The Sacrifice (20 page)

‘This was your idea,’ said
Shadowman. ‘Maybe if you’d remembered you didn’t have the
keys … ’

‘My leg really hurts,’ the boy
interrupted. ‘It’s not good, Jaz. It really, really hurts.’

All the boy’s swagger was gone. He was
like a five-year-old with a cut knee being comforted by his mum. A big part of Shadowman
wanted to join him. To break down and weep and have someone look after him.

There was no one, though, was there?

He took off his cloak and removed his
backpack. Fished out a roll of bandage and some antiseptic.

‘Here,’ he said, passing them to
Jaz. She sniffed, wiped her nose and smiled at him for the first time.

‘Thanks.’

‘Yeah, thanks. I’m Johnny, by
the way,’ said the boy.

‘I’m Carl.’ Shadowman lied
automatically, his habit of secrecy kicking in. He didn’t know these kids well
enough to tell them his real name.

Whatever that was.

He’d been christened Dylan, but nobody
used that name any more; most called him Shadowman, but others knew him by different
names. Carl was the name of one of the kids at the squatter camp he’d been living
in before he’d set off on his doomed trip to north London looking for other groups
of surviving kids.

Jaz set about patching up her friend, all
three of them trying to ignore the strangers who were all around the car now, pressing
their faces to the windows, scratching at the glass with grubby, broken nails. One
mother had found the open window and was wiggling her fingers through it. Shadowman
could hear her panting.

‘Bugger off.’ He slashed at her
fingers with his knife and she quickly withdrew them. Moments later she was back,
dripping blood down the inside of the window. This time he ignored her.

What was the point?

He took his A to Z from his bag, tried to
work out where they were. Better to be doing something than just sitting here.

‘What’s this road?’ he
said.

‘I’m not sure exactly where we
are,’ said Jaz. ‘We were following the zombies for ages. They kept leaving
the road, wandering in the estates, cutting through gardens, getting
in the houses. We couldn’t always keep up with them in the Lexus. Had to keep
getting out and going on foot. One point we lost them for, like, two hours. We think
they were down on the train tracks. It was like they were looking for
something.’

Shadowman folded up his cloak and put it in
the top of his backpack. He didn’t want it to slow him down if they had to run
again.

‘Where you from, Carl?’ asked
Johnny.

‘West originally. Notting Hill way.
This last year I’ve mostly been living in the centre of town.’

‘Were you really at Buckingham
Palace?’

‘Some of the time, yeah.’

‘Cool.’

‘Why don’t you two get a
room?’ said Jaz, and Johnny told her to shut up.

‘So you got a plan yet then,
Carl?’ Jaz asked with an edge of sarcasm. ‘You gonna magic us out of
here?’

‘Listen to me, Jaz,’ said
Shadowman. ‘You chose to ignore me when I warned you about these creeps. You
treated me like an idiot. Wouldn’t listen, would you? Thought you knew better. But
if you’d listened to me we wouldn’t be stuck here like this right now.
You’d have the car keys and you’d have your mate, what’s-his-name
–’

‘Ricky.’

‘Yeah, Ricky. So don’t put the
blame on me. I could’ve run. I could’ve left you there. You don’t mean
anything to me. But we’re all in this now. So let’s try and work
together.’

‘Yeah, OK,’ said Jaz, though she
didn’t sound entirely convinced.

‘Listen to him, Jaz,’ said
Johnny. ‘He knows what he’s talking about, I reckon.’

‘Maybe.’

‘We’ve got a choice,’ said
Shadowman. ‘We can leg it. All three of us get out of this car before the rest of
the pack arrives and we try to find a safer place to hole up until Johnny feels strong
enough to walk again.’

‘No way,’ said Johnny. ‘I
ain’t leaving this car. We wouldn’t get two metres.’

‘Yeah,’ said Shadowman.
‘You’re probably right. So there’s another choice. You and me, Jaz, we
get out of the car and leave Johnny here. We go back to your camp and get
help.’

‘You are
not
leaving
me,’ Johnny wailed. ‘Not in this car by myself. That is
not
happening.’

‘Then just one of us goes,’ said
Shadowman.

‘That’s too long,’ said
Jaz, ‘even if we could get past that lot.’ She waved a hand at the dark,
ugly faces that were squashed against every window, licking the glass and blocking out
the light. ‘It’s a good half-hour walk to our camp, maybe more, then we got
to get back here. In the meantime this car’s going to be crawling with zombies.
They’d get to whoever was left here with Johnny before we made it back.’

‘Probably right,’ said
Shadowman.

‘Good plan,’ said Jaz.
‘Really good plan.’

‘There’s a last option,’
said Shadowman.

‘Which is?’

‘One of us goes out there now, before
the rest of the horde gets here.’

‘And does what?’

‘Tries to lead most of them away, then
doubles back and gets the car key.’

‘Would that work?’

‘If we were fast enough. Most of the
grown-ups will be strung out between here and where we left Ricky. If we ran, got back
here before they arrived … This lot are the fastest ones, the strongest. The
others are slower. I know them.’

‘That sounds well risky,’ said
Jaz.

‘It’s a good plan,’ said
Johnny. ‘If we got the key, we could drive away from here.’

‘It’s all right for you to say
that,’ Jaz sneered. ‘As you’re obviously not the one who’s going
back out there.’ She leant forward, closer to Shadowman. ‘What if
there’s still loads of them back there with Ricky? And what if there’s loads
here when you get back?’

‘What d’you mean when I get
back?’ said Shadowman. ‘Who said I was going? He’s your
friend.’

‘Well, I just thought.’

‘If I get out of this car I could just
leg it,’ said Shadowman. ‘You weren’t exactly nice to me when we met.
I don’t owe you anything. All you’ve done is screw things up for
me.’

‘You’ve got to do it,’
said Jaz.

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m scared,
that’s why. All right? I couldn’t do it. Not go out there alone. No
way.’

‘Jaz,’ said Johnny, his voice
breaking. ‘Jaz … ’

Shadowman stared at two fathers who were
thumping on the windscreen. One had a missing nose and the other had a mouth full of
growths that bulged out as if he was trying to see how many golf balls he could cram in
his mouth for a bet. Shadowman couldn’t believe it had come to this. Trying to
save these bloody kids. He’d had it all sewn up. He was on top of things. Studying
The Fear.
Following them at a safe distance. And these stupid kids had
thrown it all away.

Was he really prepared to die for them?

That’s what it came down to. Getting
out of this car was almost certain suicide. He knew what The Fear were capable of.

He closed his eyes. Tried to clear his mind.
Counted slowly from one to ten. Felt his heart pounding in his chest.

Then jabbed his finger at the door lock
button.

Shadowman kicked open the car door,
spilling two strangers on to the ground. He came out fast and brought the spear up while
he was on the move, using the shaft to bat away more strangers. A bigger pack was
advancing and more were coming round the corner at the end of the street.

Don’t think about it
.

Just run
.

He smashed his way out of the knot of
strangers around the car and sprinted away in the opposite direction to the one
they’d come.

Once he was at a safe distance he started
jumping up and down and shouting at the strangers.

‘Come and get it, you bastards! Come
on. Dinner! Over here.’

He was getting their attention. A few broke
away and ambled towards him. Trying to get in the car was like trying to open a can
without a can-opener. Shadowman was all unpacked and ready to be served. He smiled as
the new arrivals coming down the road switched direction and headed for him instead of
the Lexus.

‘That’s right. Over here. Come
and get it. Fresh meat. Still on the bone. Come on … ’

The father with the mouth full of growths was
the keenest and the fastest. He loped along, eyes fixed on Shadowman. Shadowman waited
until he was nearly upon him then hurled the spear at him. It took him cleanly in the
centre of the chest and flung him backwards. More and more of them were coming now and
Shadowman started to retreat, drawing them away from the car. Once he was sure enough of
them would follow he looked at his A to Z and set off at a slow jog, plotting a route as
he went. He stopped every few metres to check he still had company and study the map. He
had to judge it right: get too far ahead of them and they’d give up and go back to
the car; let them get too close and he risked being caught. He knew that at some point,
though, he would have to speed up and get well away from them or he wouldn’t have
enough time to look for the car key.

He was the Pied Piper today and wished he
could have led the pack over a cliff or something.

He figured out a route that would lead him
in a wide circle, ending at the flat he’d checked out earlier. He’d be able
to hide there and get a good view of where Ricky had been attacked.

Why the bloody hell was he helping these
dorks? Why should he risk sacrificing himself for them? Why not just turn his back on
them? Run away and keep on running. Leave Jaz and Johnny to look after themselves. He
had no doubt that’s what they’d have done in his situation.

He remembered how his best friend, Jester,
had abandoned him by the railway tracks at King’s Cross after they’d been
attacked and Shadowman had been concussed, unable to walk. Jester had simply left him
there to die. It was the sensible thing to do. It was the way to stay alive.

Hadn’t Shadowman done exactly the same
thing? Persuaded Jaz to abandon Ricky?

He knew now how Jester had felt. Why
he’d done it.

But he also remembered how he himself had
felt.

It was the worst feeling ever.

Was it really the same? He and Jester had
been best mates. He didn’t know Ricky. Ricky had been too badly wounded to
live … 

The worst feeling ever
. No getting
round it.

That’s why he was out here, leading a
pack of strangers away from the car. He was showing he wasn’t like Jester. Making
it up to all the kids he’d watched being hunted and killed by The Fear. Proving he
was one of the good guys.

After about five minutes he put on a burst
of speed and dashed off, leaving his pursuers for dust. He hared round the streets, his
feet pounding a steady rhythm on the tarmac, and was soon near the tyre centre,
approaching the flats from the other end of the street. He ran up to the doors, barged
them open and bounded up the stairs to the top floor.

Once inside the flat he secured the door,
put his back to it and slid down to the floor. He was exhausted, his throat raw, his
legs burning. His stomach suddenly lurched and he bent forward and puked on the carpet
between his boots. He knew it was a basic defence mechanism. The stomach needs a lot of
energy for digestion, ties up a lot of your blood flow. When the body urgently needs
more blood to work the leg muscles, or extra energy to help you run or fight, it
automatically empties your guts. Even if you haven’t eaten anything you’ll
be hit by the heaves.

He took a glug of water from his canteen. He
only now allowed himself to acknowledge that he had been terrified.
From the moment he’d first seen the new grown-ups up until now he’d been
in the grip of raw fear, but he’d used some survival instinct to block it out.

Jaz had admitted she was scared. Which must
have taken something. He wondered if she’d seen that he was just as scared.

Probably not. He was good at hiding
things.

He spat and got up. This was his last chance
to run and leave Jaz and Johnny to look after themselves. After all, they’d ruined
everything for him.

He laughed. Remembering how he’d felt
protective about ‘his’ strangers when Jaz and the others had attacked
them.

What had it all been about really? Following
The Fear?

He walked into the living room, nodded to
the bodies on the sofa and went over to the windows. The tyre centre appeared empty. The
grown-ups must all have emerged. He opened the window and leant out. Could just see
where they’d had the fight in the street. There was an oily, dark, wet patch, bits
of body and clothing strewn about, several dead strangers, some already half eaten. Nine
living strangers were fighting over the remaining scraps of good meat. These were the
weakest and feeblest of The Fear. Always the last to eat. Hanging on for a few more days
before they too were killed. Really they were doing little more than fattening
themselves up for when St George decided it was their turn to be dinner. He was clever,
St George, Shadowman had to admit. He had a sort of admiration for him. St George was
toughening up his army, gradually culling the weakest and slowest, and using them to
feed the rest. And now it looked like others were searching for him, joining up.
That’s why the Willesden pack had been coming here.

Somehow word had got out. St George’s
army was on the march.

Shadowman took out his binoculars and
focused on the group of feeding strangers. He was tempted to try to shoot them from
there, but figured it would be a waste of bolts. He could see Ricky’s bow lying on
the pavement. Too complicated even for these clever strangers to use.

And then he spotted something weird. There
was a lone father standing about ten metres from the group. Still as a statue, his arms
held out in front of him as if he was holding an invisible box. He had his eyes open,
unblinking, staring into the distance. Waiting for something.