The Dead

He smiled wider, the blood smeared round his mouth like a clown’s painted smile. The boys were walking away. But he could follow, because the meaty, juicy stink of them hung in the air like something he could see and touch.

He picked up his bundle, hugged it to his chest and followed.

43

‘Frédérique’s not too happy about you going, you know.’

‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ said Jack. ‘I can’t be responsible for everyone.’ His shoulders were hunched, his head drooping. ‘I can’t look after her. I don’t know how.’

Ed wasn’t going to give up. ‘She really likes you,’ he said, slinging his rifle on to his back. ‘Don’t you like her?’

‘Yeah, I think so. No, I do. I like her a lot,’ said Jack.

Ed leant over and picked a long hair off Jack’s coat.

‘What’s this I find?’ he said, holding it between finger and thumb so that it twisted in the air. ‘Evidence!’

‘You’re going to start singing in a minute, aren’t you?’ said Jack.

‘Singing what?’

‘Jack and Fred sitting in a tree, kay-I-ess-ess-I-en-gee.’

‘Well?’ Ed raised his eyebrows.

‘It’s not like that,’ said Jack, the white half of his face reddening. ‘She’s just latched on to me.’

‘And you don’t like her?’

‘I’d like her more if she could stop crying for five minutes. There’s something making her miserable and I can’t get through to her. I can’t get her to tell me what it is.’

‘She’s just freaked out by everything,’ said Bam. ‘We all are, and we all deal with it in different ways.’

‘How do you deal with it?’ Ed asked.

‘You know me,’ said Bam. ‘I do things. Get physical. Same way I’ve always done. Rugger’s a good cure for real life.’ He paused and turned to Jack with a leer. ‘So, do you fancy her?’

‘I haven’t really thought about it.’

‘Yeah?’ It was obvious Bam didn’t believe him. ‘You reckon? Nice bit of French totty.’

‘All right,’ said Jack. ‘Maybe a bit.’

‘Ooh la la! Just a bit?’

‘Look. She’s all right. I like her. OK? She’s nice-looking. A bit thin perhaps …’

‘Thin?’ Bam snorted. ‘She’s ski

‘But she’s OK,’ said Jack. ‘You know what I mean? Maybe if things had been different I might have done something about it, I don’t know. I can never, like, tell with girls, whether they just like me as a, you know, just as a person, or whether they fancy me. I’m always scared of mucking up.’

‘Well, I reckon you’re in there anyway, mate,’ said Bam.

‘So what about you and Brooke, then?’ Jack asked Ed, trying to move the spotlight on to someone else.

‘What about me and Brooke?’

‘When are you go

Ed sniggered. Remembering. ‘You know what I just did back there?’

‘What?’

‘I kissed her.’

‘You never? What, in front of everyone?’

‘It wasn’t, like, a proper snog or anything,’ said Ed. ‘It was more like a sort of movie kiss. I was sort of acting. You know, like a soldier going on a dangerous mission kissing his girl goodbye. Maybe she’ll wait for him, maybe she won’t kind of thing.’

‘Oh, she’ll wait for you. You’re well in there, mate,’ said Bam.

‘Yeah,’ said Jack. ‘She only goes for good-looking blokes, and I’m spoken for. There’s no one else around she’d look twice at.’

‘Oi!’ said Bam. ‘What about me?’

‘What about you?’ said Jack. ‘You’re hideous, Bam. You’re a kind of troll.’

‘I am not. I had a girlfriend back home if you really want to know.’

‘A real one or an imaginary one?’ said Jack.

‘She was a picture in a magazine, I reckon,’ said Ed, joining in the game.

‘She’s a real girl, thank you,’ said Bam. ‘With arms and legs and everything.’

‘Everything?’

‘Far as I know. We hadn’t got much past the kissing stage. And now …’ Bam sighed and gave a little grunt. ‘God knows if I’ll ever see her again.’

‘What was her name?’ Jack asked i

‘Cass, if you must know.’

‘I thought you only liked rugger, Bam?’

‘I’m a man of the world, Ed. There’s more to me than you will ever know.’

‘There’s certainly more to you than I will ever want to know,’ said Jack. ‘Already that’s way too much information. The thought of you and poor Cass getting all loved up on a sofa somewhere …’

‘Leave it out, Jack,’ said Bam. ‘Why are you two picking on me, anyway?’

‘We’re only having a laugh, Bam,’ said Ed. He put an arm across Bam’s shoulders and they walked a few steps linked together.

‘So you’re going to make a move on Brooke, then, are you, Bam?’ said Jack.

‘Brooke? No way! She’s not my type at all. She’s scary as all hell. You’re welcome to her, Ed.’

‘She’s all right once you get past her front,’ said Ed. ‘But in the past she wouldn’t have looked twice at me. I’m not her type, really. I’d have thought she’d be more interested in someone like DogNut. And you can see he fancies her. He’s always sniffing around.’

‘Oh, come off it, Ed!’ Jack scoffed. ‘I thought you understood girls. You can tell she’s not the slightest bit interested in him. He’s like an over-affectionate dog, sticking his nose up your arse all the time.’

The three of them laughed as they marched along. For one small moment they could forget about survival and pretend that nothing had changed.

They’d ended up back near the gas towers and they stopped so that Jack could work out which way they should be going.

‘That gas sure does smell rotten,’ said Ed, wrinkling his nose. ‘Stupid thing is, there’s probably enough gas in those holders to last us the rest of our lives, if we only had some way to get it out.’

Bam wasn’t listening. He was looking up at the sky and shading his eyes from the sun. The thick black cloud they’d seen earlier had grown larger.

‘I don’t think the smell’s all from the gasholders,’ he said. ‘That smoke’s definitely getting worse. Either we’re getting nearer to it or it’s getting nearer to us.’

‘Bit of both, I reckon,’ said Ed. ‘Must be some way off still, though.’

He sniffed the air. ‘You reckon that’s the smoke we can smell?’

‘Yeah,’ said Jack. ‘Like a coal fire mixed with a sort of cooking smell.’

‘And something rotten, like food that’s gone off, unless that’s the gas,’ Bam added. ‘Not nice at all. What if the fire spreads right up to the museum?’

‘It won’t,’ said Jack. ‘It’s been too wet lately.’

‘If it’s hot enough, it’ll burn anything,’ Ed pointed out. ‘No matter how wet.’

‘Come on, guys,’ said Jack, moving off. ‘Let’s get on. There’s nothing we can do about it.’

‘Yeah,’ said Ed, and he coughed. He definitely tasted smoke in the air.

44

‘Who’s this Angus Day, then?’

The younger kids from the Brains Trust had come through into the museum café to get away from Matt and the rest of his gang who were out in the atrium having a religious discussion, and Harry was proudly showing off his fancy lettering.

‘Agnus Day,’ he sneered, mocking their stupidity. ‘It says Agnus Day.’

‘Well, who’s Agnes Day?’ said Jibber-jabber. ‘And why have you made a flag for her? Is she your girlfriend?’

‘It’s Latin, dumbo,’ Harry explained, with as much scorn in his voice as he could. ‘It means “Lamb of the Lord”.’

‘That definitely says Angus Day, actually,’ said Wiki. ‘You’ve written Angus not Agnus. And Dei is spelt D-E-I, not D-A-Y.’