The Dead

He was starting to feel a bit numb, pushing the memories to the side where he couldn’t feel them any more. You couldn’t go on being sad and scared all the time, could you, or you’d go mad.

Talking to these mouthy girls was helping take his mind off things. It was helping take him to a normal place. Boys and girls. Flirting. Text messaging. My mate fancies you …

They all knew it was a game.

Let’s all pretend we’re just a bunch of ordinary girls and boys meeting on a bus. There’s nothing outside the bus. There’s only the bus.

‘You’re quite buff, you know,’ said Brooke, giving Ed the eye. ‘Your mate’d be all right if he didn’t have that thing on his face. If I go with a boy, he has to be, like, perfect.’

Now it was Jack’s turn to laugh. ‘Ed’s nowhere near perfect.’

‘He’s better than you, darling.’

‘Well, maybe I don’t want to be your boyfriend.’

‘That’s good because you’re not going to be,’ said Brooke. ‘You can have Courtney. She’ll take anyone, because she’s fat. Although she’s quickly becoming ski

‘You’re so full of it, Brooke,’ said Courtney.

‘Not as full of it as you. You look like you’ve eaten like a mattress, or something.’

The coach swerved and Jack had to steady himself against a seat back.

‘Sit down!’ Greg barked from the front. ‘There’s trouble up ahead!’

Ed swore. The bubble was burst.

19

Jack hurried to the front of the coach and leant on the back of Greg’s seat.

‘Didn’t you hear me?’ said Greg. ‘Sit down. This could get bumpy.’

‘I wanted to see what’s going on.’

‘I can cope all right by myself, thank you very much.’

‘Yeah, and so can I,’ said Jack. ‘I’ve got this far without you, and I’ve done that by not trusting anyone. Looking after number one.’

‘Yeah? Well, I’m number one now, pal,’ said Greg. ‘And don’t you forget it. Now d’you want to sit down or do you want me to knock you down?’

‘I’m sitting.’ Jack collapsed into a seat and did up the belt, leaning forward to try to see what was happening ahead.

There were a lorry and several cars in the middle of the road about four hundred metres away. One of the cars appeared to be on fire. Nasty-looking black smoke billowed and boiled across the road. In among the smoke Jack could just make out some kind of fight taking place. It was hard to tell from this distance who was involved, whether it was kids or grown-ups or, most likely, both.

Greg swore. ‘We’ll have to find another way round.’ He stamped on the brake and the coach snorted and shuddered to a halt.

‘There might be kids up there,’ said Jack.

‘Don’t make no difference,’ said Greg, checking the rear-view mirrors. ‘It’s too risky. We don’t have any idea what’s going on, or how dangerous it might be. Could be a full-scale war for all we know. We can’t risk the coach getting damaged. At the moment it’s all that’s keeping us safe. It’s a fortress on wheels and I aim to keep it that way. You want to go and see if there’s any kids need rescuing, Batman, you can get out and walk.’

The coach was too long to turn round here. Greg put it into reverse and started to laboriously manoeuvre it backwards along the road. The warning system was giving out an insistent, irritating beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep.

Jack stayed silent, staring ahead. After a while he saw figures emerging from the smoke, limping, lurching, stumbling, swaying from side to side, but moving fast.

‘You need to go quicker,’ he said.

‘Oh, listen to Jeremy Clarkson,’ said Greg.

‘They look sick, but they can run …’

‘Shut it,’ Greg snapped. ‘I’m trying to concentrate here. I’m not a professional bleeding coach driver, am I? These things are a bugger to keep in a straight line.’

The ru

They were close enough now for Jack to see that they were definitely diseased. They were a mess, their skin blistered, their clothes hanging off them, smoke-blackened and blood-spattered.

Greg managed to reverse past a turning before the first of the attackers reached them. A lanky young man of about twenty. He hurled himself at the windscreen and tried to get a grip. He tore off one of the wipers and Greg cursed. Then the rest of them arrived, some scrabbling at the door, others jumping up and banging their fists on the windscreen. A shrill high-pitched scream came from somewhere towards the back of the bus. Jack watched helplessly as the other wiper was ripped off.

‘Right,’ said Greg, wrenching the gear lever into first. ‘You asked for it.’

He floored the accelerator and the coach juddered forward, quickly picking up speed and shaking off the first wave of attackers, who slithered out of the way and ran alongside, spitting with fury. Two stragglers were batted to the ground as the coach smashed into them and Greg spun the wheel, veering off on to the side-road.

‘It’s been like this all the way,’ he said. ‘Every time I pick a route I have to change it. And now we’ve lost them wipers we’re go

Ed came up to join Jack.

‘Everything all right?’

‘Can’t you lot stay sat down?’ Greg shouted.

‘Is the road blocked?’

‘We’ll find another way.’

‘Looks like we can make a left about a mile ahead,’ said the boy who was sitting in the seat behind Greg. He was studying a road map, squinting through his wire-framed spectacles.

‘Thanks, son,’ said Greg, and he turned to grin at Jack and Ed. ‘That’s what I need, practical help. Not you bunch of toffs flapping about.’

‘Tell us what you need us to do and we’ll do it,’ said Ed.

‘I need you to sit down and shut up.’ Greg glanced back over his shoulder at his son. ‘We’re coping just fine, ain’t we, Liam?’

‘Yeah,’ said Liam quietly. He was a miniature of Greg in every way except that where his dad was loud and aggressive he looked slightly shy, almost embarrassed by him.

‘Good lad,’ said Greg. ‘He don’t say much, but he’s a bright one. Ain’t you, Liam? All his teachers say so.’

‘Nice to meet you, Liam,’ said Ed. ‘I’m Ed and this is Jack.’

Liam looked down at the floor and mumbled something.

‘We could have done with you earlier,’ said Ed kindly. ‘We needed a map reader and you look like a pretty good navigator.’

‘And he didn’t learn none of that at school, neither,’ said Greg. ‘Everything he knows I’ve learned him.’

‘Where were you all going when we picked you up?’ Liam asked softly.

‘We were trying to get to the countryside,’ said Ed. ‘Thought it might be easier there.’

‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ scoffed Greg. ‘Where d’you think we just come from? You don’t want to go to the countryside, pal, not unless you want to end up as di

‘Can’t be any worse than the towns,’ said Ed.

‘You think? Everyone’s had the same idea as you – get away as far as possible from other people, get out of town, go back to nature, live off the land. They’ve watched too many Bear Grylls programmes on the telly. And what happens? They’ve all wound up in the great outdoors with everyone else. Don’t know what they thought they was go