The Fear

‘Maybe you should have tried harder.’

DogNut put a lid on his anger. Paul had every right to be upset. But this was all too raw for any of them to deal with right now.

‘Do you know what it’s like out there?’ he said, his voice bumpy with emotion. He was desperate not to start crying. Knew he had to go on the offensive, though, or crack up. ‘Do you?’ he went on. ‘Do you ever go out there? The streets at night?’

‘Not really, no, not that much.’ Paul had calmed down. He was confused by the change of direction the conversation had taken.

‘We brought her all the way here from the other side of London,’ said DogNut, hoping that if he could convince Paul he could maybe convince himself that he hadn’t made a monumental mess of things. ‘We almost made it too, but we got trapped. We was that close. I’m sorry, man, all right? I’m sorry she never made it through.’

The anger went out of Paul to be replaced with sorrow and he slumped on to a bed. Courtney got up and sat next to him. Putting an arm round his shoulders she slowly and quietly explained what had happened. DogNut was grateful that the only thing she didn’t tell him was how they’d left Olivia behind. In Courtney’s version Olivia had died as they tried to escape.

As Paul listened, the rage came back, but it was no longer directed at DogNut and Courtney – it was focused on the sicko, the Collector. It was a black rage mixed with disgust and fear.

‘I’ll kill him,’ he said when Courtney had finished. ‘I will. I’ll show you. I’ll show you I can go out there. I’ll find where he lives and I’ll kill him.’

‘Whoa, hold on, soldier,’ said DogNut. ‘That’s exactly what I wanted to do when I realized Olivia hadn’t made it. I wanted to take him on all by myself. Kill the evil bastard. But I couldn’t of done it, and neither could you. You ain’t going out there by yourself, OK? Your sister wouldn’t want you to die for her. You wa

‘Tomorrow,’ said Paul.

‘Yeah. Tomorrow. If we’re ready. In the daylight, when he won’t be so strong. OK?’

Courtney looked at DogNut, trying to read his face in the half-light. The thought of going back there appalled her. What was he thinking of? They’d only just managed to get away themselves. The plan had been to find Brooke, which they’d done. Their mission was successful. All they had to do was rest up for a couple of days and then head off back to the Tower.

With or without Brooke.

The last thing she ever wanted to do was go anywhere near that terrible house again.

Courtney couldn’t see it, but DogNut was smiling. Maybe his mind was messed up by tiredness, maybe it would all seem stupid in the morning, but a plan was forming in there. He turned it over as he drifted back into sleep. For now it looked good.

27

‘So what are they up to down there then?’

‘Same old same old. They’re not properly organized. They live in filth. A lot of them are ill. John’s a nutter. But they get by. They seem happy most of the time – when they’re not fighting each other.’

‘I don’t know how you can stick it, Shadowman. Living with those creeps when you could be living here.’

Jester and Shadowman were sitting by the fire in Jester’s office at the palace. The room was part of a small apartment, tucked up in the roof out of the way. Jester liked it like that. Private. As far as he could tell it had once been part of the servants’ quarters, where one of the more important members of staff had lived. There was a bedroom, an office, a sitting-room and a tiny bathroom. He could keep himself to himself up here and not be observed by the other kids. David had a much larger suite of grand rooms with a massive office in the centre of the palace. He liked to show off his power.

Jester kept his power inside. Like Shadowman.

The two of them had been friends before the disaster. There’d been a little gang of them. They were the only people who Shadowman had felt relaxed with and able to let down his guard. Originally they were going to form a band, but that never really happened. They got as far as making up the band name – The Twilight Zone – and rock-star names for each other, and that was about it.

Jester had been called Magic-Man because he reminded the others of Derren Brown, the mind-control guy. He had the knack of persuading people to do things and think things. Then there’d been Cool-Man, Big-Man, Go-Girl and The Fox. The others had all died in the early days of the disease, except for Go-Girl, who’d left London with a group of other kids months ago and headed for the countryside. They had no idea what might have happened to her. Back then Jester and Shadowman had been living together in a big house in Notting Hill, but when that had become too dangerous they’d moved to the palace. It was much safer here. Shadowman, however, didn’t like the rigid routines of the place, the feeling of being cooped up, walled in, under David’s thumb, so he hadn’t stuck it for long. He was restless and preferred to be alone, as far as that was possible in this dangerous city. He’d run with a couple of hunter gangs, he’d lived with Nicola’s kids at the Houses of Parliament, he’d stayed a little while at the Natural History Museum. The same thing happened every time, though: he started to feel trapped and would move on.

Jester had tried to persuade him many times to come back and stay at the palace, but Shadowman kept on the go, checking in with his old friend every couple of weeks. Jester made sure he was all right and had enough food and water, because Shadowman was useful to him. He was his main eyes and ears outside the palace, the most important in a network of spies and contacts and informers. He would still have preferred to keep him under the palace roof, though, where he’d be a lot safer.

‘I work alone – you know that, Magic-Man.’

Apart from David when he was trying to be matey, Shadowman was the only person left who called Jester that. Jester was a nickname he’d picked up since moving in here. It was a kind of joke at first, a way of putting him down, implying he was David’s little pet monkey. He liked the name, though. It was a disguise to hide behind. He could gain more and more power without anyone seeing him as much of a threat.

‘You know I don’t like to get too close to people,’ Shadowman went on. ‘I can’t face seeing them die. I figure if I just keep moving around I won’t get too attached to anyone.’

‘That’s harsh, Shadow. You are one callous dude.’

‘No, Magic-Man, that’s what I’m saying – it’s the opposite. I’m too soft. If I was harder, it wouldn’t bother me so much. You’re the cold one.’

‘Me?’

‘Yeah, you. Don’t act so surprised. You’re sly. Always looking for the angle. People are only interesting to you if you can use them in some way. I don’t trust you as far as I could throw you.’

‘So why do you still stay friends with me then?’ asked Jester. ‘Why do you still come and see me?’

‘Because I don’t give a toss what happens to you, obviously,’ said Shadowman. ‘So there’s no risk of breaking my poor heart.’

Jester laughed. ‘I believe you, dude. I believe you.’

‘It’s the truth.’

Jester got up and poured himself a fresh cup of tea from the big pot that was warming by the fire.

‘So what about these squatters then? Are they a threat, d’you think?’

‘They could be if they weren’t such a shambles,’ said Shadowman. ‘John has dreams of power. He’s like Attila the Hun, or something, wants to burn down civilization. Sees this place as the Roman Empire. He’d love to sack it. Take David’s scalp.’

‘Really?’

‘Totally. He’d like nothing better than to come in here, take everything you’ve got, march out with all the fit girls over his shoulder and burn the place to the ground. That’s what he likes to do, destroy things. He lives for chaos and mayhem. You know, I think he actually likes what’s happened to the world. He likes that it’s fallen apart. It’s one big playground for him now. He can do what he wants, take what he wants, smash up what he wants, and nobody’s going to stop him. He’s the lord of disorder.’