The Dead

‘So, what’s your name, then?’ she asked, her jaw working away at the gum.

‘Jack.’

‘Jack,’ she repeated, trying it out. ‘Are you lot all, like, from the same school, or something?’

‘Yes. Rowhurst.’

‘Never heard of it. Must be posh. You look posh. Some of you is wearing suits. Only posh kids wear suits. Are you rich?’

Jack shrugged again.

The blonde girl nodded to Ed, who was hanging back behind Jack. ‘Who’s your friend?’

‘I’m Ed.’

‘I’m Ed,’ she mimicked him. ‘You’re even posher than he is. I bet you’re a millionaire.’

‘Money doesn’t really exist any more, does it?’

‘Yeah, but were you a millionaire?’

Ed laughed. ‘No.’

‘Was it horrible back there?’ asked the girl nearest the window, whose black hair and dark skin were almost the opposite of her blonde friend. ‘We couldn’t look.’

‘It was pretty bad,’ said Ed. ‘We lost a lot of mates.’

‘I’m sorry.’ The girl offered him a sad smile.

‘My name’s Aleisha, by the way,’ she added, then nodded to her blonde friend. ‘She’s Brooke. She’s got a well big mouth on her, but she’s a’right.’

‘I ain’t a’right,’ said Brooke. ‘I’m a right bitch, but I’m pretty so I can get away with it. Unlike Aleisha who’s an ugly little midget and has to be nice to everyone.’

‘Ha, ha,’ said Aleisha. ‘Everyone knows I’m prettier than you.’

‘On what planet? My butt is prettier than you, Mrs Shrek.’

The three girls laughed.

Jack felt self-conscious, awkward. He’d always been slightly nervous around girls, not helped by his birthmark. Ed was different. Ed was easy and relaxed with everyone. Didn’t matter who. Already he was settling down comfortably on the edge of a seat, leaning forward, smiling at the girl’s jokes. Jack stood there in the aisle feeling like an idiot, shuffling from one foot to the other. He wanted to go, but thought it might look like he was ru

Ed wasn’t hanging back.

‘What are you called?’ he asked, eyeballing the third girl.

‘That’s Courtney,’ said Aleisha.

‘We’re like a set,’ said Courtney, who was larger than her friends, not exactly fat, but not thin either. Her hair was scraped back and she had a nasty bruise under one eye that she’d tried to hide with make-up.

‘Brooke’s like white bread,’ Courtney went on. ‘Aleisha’s black, I’m half and half.’

‘You’re a sort of yellow,’ said Aleisha.

‘I ain’t yellow,’ said Courtney indignantly. ‘Do I look yellow to you?’

‘Yeah, an’ I’m not black neither,’ said Aleisha. ‘Black is like black, like black ink. My skin ain’t black. It’s brown. I’m African-Caribbean. Not like you, I don’t know what you are.’

‘Who are you kidding, sister?’ said Courtney. ‘You’re black as they come.’

‘So how did you end up on the bus, then?’ Ed interrupted before they got into another argument. ‘Were you all friends before?’

‘This is our bus!’ said Brooke.

‘Your bus?’

‘Our bus!’ said Courtney and Aleisha together.

‘We was on a school journey, near Bilbao, in Spain.’

‘Spain’s a dump,’ said Courtney. ‘Don’t go there.’

‘We was there when people started getting, like, sick,’ said Aleisha. ‘It was really scary, like a disaster movie or something. At first it looked like we was go

‘By the time we got to the ferry the port was closed,’ said Courtney. ‘The French ferry people was on, like, strike. They said they didn’t want to spread the disease.’

‘We was in this, like, grotty hotel for ages in Calais,’ said Aleisha. ‘With no food.’

‘Calais is a dump,’ said Courtney. ‘I am not ever going back to Calais, man.’

Brooke took up the story. ‘Some of the kids went off with a teacher to, like, try and get back on their own,’ she said. ‘But in the end the British government arranged for this, like, special ferry to bring everyone back who was stuck there. We was the last ferry out of France.’

‘It was horrible,’ said Aleisha. ‘People was going mad trying to get on, but because we was, like, children, they let us go, yeah?’

‘Back in England it was worse, though,’ said Brooke. ‘The roads was all jammed, people getting sick and going nuts all over the place. We couldn’t believe it. Half our teachers was losing it big time. We had to get off the motorway in the end. Our driver was getting sick. We went to a place called Ashford.’

‘Ashford’s a dump,’ said Courtney.

‘Some more kids split when we got there,’ said Aleisha. ‘But we didn’t know what to do. It was all happening so fast. That’s what was really freaking us out. It was like the end of the world or something. Nothing was working and there was people everywhere, just sort of wandering about, and more and more of them was getting sick. It was horrible. Some of the kids got in a fight with some grown-ups. Then one of the teachers tried driving the bus. Took us to the, like, what do you call it, the countryside.’

‘The countryside’s a dump,’ said Courtney.

‘That was the last teacher,’ said Aleisha. ‘Mr Betts. He was a’right. Looked after us, but then even he’s got sick.’

‘We was stuck on the bus in the middle of the countryside,’ said Courtney. ‘With all these grown-ups around.’

‘It was like a what-d’you-ma-call-it, a siege or something,’ said Aleisha. ‘They was all, like, trying to get on the bus. Luckily Greg come along and sorted them out, but us three’s the only ones who made it out of, like, a hundred.’

‘There was never a hundred of us,’ said Brooke.

‘Well, there was a lot.’

‘Greg’s rescued us last night,’ said Courtney. ‘We been a’right since then. It ain’t so bad on here. We got food and water and a toilet. But it’s bare slow, because most of the roads is blocked. Is a nightmare. We got to keep going round other ways, stopping and starting, avoiding people, going back the way we come. I du

‘I reckon we’ll be a’right now,’ said Aleisha. ‘There’s more of us. Greg keeps picking people up. It’s better with more people. And you boys look tough enough.’

‘You can stay,’ said Courtney with a snigger.

‘So long as you do what we tell you,’ said Brooke. ‘Our bus, our rules.’

‘Where’s Greg taking you all, though?’ said Jack.

‘He’s go

‘Where was your school? Where are you all from?’

‘Willesden.’

‘Where’s Willesden?’ Ed asked.

‘You ain’t never heard of Willesden?’ Aleisha sounded amazed.

‘Nope.’

‘It’s in north-west London.’

‘It’s a dump,’ said Courtney.

‘I thought you might say that,’ said Ed.

For a while there was silence as the five of them thought over all that had happened recently. Finally Aleisha spoke.

‘So we’ve all lost people,’ she said with a sad smile.

‘Yeah.’

‘But we go

Brooke, Courtney and Aleisha laughed and bumped fists.

Ed felt weird. It was as if they were discussing losing a dog or a football match, not friends. It had been a terrifying few minutes of bloody carnage back at The Fez, and it sounded like the girls had been through hell themselves, but now here they were in this little bubble looking inwards, trying to laugh it all off.

He’d noticed it before, the way people tried to pretend that things weren’t as bad as they were. It was a way of keeping the horror away, he supposed. When it came down to it, they were none of them any better, any cleverer, any more sorted than poor little Froggie with his dream of going on the London Eye.