The Dead

‘Yeah? And can you drive a car, in principle?’

‘Yes I can, actually. My dad gave me lessons on an old airfield near where we live. He was mad about cars. Me too. Though I’m more interested in trucks and lorries, really. Dad didn’t have a lorry to teach me in, though.’

‘You really think you can drive this?’ Ed asked, slithering down.

‘I watched Greg driving the bus,’ said Justin with a shrug. ‘It’s the same thing. I really think I could do it. I really do.’

‘I can drive and all,’ said DogNut. ‘Used to jack cars with me mates. I’ll sit with him. Between us we can work it out, I reckon.’

‘All right, we’re on!’ Ed clapped his hands together.

‘Oi, you lot!’ Jack called down from the roof. ‘Who’s moving that bloody body? It’s stinking the place out.’

He looked at Brooke and her friends. They made disgusted faces and backed away, shaking their heads.

‘I’ll do it,’ said Frédérique, stepping forward and picking up one of the snowman’s feet. She tried to pull him along, but couldn’t shift him. She had a determined, slightly mad look on her face, but it was clear she wasn’t going anywhere.

‘Come on.’ Brooke nudged Courtney. ‘We ain’t leaving her to do this. Makes us look bad. Grab a leg.’

‘Broo-ooke,’ Courtney protested.

‘We didn’t come along on this trip just to make sarcastic comments, did we?’ Brooke asked, grasping the other foot. ‘Or to hold the boys’ coats for them while they had a scrap. We got to pull our weight, or at least pull his weight.’ She sniggered. ‘Come on, shake a leg.’

Giving in to Brooke’s bullying, Courtney and Aleisha joined Frédérique, and the four of them started to drag the body along the alley towards the yard, keeping their faces pointing resolutely forward, away from the snowman. Trying not to think about what they were doing.

They got him to the end of the alley and pulled him over to the row of garages. It had been dark in the alley, which lay in shadow, and the sun felt suddenly warm and cheerful as they stepped into its light.

Brooke let go of the snowman’s foot and, closing her eyes, she turned her face up to the sun, feeling its warmth on her skin.

‘Oh, that feels so good,’ she said. ‘I have been so cold.’

‘Brooke,’ said Courtney. ‘Look at this …’

‘What?’ Brooke opened her eyes. Courtney was staring at the dead driver with a half-revolted, half-fascinated expression.

‘I don’t want to look,’ said Brooke. ‘It’s going to be something horrible, isn’t it?’

‘Just look.’

‘I can’t …’

‘You got to see this.’

Brooke clenched her teeth and forced herself to look round at the dead driver, prepared for the worst.

For a moment Brooke thought the snowman was coming back to life. His skin seemed to be boiling, as if liquid was bubbling up from beneath it, pushing it out into rippling blisters. Before their eyes his body was swelling, blossoming, bloating. His tongue poked out from between his lips, the tip of it studded with more blisters that popped as they hit the air. His hands were moving, the fingers wriggling and writhing. His neck was getting fatter and fatter, until it was thicker than his head. Then there was a hiss and sigh as his throat burst open, squeezing out bright pink jelly.

The only way Brooke could deal with what she was seeing was to imagine that she was watching a film. Something with over-the-top special effects. The driver didn’t look human any more. She was absolutely mesmerized.

Someone tugged at her arm.

‘What d’you want?’ she said, turning round angrily, assuming it was one of the boys come to get her.

Instead she found herself looking into a black hole where a face should be. It was a young mother, with wavy hair that was once blonde but was now showing dark roots. She had eyes and a lower jaw with a row of teeth with silver fillings, but nothing in between.

Brooke felt like she’d been kicked in the guts. Her windpipe clenched shut. Her lungs froze. She opened her mouth and tried to scream but nothing came out.

While the three girls had been watching the driver a group of about fifteen sickos had entered the yard, attracted by the noise. They were all young adults, mothers and fathers, but they were in a terrible state, bloodied and battered, with bits missing, and skin ruined by craters and sores.

Aleisha, Brooke and Courtney had left their weapons behind in the alley so that their hands were free to drag the body, but Frédérique had her knife in a sheath on her belt. She pulled it out and started waving it at the sickos, yelling and screaming in French as the three other girls shouted for help.

Frédérique was like a wildcat, spitting with rage, a look of crazed fury on her thin face. Her blade slashed clumsily at the sickos, doing little real damage but confusing them enough to give the other three time to move away from where they’d been backed up against the garage doors. Frédérique at last managed to get close to a father. She gouged him in the neck and he whined and went into a sort of stiff-legged dance. She stabbed again and again, the knife rising and falling like a piston.

‘Leave him!’ Brooke yelled. ‘Get away, Frédérique!’

Frédérique didn’t hear. All her fear and anger and sadness was coming out. She turned from the father and lunged at a bald mother, who stepped to the side. She snarled, the knife scything through the air, and waded right into the knot of sickos. The knife flashed in the sunlight, then punched into a father where it lodged in his armpit. Frédérique tried to tug it free but two mothers barged into her arm, loosening her grip on the handle. A third got her from behind, knocking her to her knees. She put her arms around her head to protect herself and curled forward, arching her back, defeated.

A father crouched over her, sniffing her hair. He was quickly joined by five others, who crowded round her, blocking her from view. Vultures on a carcass.

Unarmed, Brooke, Aleisha and Courtney could do nothing to help. The rest of the sickos had got between them and Frédérique and were now advancing on the girls, dribbling and moaning softly, sniffing the air.

Ed came skidding round the corner and when he saw what was happening he got hold of Aleisha and Courtney and dragged them back towards the alley, shouting at Brooke to follow.

Once in the alley they retreated towards the lorry, the sickos closing in after them.

‘Where’s Frédérique?’ Ed asked.

‘They got her,’ said Brooke. ‘They got her.’

‘We can’t leave her.’

‘I ain’t going back. Are you?’

Ed said nothing.

Bam and Jack were sitting on the roof of the cab. They could see the sickos advancing along the alley.

‘Hurry up!’ they shouted, waving their arms. ‘For God’s sake, run!’

41

Justin and DogNut were inside the cab, struggling to get the engine started. They had the windows wide open but it still stank something rotten in here. DogNut had found a whole packet of pine-tree-shaped air fresheners in the glove box and had ripped them out of their packaging and strewn them about the place. But he didn’t think all the air fresheners in the world would be able to get rid of the smell of a fat dead lorry driver left to rot in his seat.

Yelling encouragement, Bam and Jack reached out to the girls, ready to drag them up on to the roof. They got Aleisha first, as Courtney started to clamber up the radiator grille by herself. Aleisha was so small she weighed almost nothing. Ed and Brooke waited their turn.

From inside the cab all Justin could see was a tangle of arms and legs as the girls wriggled up the windscreen. The engine didn’t want to start. Probably because the diesel had got too cold. He was ru