The Fear

‘Didn’t really notice,’ said Fi

‘Tell you the truth, man,’ Felix went on, ‘the main reason me and Marco come along on this trip in the first place was to see if we could find us some new wifeys. Know what I mean? The maths ain’t so good back at the Tower. There’s way more boys than girls.’

‘I’m a girl,’ said Olivia.

‘You don’t count, darling.’

‘We sick of the same old faces day in, day out,’ said Marco. ‘And nothing much has changed since the sickness, has it? The peng girls still go with the popular guys, the fighters, the leaders, the good-looking ones. The lucky ones. The rest of us … We do what we can.’

‘There’s always Jessica,’ said Fi

‘Yeah, Jessica,’ said Marco, making a face. ‘To be honest, I always thought she looked kinda … sour.’

Al was stuck with Jessica again. He’d had no choice on the boat, but he’d been hoping that once they hit dry land he could dump her and hang with Marco and Felix who always made him laugh. Jessica had latched on to him, though, and wouldn’t stop going on about her ex-boyfriend, Brendan. She went over, again and again, all the details of their break-up. Al hoped to God she wasn’t interested in him. He much preferred having a laugh with the guys than chatting to girls about all the things they were interested in, like emotions. He was pretty sure she wasn’t interested in him as a potential boyfriend. Girls never went for him that way. He was just a handy ear to babble into. He almost felt jealous of Fi

Courtney, meanwhile, was taking the opportunity to talk to DogNut.

‘You scared at all?’

‘Yeah. I guess. Our likkle pleasure cruise was the easy bit. Bummer that we lost the boat, but in the future that’s go

‘The future?’ Courtney protested. ‘I ain’t doing this again.’

‘No. Don’t you feel it, gyal?’ said DogNut excitedly. ‘This is about more than finding lost friends.’

‘Is it? News to me.’

‘Come on. You said it on the boat. We’re explorers. What were we go

‘Do we?’

‘Yeah. We go

‘I quite liked the sound of sitting safe behind the walls at the Tower growing old and fat,’ said Courtney. ‘Well … fatter. I mean, do you think we’re really ready for this?’ As she said it, she glanced nervously around at the big buildings looming up on either side of them, half expecting a bunch of sickos to jump out from every shadowed doorway.

‘We ready,’ said DogNut, and his confidence spilt over into her. ‘Last time we come up this way was a year ago. We know better now how not to get whacked. We’ve had a whole year more of learning about the sickos, of learning the best way of fighting them.’

‘Or ru

‘That’s how you know, sister!’ said DogNut. ‘When to fight, when to run. I ain’t dumb! I know it’s not go

Courtney just shrugged, letting him think she was tougher than she was. Someone he could rely on.

‘I remember one time, back at the museum,’ she said after a while. ‘Me and Brooke and Aleisha was talking. We’d been out and found the lorry, we was all feeling good, reckoned we could handle the sickos, no problem. Anyway, we was talking – and I always remember it for some reason – maybe it was the last time we was all together and happy. I said the only problem with sickos was if you got overwhelmed. Only I couldn’t remember the word at the time. Overwhelm. It’s a weird word. We all had a laugh about me trying to remember it. Overwhelm. It ain’t a word you get to use that much. And whenever I think of Brooke and Aleisha we’re back there, the three of us, laughing.’

‘It is a weird word, overwhelm,’ said DogNut. ‘I can’t get it out of my brain now thanks to you.’

‘You know what I mean, though,’ said Courtney. ‘Don’t you? They’re only really dangerous, the sickos, when there’s loads of them. One or two you can handle, but when there’s, like, hundreds …’

DogNut nodded, didn’t say anything for a moment, because he was suddenly right back there at the bank, and Leo, poor clumsy Leo, was being overwhelmed by sickos.

No other word for it.

He shook his head, dragged himself back into the present.

‘We go

‘Deal.’

And as they slapped palms, almost as if it had been arranged by a God with a sick sense of humour, they saw movement ahead and watched open-mouthed as a large group of adults crossed the road in front of them.

‘Oh crap,’ said DogNut, and he drew his sword.

9

Marco licked his dry lips. His chest felt tight. This was all begi

And, Jesus, there were a lot of them.

The kids froze, hoping they hadn’t been spotted. But then something alerted one of the sickos and he turned. A moment later all the other adults stopped. They were too far away for Marco to see them clearly, but he’d glimpsed enough of them to be able to tell that they were fast-moving for sickos. That meant they were younger and not as badly diseased.

The most dangerous type.

‘What do we do?’ he said.

‘We run, I guess,’ said Felix. ‘There’s way too many to fight.’

Marco turned round to see if the road was still clear behind them. ‘Back to the Houses of Parliament?’

‘Or we could go up a side-street,’ said Courtney. ‘Try and get round them.’

‘Good idea,’ said DogNut and they dodged up a smaller road called Broadway, pushing on in a fast jog, their packs rattling on their backs.

As they crossed over the next junction, however, they saw another group of sickos ru

DogNut was hot and angry. It would be a mighty pain in the arse if his expedition fouled up on day one. He wanted to be remembered for something heroic, not for leading his friends into a hopeless dangerous mess.

But that’s exactly what he had done …

The alley turned a sharp corner and came to a dead end. A literal dead end – there was a pile of ancient corpses here, lying on top of each other, dried out in the sun at the base of a brick wall.

Courtney cursed loudly. ‘Now what do we do?’

‘We hope they didn’t see us,’ said DogNut. ‘Hope they run past.’