The Dead

In the end David lost his cool and snapped at him.

‘Just shut up, Pod!’ he shouted. ‘All of you shut up.’

The noise died down a little.

‘What have you two decided, anyway?’ Pod asked. ‘Although to tell you the truth I don’t really want to stay here with this bunch of morons.’

‘Loser,’ someone shouted.

‘We hadn’t finished talking if you must know,’ said David, sounding calmer.

‘Can’t they give us some guns and we’ll get going?’ said Pod.

‘Yeah, get lost!’ came a voice from the crowd.

‘There’s a lot to sort out,’ said David. ‘And you lot aren’t making it very easy for me. You’re behaving like a bunch of kids.’

‘David,’ said Andy, the guy with the big nose, ‘we are kids.’

‘I won’t have you fighting like this. I can sort things out, but I have to be able to leave you alone for five minutes without you fighting.’

‘They started it,’ said Pod.

‘We did not!’

‘It might not matter, anyways,’ said DogNut, coming in from the front entranceway. ‘You’d better come take a look at this.’

65

Ed, Jordan, David and DogNut were on the roof of the museum. The sky was almost completely covered by roiling black smoke, which was visibly spreading from the south-east, like ink staining a bowl of water. There was a roaring, crackling sound like a distant waterfall and they could see great flames leaping into the sky in the distance. The hot wind carried ash and cinders. Birds were flying past, and ski

‘The fire’s driving them this way,’ said David.

‘Is getting serious,’ said DogNut.

‘We’re in open ground here, aren’t we?’ Ed asked. ‘I mean, the park goes all the way round, doesn’t it?’

‘Not at the back,’ said Jordan. ‘We’re close to some other buildings there. If the fire gets really out of control, it could spread to the museum. I guess we could maybe try and fight it off somehow.’

‘The thing is, though,’ said David, ‘if everything around you burned down, you wouldn’t want to stay here, would you? It would be a wasteland.’

‘At least there’d be no sickos left,’ said Ed.

‘There’d be nothing,’ said David. ‘You’d be stranded here.’

‘We’re not leaving,’ said Jordan. ‘We fought hard for this place.’

‘But you said yourself it could catch fire,’ said Ed.

‘We’ll take that risk.’

‘For real?’ DogNut was alarmed. ‘I do not like fire, captain. I’m telling you, if them flames get too close, I am out of here.’

‘DogNut’s right,’ said Ed. ‘I saw what happened at the Oval. When a fire gets hot enough, it just burns everything.’

‘Maybe the wind will drop?’ said Jordan. ‘Change direction.’

This was the first time Ed had seen Jordan show any doubt, any hesitation.

‘I saw a programme about bush fires once,’ said David, staring at the sky. ‘In California and Australia. Whole towns just turned to ash and rubble. Cities rely on fire brigades. Without them fires can spread unchecked, and there’s nothing you can do to stop them. I’m taking my boys and I’m going. But first you’re going to give us some guns, Jordan. There’s no point in leaving them here to get burned.’

‘I’m with David,’ said Ed. ‘I’m going to at least get ready to pull out. You should too, Jordan. Pack everything up, put it on the lorry if you want.’

‘I can’t leave the museum.’

‘Bloody hell, Jordan. Look at that! The whole horizon’s covered with fire. You can always come back afterwards. See if the museum’s still standing. I’m not risking it, though. I’m going to start loading our food back on to the lorry. If it looks too hairy, we’ll head north, across the river. At least the Thames will stop the fire spreading any further. Honestly, Jordan, just let it burn itself out and come back when it’s all over.’

‘I’m not leaving.’

66

After the dogs came the children. A steady trickle of them, heading for the bridges. Boys and girls, bedraggled, exhausted, terrified. In small groups mostly, some riding bikes, some pushing shopping trolleys full of belongings, quite a few with suitcases on wheels, a handful packed into cars, driving slowly down the choked streets.

Jordan posted guards at all the entrances to the museum to stop anyone from trying to break in, but nobody wanted to stop. They’d seen the fire, they knew what it was capable of and just wanted to get well away.

Ed organized the coach party into a team and they grabbed all the food they’d carefully unloaded the day before and packed it back on to the lorry along with their sleeping bags and blankets. DogNut helped, and stayed outside with Ed making sure no passing kids nicked anything. Twice a small group of tough nuts made a detour and came over for a look, but when they saw the boys’ weapons they carried on by, jeering and throwing things.

One group, though, three boys and a girl, stopped and asked for water. Ed gave them a bottle and asked them for details about the fire.

‘We was hiding out in a tower block down Brixton,’ said one of the boys. ‘There was loads of us there. Last night the fire lit up the whole sky. This morning you could see it. We was up high and you could watch it jumping from building to building. There ain’t nothing go

‘Probably,’ said Ed.

‘Don’t wait too long, man. It moves fast. It’s a firestorm. If it gets close, you can’t outrun it. We’re getting over the river, take our chances on the north side, though I’ve always hated north London. It’s just that now, well there ain’t hardly no south London left.’

‘Honestly,’ said the girl. ‘Don’t leave it too late. There’s crazies back there. Thousands of them, being driven up this way by the fire. Every last one in south London most likely.’

Wiki and Jibber-jabber were arranging the food in the back of the lorry with Zohra and Froggie.

‘Could we be burned?’ said Froggie, his big bulging eyes wider than ever.

‘Yes,’ said Wiki.

‘Will the whole of London be burned?’

‘Probably not. The wind will drop, or it might rain, then there’s the river that acts as a natural firebreak. But in the Great Fire of London in 1666 thirteen thousand houses went up in smoke. There were eighty thousand people living here then. About seventy thousand of them lost their homes. In 1906 in San Francisco twenty-five thousand buildings were destroyed by fire – admittedly there had been an earthquake as well, but even so.’

Ed came round to see how they were getting on. He had the rest of the coach party with him. There was Kwanele, wheeling his suitcase, immaculate in an admiral’s uniform he’d found. Chris Marker followed, for once not reading a book. Justin the nerd was carrying a Sten gun for protection. It had no bullets in it but looked menacing enough and gave him a feeling of security. Then came Mad Matt and Archie and the acolytes, carrying their ridiculous ba

Brooke nodded towards the kids that were streaming along the roads.

‘See, Aleisha,’ she said. ‘We ain’t alone. I told you.’

They all crowded nervously round, watching the skies. Ed shouted to get their attention.