The Dead

‘Right,’ he shouted. ‘Justin up front. I’ll ride with you. And Brooke?’

‘Yeah? What?’

‘You as well, in with me and Justin. The rest of you in the back.’

As Justin climbed up into the cab, Brooke took Ed aside.

‘What you want me in the front with you for, then?’

Ed sighed. ‘I know you all want me to be the leader and make all the difficult decisions,’ he said, ‘but I’m not sure I always know the best thing to do.’

‘Yeah? So?’

‘So you’re the only other one round here who gets any respect from the others. From now on, you and me, Brooke, we’re going to work together, OK?’

Brooke shrugged, flattered, but a little scared at the same time.

‘OK.’

Ed had been turned away southwards, trying to work out how far away the fire was. Now he turned to look at Brooke.

‘You ready, then?’

Brooke winced and shrank away from him. Not wanting to look at the gash down the side of his face, but ghoulishly fascinated at the same time.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I keep forgetting. I still ain’t used to your, like, cut. It looks awful, Ed. You ain’t even cleaned it properly or nothing. Couldn’t you have got one of Jordan’s crew to help you?’

Ed sighed and fingered the scab. His face hurt like hell and his eye was still swollen shut. He hoped it wasn’t damaged.

‘I haven’t had time,’ he said.

‘Ed, you got to – you don’t want it to go bad. You’ll look like crap.’

Ed had been too busy before to think about his wound, and that was how he wanted it to stay, there was enough other stuff to worry about.

‘What do you reckon they could do about it anyway?’ he snapped. ‘Stick a plaster on it and give me a paracetamol? Kiss it better?’

‘You don’t get that seen to, there ain’t no one never go

‘I’ll sort it out later,’ said Ed. ‘We’ve got to get going. It’ll be dark soon, or at least it would be if it wasn’t for the fire.’

‘At least let me clean it,’ said Brooke. ‘You got, like, bog paper and stuff stuck to it. It looks well nasty.’ Brooke reached out a hand towards Ed’s face then snatched it away with a grimace.

‘You look like one of them,’ she said. ‘You ain’t turning into Frédérique, are you?’

‘Just get on the lorry, Brooke, and let’s get out of here.’

69

The lorry ploughed through the railings at the side of the park, flattening them, and the kids in the back cheered. As soon as they hit the road, however, they had to slow down. It was choked with fleeing children. The lorry rumbled forward at a snail’s pace, David and his boys clearing a path, shoving aside kids to stop them from being run down, shifting piles of debris that were blocking the street, shunting away broken-down cars. It seemed that every few metres there was another obstacle in the road. Once they even had to move a collapsed advertising hoarding.

As they cleared a railway bridge, they finally came to a complete stop. There was yet another abandoned car in their way. David’s boys fussed about as the lorry sat there shaking and hissing and Ed grew more and more frustrated. He hated being stuck in the claustrophobic cab not able to do anything except watch. Justin was sweating and swearing, teetering on the verge of panic. Brooke was moody and twitchy being separated from her friends. She kept sneaking disgusted glances at Ed’s face. In the end Ed could stand it no longer. He kicked the door open and jumped down to help David’s lot with the car.

Once the road was clear he decided to stay and walk with them for a while.

From down here the lorry looked huge as it moved slowly through the crowds. He was reminded of those old dinosaur films, where the dying dinosaurs have to escape some terrible natural disaster. There would be lots of small fast-moving dinosaurs, maybe even the odd early mammal or two, and there, in the middle of it all, a lumbering, hulking apatosaurus or the like.

It was taking too long. Behind them the fire was growing ever closer, travelling faster than they were, steadily eating away at London. Ed could hear the roar and crackle of it and see unbelievably big flames clawing at the sky over the rooftops of the houses. There were distant screams, but it was impossible to tell, in all the confusion, which direction they were coming from.

At last, though, they reached the river, where the road opened out. Ahead of them was a large roundabout, and on the far side of it was Lambeth Bridge, flanked by two tall stone obelisks that were topped with what looked like pineapples. To the left was a modern glass and steel apartment block with curved walls, to the right, in sharp contrast, was what looked like a medieval church and beyond that the square redbrick Tudor buildings of Lambeth Palace. The church sat in its own gardens, which were filled with children waiting to cross the bridge.

A major road ran along the river here, and it, too, was packed. The sheer number of kids was causing a dangerous bottleneck and nobody seemed to be moving. Traffic was stuck on the bridge, and children were having to climb over cars or squeeze past them to get anywhere. It was chaos. There were dogs barking, horns blaring, boys and girls of all ages sitting in the road clutching their pathetic bundles of belongings. As more and more kids arrived they milled around, pushing and shoving each other.

‘We’ll never get over,’ said one of David’s boys, staring at the solid mass of people on the bridge.

‘We have to,’ said Ed. ‘None of the other bridges will be any better. And we’d never get to them in time anyway.’

Somewhere off to the left there was an explosion. A fountain of vividly coloured sparks shot up into the air and a second later everyone felt the force of it as a shockwave passed through the crowd, starting a panic. There was a stampede, but with nowhere to go the mass of kids surged in all directions, knocking each other over and trampling smaller kids underfoot.

Ed tugged at his hair and bit the skin around his fingernails. Was this really happening? The black mood of despair settled over him again. He didn’t have the energy to cope. He’d used up everything he had. He slipped his rifle off his shoulder, closed his eyes, slid slowly down one of the huge rear tyres of the lorry and sat on the tarmac. He put his hands over his ears to block out the sound of screaming.

They were all going to die here, on this stupid bloody road. And it was his fault. He should never have led the kids away from the safety of the museum.

70

The fire had reached the museum. Fa

Smoke started to spread through the galleries.

Jordan was up in his office making plans with a small group of boys. DogNut was outside by the naval guns, watching the chaos and confusion. Smoke wafted in clumps across the park that was garishly lit up by the nearby fires.

DogNut was begi