The Dead

‘Please, Dad, I can’t breathe, you’re hurting me, you’re squashing my neck.’

‘Shh, shh, don’t talk no more. Just go to sleep, Liam. As long as you’re asleep nothing can hurt you …’

‘Dad …’

Greg put his hand across Liam’s mouth, silencing him. ‘There, that’s better. Quiet now,’ he said, and whimpered softly, like an animal. ‘I can feel fingers inside my head, Liam, tearing it all away. And if I ain’t here to look after you …’

Liam made a muffled noise, ‘D’d …’

‘Go to sleep, my darling boy.’

27

It was still raining when they woke up, stiff and cold, wrapped in an assortment of coats and blankets, sleeping bags, duvets and whatever else they’d been able to find to keep warm under. Jack groaned and rocked his head on his neck, trying to ease out a knotted muscle. By habit he pulled his mobile phone from his pocket, then sighed. He showed it to Ed who was coughing and sniffing at his side.

‘Look at that,’ he said, holding up the blank, dead screen. ‘I’m so used to telling the time by my phone. Used to do everything on it. My whole life was on here. My photos, my music, all my contacts. Don’t even know why I hang on to it. It’s never going to come back to life, is it? I sometimes think about all those satellites up there, floating about uselessly, cut off from Earth. What do you suppose’ll happen to them? Will they fall down? I never could get my head round satellites, how they stay in orbit.’

‘They’ll stay up there.’ Ed coughed again, clearing phlegm from his sore throat. ‘Once you’re in orbit you stay in orbit. They’ll be dead, though, just like your phone. I chucked mine out ages ago.’

‘Yeah, it’s just a sort of comfort thing, I guess,’ said Jack, turning his battered old phone in his hands. ‘Like Floppy Dog.’

‘You’ve lost me. What are you talking about?’

‘Floppy Dog.’

‘You say that like I’m supposed to know what it means.’

‘Come on!’ Jack laughed. ‘I must have told you about Floppy Dog.’

‘Nope. Not that I can remember.’

‘It was this stupid stuffed toy dog I used to have when I was a kid. It had these long black fluffy ears that were kind of like silky. I used to stroke one of the ears, at night, in bed. It was very reassuring, the feel of it, the softness, the smoothness.’ Jack closed his eyes and smiled. ‘I can still feel it now. I rubbed its right ear smooth, rubbed it half away by the end. I couldn’t live without him. It was a major alert if Floppy Dog ever went missing. National emergency.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘In the end, it was weird, one day … I don’t know how it happened … I went to bed without him, without even thinking. And that was that. Spell broken. I’m not go

‘It’s all right,’ said Ed, ‘your secret’s safe with me.’

‘It better be.’ Jack tossed his phone up and caught it neatly. ‘What time do you make it, anyway?’ he said.

Ed looked at his watch. ‘Nearly six o’clock,’ he said. They were all used to going to sleep and waking up at different hours these days, tuned to the rhythm of light and dark. So six o’clock didn’t seem as barbaric as it once would have.

Jack looked out of the windows. They were parked in the middle of the road on a faceless backstreet. What a miserable day. Rain was dripping off everything and splashing into the puddles that ran along the side of the pavement. There was no one to unblock the drains any more. The water just lay there.

‘What are you going to do, Ed?’ he asked.

‘How d’you mean?’

‘You going to Islington with everyone else?’

‘Suppose so. Best to stick together. Aren’t you?’

Jack tapped on the window. ‘We’re in south London, Ed. Haven’t got across the river yet. Now’s my chance. Clapham’s just a few miles west of here. Wouldn’t take me long to walk it.’

‘But you can’t go there by yourself,’ said Ed. ‘I thought after what happened …’

‘I haven’t changed my mind.’ Jack sounded very sure of himself. ‘But I don’t have to go it alone. You could come with me, you and Bam. Why’s it going to be any different in north London? You’ve just got it into your head that it’s safe on the coach and you don’t want to get off it.’

‘I know …’ Ed ran his fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp. ‘I suppose I hadn’t really thought beyond trying to stay as a gang. You really are a stubborn git, aren’t you?’

‘Quite frankly,’ said Jack, lowering his voice and leaning in towards Ed, ‘the sooner I get away from Lord Greg Almighty the better.’

‘I know what you mean.’

‘So, come with me, eh?’

‘I thought you didn’t want me around, Jack. You reckon I can’t fight. You think I’m a coward. Why would you want me along?’

‘Look, I said some stupid things yesterday, Ed. I was tired. You know what it’s like. The thing is, I do want you around. You’re my mate.’

‘But I’m not any good in a fight,’ said Ed. ‘I’m just not.’

Jack stood up. ‘You’ll learn,’ he said.

‘I’ll need to talk to Bam,’ said Ed.

‘We’ll be OK, Ed.’ Jack squeezed past Ed. ‘The three of us. We won’t have the smaller kids and the nerds to look after.’

‘What about Piers? He won’t get far with that head injury, and I don’t think Bam would leave him behind.’

Jack stopped. Swore. ‘I forgot about him. Maybe the girls could look after him?’

Ed laughed. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Well, sort it out with Bam. Make a decision of some sort. I’m going to go and talk to his lordship up front.’

Jack yawned and made his way to the front of the coach. He had to step over Liam who was lying in the aisle wrapped in a blanket, Greg’s jacket under his head for a pillow.

Greg was sitting in the driver’s seat with his shotgun in his lap, staring straight ahead through the rain-streaked windscreen. He was still as a statue, but as Jack got close he suddenly burst into a wild coughing fit that ended with him spitting into the stairwell.

Jack stopped and took a deep breath. It wasn’t good when an adult coughed like that. It usually meant only one thing. He let his breath out slowly and stepped closer.

‘Do you know exactly where we are?’ he asked, hoping for the best.

Greg ignored him. Just sat there.

‘Is this, like, Borough, or somewhere?’ Jack pressed on.

Nothing.

‘Greg?’

Just the rain, tapping on the roof.

‘Are you all right?’

There was a sound somewhere between a shriek and a sob. Jack turned round. Zohra was with Liam, trying to wake him.

‘There’s something the matter with him,’ she said. ‘He won’t wake up.’

‘What?’ Jack felt very cold suddenly.

‘What’s happened to him? Why won’t he wake up?’

‘Get some water, splash his face maybe.’

‘He won’t move.’

‘Put him in the recovery position.’

‘LEAVE HIM ALONE!’

Greg’s voice sounded uncomfortably loud in the cramped confines of the bus. Everyone fell silent.

Still Greg wouldn’t turn round.

Jack went over to Liam and knelt down. He shook him. He felt frozen. Jack lifted his face. His lips were blue, his eyes wide open and staring, slightly bulging. There were red marks and bruising round his neck.

‘He’s dead,’ he said to nobody in particular.

‘I said leave him alone!’ Greg snarled. ‘Don’t touch him. Don’t go anywhere near him. I’m looking after him. You’re none of you fit to be anywhere near him.’

‘He’s dead,’ Jack repeated.

‘He’s all right.’

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing happened.’

‘You were with him last night,’ said Jack accusingly. ‘What happened to him?’

‘HE’S ALL RIGHT!’

At last Greg turned round and stood up. His face was greasy with sweat, his eyes and nostrils red-rimmed. There were white spots around his mouth. But the thing Jack found most disturbing was that he was wearing Liam’s wire-rimmed glasses.