The Dead

The Sullivan brothers were the last out, carrying a ski

‘I think you should come and look at this one,’ he said. ‘He won’t wake up.’

The little boy’s face was chalk white, his lips slightly blue. Ed listened to his chest and peeled back his eyelids, then tried mouth to mouth, but there was no response. He was dead.

‘His name was Jacob.’ Malik had revived enough to make his way over to where a group of boys were huddled with Ed round the dead kid.

‘He wasn’t well before,’ Malik went on. ‘He had asthma, and his inhaler had run out.’

‘Poor little guy,’ said Bam. ‘What are we going to do with him?’

‘We can’t leave him out here. He’ll be eaten,’ said Anthony matter-of-factly.

‘But if we take him inside he’ll start to … you know … smell …’ said Damien Sullivan, looking at his brother.

‘We’re in a graveyard, aren’t we?’ said Jack. ‘We’ll bury him.’

‘The Lamb has taken him.’

Everyone turned round. Matt was standing there, wrapped in a blanket, a strange drunken smile on his face.

‘Taken him for his army,’ Matt went on. ‘Don’t feel sad for him. The Lamb is going to save us all!’

8

‘It was cold in there at night. We couldn’t get warm, so we broke up a couple of the pews and used the wood for a fire.’ Ed’s friend Malik was sitting on a bench drinking from a plastic bottle of water. His eyes were weepy and bloodshot and his hand was shaking. Ed was standing nearby, keeping watch for any teachers.

‘I guess the smoke and fumes must have built up without us realizing,’ Malik went on, his voice hoarse.

‘You’re lucky you’re not all dead.’ Ed relaxed and sat down next to Malik. ‘Carbon monoxide will kill you.’

‘I feel like death.’ Malik offered Ed a sickly grin. ‘I think my head’s going to explode. And you want to watch out – I might spew at any second. Just don’t ask me to stand up for at least three days. I’m dizzy enough just sitting here.’

‘You might have to stand, Malik.’ Ed was still sca

‘I guess if it’s a matter of life and death I’ll make it inside.’ Malik groaned, and he sank his head down between his knees, supported by his shaking hands. ‘Do you know if carbon monoxide can give you any permanent damage?’

‘No idea,’ said Ed. ‘Wiki’s the one to ask.’

Malik made a face. ‘I don’t want, like, brain damage or something.’

Ed punched him lightly in the shoulder. ‘Wouldn’t notice the difference,’ he said. ‘But, seriously, what’s happened to Matt? Talk about brain damage. He’s still coming out with totally random stuff.’

Malik let out his breath slowly and noisily then laughed through his nose.

‘I think he’s found God,’ he said.

‘In a big way.’ Ed laughed as well now. ‘Was he a religious nut before?’

‘Not that I know of,’ said Malik. ‘But stuck in there …’ He nodded back over his shoulder to the chapel. ‘All we had to read was Bibles and prayer books. You know Archie Bishop?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, one night he said we should all pray.’

‘He always was a bit like that,’ Ed interrupted. ‘His dad was a vicar or something, I think.’

‘Well, I’m a Muslim, as you know,’ said Malik. ‘So I pray every day anyway, at least I’m supposed to. So there we all were inside. I prayed to my God and they prayed to theirs. Even those kids who didn’t believe in anything much before got in on it. It sort of held us all together in a fu

‘What’s all this stuff about the Lamb?’ Ed asked. ‘Where did that come from?’

‘Well, the thing was, as I say, it got really cold in there,’ said Malik, ‘and we’d started making these, like, fires, using anything we could find, pages from the prayer books and old Bibles and whatever to get it going. Then last night Matt, like, totally freaked out, said we shouldn’t burn any more of the books, and he rescued a lot of pages from the burner we’d made, found us some charcoal instead. Bad idea. By the time we realized we were all being poisoned by the fumes it was too late – we were all passing out.’

‘Lucky we came over when we did.’

‘Too right,’ said Malik. ‘I was heading into the light, halfway to paradise. When you woke me up I thought you were God!’

Ed laughed, then Malik went on more seriously. ‘I reckon Matt’s flipped,’ he said. ‘Can’t blame him. It’s been tough on all of us. Our food ran out three days ago, though we still had some water. I reckon we’ve all been seeing things, and Matt … Well, Matt seems to think he’s some kind of prophet or something now.’

‘Let’s hope he doesn’t freak any of the other kids out,’ said Ed.

‘Too late for that,’ said Malik, rubbing his temples. ‘He’s already got the younger kids following him around. We call them his acolytes. And Archie Bishop’s become his, like, second in command.’

Ed hauled himself up off the bench. ‘I’m going to go and see if he’s all right.’

Matt was sitting by himself away from the other kids. He was a tall boy of Ed’s age with very little flesh on his bones. He was all angles and lumps, knobbly knees and elbows, sharp shoulders, pointy chin and big nose. His usually very tidy hair was starting to grow wild. His skin looked grey. His eyes, sunk deep in purple sockets above high cheekbones, were bleary and unfocused.

Ed flopped down next to him.

‘How you doing?’

‘Better than ever.’ Matt smiled that weird spooky smile of his again. Maybe he thought he looked angelic; to Ed he just looked creepy.

‘That’s good. Listen, the reason we came over to the chapel to find you is we don’t think we can stay here any longer. We need to find somewhere where there’s food and water and we, you know, we figured we should all stick together.’

‘Yes,’ said Matt, and his face broke into a huge radiant smile. ‘You’ve seen it too?’

‘Seen what?’

‘The vision.’

Ed shook his head. ‘I haven’t seen any visions, Matt.’

Matt clutched Ed’s arm, his fingers digging into the soft flesh. ‘I saw it. I saw it really clearly.’

‘Saw what?’

‘A big church in London, bigger than any real church, as big as the whole city, with thousands and thousands of children inside it. Like an ants’ nest. It was shining, the dome of the church was shining, and the Lamb was there. We have to be there to meet him.’

‘Meet the Lamb?’

‘Yes. He’ll look after us, and watch over us, as long as we follow him and follow what he’s shown me, in the vision …’

‘You had a vision of a lamb telling you to go to London?’

‘Yes. It was so clear, and it’s all written here.’ Matt held up the torn and charred pages he’d been clutching when Ed had rescued him. Thrust them right into Ed’s face. Ed tried to get up, but Matt still held on to him with his other hand.

‘Listen,’ he said, and began to read. ‘The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign forever and ever. Don’t you understand? He’s left us a message, a new message. It was hidden in the pages of the old Bible, in the words, but this is a new message.’