you all know, we lost two kids today,’ said Arran. ‘It’s getting bad. I don’t know how much longer we can hold on here.’

Instantly there was a chorus of distressed voices.

‘But where would we go…?’

‘We’re safe here…’

‘We can’t go out there…’

‘We’ll be all right. You’ll find food.’

‘You’ll kill all the grown-ups.’

‘I won’t,’ Arran shouted, his voice breaking. This shocked everyone into silence. They weren’t used to seeing Arran lose his temper.

‘I can’t,’ he went on. ‘There’s too many of them. I can’t kill them all. We can’t go on like this. We’re getting weaker every day.’

There was a long silence. The little kids looked terrified. They couldn’t handle this. None of them wanted to face up to the reality of their situation.

A fair-haired kid with a wide mouth they’d nicknamed Monkey-Boy, because he loved to climb things, broke the silence.

‘We’re doing all right, Arran. We’re not starving or nothing. You brought us back the dog today.’

‘Yeah, right,’ Arran said bitterly. ‘And how long can we go on like this? Eating dogs? Being taken by the grownups? One by one. Huh? How long? We bumped into Blue and the Morrisons crew before. They agree. They reckon the grown-ups are getting worse. They’re wearing us down.’

Callum stood up and stepped into the flickering light of the fire.

‘Listen, Arran,’ he said. ‘You’re scaring the little ones. We know it was tough today. We know you got hurt and you lost Deke and all that. We know why you’re angry, but… Well, go easy, yeah?’

‘Yeah, sorry,’ said Arran and he wiped sweat from his forehead.

Callum stayed standing.

‘Can I say something else?’

Arran nodded.

‘We mustn’t ever leave here.’

‘Didn’t you listen to anything I said?’ asked Arran.

‘This is our home now,’ Callum went on. ‘It was bad luck today. That’s all. We’ll just have to be more careful, yeah? We’ve made this place safe. We’re learning all the time. We’ve survived this far. Why shouldn’t we carry on? I been on the roof nearly all day, and I can tell you, I seen it out there. It’s not safe, yeah? Not safe at all…’

Almost as if to illustrate Callum’s point there was a crash and a yell from the street below, followed by a hideous scream.

Josh scuttled over the roof from the crow’s-nest and shouted down to them.

‘There’s something out there!’

8

Arran could see the fear in the faces of the smaller kids. Callum was right. All he had succeeded in doing was to frighten them. He should have been more careful about what he said in the meeting. Should have kept his temper. The kids looked up to him. They expected him to never show any doubt.

But he felt rotten and he couldn’t pretend any more. He was scared too. He was scared twenty-four hours a day, and he was sick of having to spend all his time feeling tense and fearful, like a wild animal.

And now it had happened. The thing he had feared most. He was wounded. Already he could feel a twitching, scratchy heat clawing at his neck. He put his hand to the bandage. His head was swimming, like he had a bad cold.

It wasn’t the wound that had changed him, though. It was the grown-up back at the pool. The mother. He had looked into her eyes and he had recognized something.

He shook his head. He had imagined it. It couldn’t be.

Someone was shouting.

He shook his head again.

‘Arran, what’s going on?’ It was Callum. He looked panicked. ‘Are they attacking us?’

He was surrounded by them, all these kids who depended on him. They needed him to tell them what to do. Even if he was wrong, he had to look like he was in control. His feelings didn’t matter right now.

‘No,’ he said, standing up. ‘They’ve never attacked before.’

‘But you said they were changing…’

‘They can’t change that fast.’

He moved in through the sliding glass doors to the canteen, which was off to one side of the terrace. There was another thud from below. A scraping sound as if something was trying to get in. Would the grown-ups really attack Waitrose?

The canteen was in the corner of the building, directly below the dome. Windows looked out on to balconies that ran the length of the two outer walls. From there you had a perfect view of Holloway Road at the front and Tollington Road at the side. Arran opened a door and went out on to the front balcony.

The sky was clouded so no moon or stars shone down. And the street lamps hadn’t worked in over a year. Arran could just make out figures moving below.

‘Get some light!’ he shouted.

‘What is it?’ said a voice from inside. ‘What’s happening out there?’

‘Keep quiet.’

Monkey-Boy brought him a dynamo torch. A bigger, more powerful version of the one he carried. It was already charged. He switched it on and moved the beam around until he saw something.

A father with a purple bloated face, his eyes weeping pus. He looked up at Arran and bared his broken teeth in a snarl.