The Sacrifice (28 page)

‘You still here?’

‘She panicked,’ Shadowman went
on. ‘She took on more than she could handle and panicked.’

‘Jaz was a good soldier. She never
panicked.’

‘She did, Saif. I was
there.’

Saif turned angrily on Shadowman, grabbing
his jacket and shoving him up against the railings of the footbridge. Shadowman looked
down at the wide four-lane road several metres below.

‘She was my best soldier,’ said
Saif, ‘and she was my girl, seen? She never panicked.’

Saif let him go and returned to his friends.
A tall, skinny guy was lining up a shot at something on the far pavement. Shadowman went
to look. It was a mother, standing in the familiar sentinel pose, oblivious to the boys
up on the bridge. She was middle aged, bald, half naked and covered in growths.

The crossbow clicked and the bolt flew
silently off, narrowly missing the mother’s head.

‘Whoa! Yeah! Nearly.’

‘Why won’t you listen to
me?’ Shadowman asked quietly, standing at Saif’s shoulder.

‘Don’t know you, man.
Don’t trust you. You seem to
like them zombies.
Oh,
they’re so clever, oh, they’re so organized, they’re better than
you
. You still ain’t explained what you was doing tracking them. Maybe
you wanna be one. Is that you? A zombie wannabe? Maybe you
are
one already. One
of the clever ones. Don’t know nothing about you, man. Where you from?
Where’s your yard?’

‘In the centre of town,’ said
Shadowman. ‘There’s a few settlements there. I came up this way looking for
other kids. I got split up from my friends and instead of kids I found this bunch of
zombies who behaved differently.’

‘And you thought you’d follow
them? That don’t make no sense.’

Shadowman couldn’t really explain it.
He wasn’t sure himself. It had felt like the right thing to do.

That was all.

It was now Saif’s turn to shoot at the
mother. He leant forward and rested his crossbow on the railings, took very careful
aim.

‘Die, you sick bag of pus.’

He grunted as he pulled the trigger, then
shouted in triumph as the bolt hit the mother at the base of her throat, just above the
sternum. As she toppled over, the other boys cheered. They cheered even more as the
mother’s body writhed and jerked on the ground before erupting in a bubbling mess
of boils and her insides came gurgling out of her mouth. A minute later there was
nothing recognizably human left of her, just a putrefying pile of flesh and blood.

The boys slapped Saif on the back,
congratulating him.

‘Nobody craps on my party,’ Saif
said to Shadowman. ‘That’s what I’m gonna do to the zombies that
killed my girl. It’s payback time.’

‘What are you planning to do?’
Shadowman asked.

‘We gonna wipe them diseased freaks
off of the streets, dude.’

‘You reckon?’

‘I reckon.’

‘How many soldiers you got in
all?’

‘Enough. By the end of today there
ain’t gonna be a living zombie within five miles of here.’

‘Are you sure you’ve got enough
soldiers?’

‘Won’t take more than twenty of
us, twenty-five tops. We got weapons, we got rides, we got God on our side, so
it’s bye-bye, zombie, bye-bye.’

‘You’ll need more bodies than
that … ’

‘Don’t you tell me what to do,
boy,’ said Saif, pushing past Shadowman. ‘You’re just some sad
straggler with no home to go to. I don’t need no advice from a loser like you.
Now, we gonna go collect our arrows. When I come back, I expect to see you
gone.’

A procession of children was advancing out
of the doors at the front of St Paul’s and moving slowly down the steps. They were
all dressed in green and several of them were carrying branches. At their head was Matt,
wearing a full set of bishop’s robes, originally embroidered in red and gold but
now dyed green. Behind him came Archie Bishop, in similar gear. Then came the four
acolytes, one carrying the banner that showed the Lamb and the Goat, a crudely painted
image of two children, one shining and bright, the other dark and shadowy. Another
acolyte was carrying the book of Matt’s revelations and was reading lifelessly
from it as they went.

‘ … How long, Sovereign
Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our
blood … ?’

Next came a group of the best musicians,
including Charlotte, the little girl who The Kid had latched on to the night before,
playing sweetly on her violin. Others were hammering away on drums or blowing trumpets,
and one had a saxophone.

Behind the musicians walked Brendan and
Tish, both looking thoughtful and none too happy. Then came Sam and The Kid, with dog
collars round their necks. Not the sort of dog collars vicars wore, rather the type that
dogs
wore, with chains attached. Nathan and one of the oldest and
biggest guards were holding the chains.

Bringing up the rear were the rest of the
cathedral kids. The only ones who had not joined in the procession were a skeleton crew
of guards and a second group of musicians.

Sam could just hear the acolyte’s
voice over the music.

‘The fifth angel sounded his trumpet,
and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key
to the shaft of the Abyss. When he entered the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke
from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. And
out of the smoke came an army of the fallen, and they ate all in their path like
locusts. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but
only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.’

The procession turned south and began a
circuit of the cathedral. Sam saw the long walkway that sloped down to the Wobbly Bridge
and, in the distance, the bridge itself, cutting a straight line across the Thames. If
only he and The Kid could break free and run and run, across the river, away from these
crazies. He wondered if he was ever going to see Ella again. He had to cling on to the
hope that he would. It was the only thing that kept him going.

They came to the back of St Paul’s and
turned to their left. This had been the most ancient part of the City, but apart from
the cathedral, there wasn’t a lot left of old London. Sam had learnt at school how
the whole area had been bombed in the Blitz, how all the buildings had burned down,
except for St Paul’s, the dome of which had risen triumphantly above the flames.
The new buildings were ugly and looked even worse now that they’d been abandoned
for a year.

When they got round to the other side of the
cathedral, Matt led the procession over to an arch and through into a modern square
where a pedestrian walkway curved away to the north.

‘When they have finished their
testimony,’ the acolyte droned on, ‘the beast that comes up from the Abyss
will attack them, and overpower and kill them. Their bodies will lie in the streets of
the great city.’

Sam felt miserable and stupid and
self-conscious. He’d never liked being the centre of attention and, being paraded
like this, chained up, was embarrassing. He’d had a good look at the banner when
they were getting ready to leave the cathedral. You’d need a good imagination to
think that the childishly painted boys on it looked like him and The Kid in any way.
This whole thing was a joke. Except for that one thing. The name on the banner in big
letters – Angus Day.

The Kid’s name.

‘I’d never have guessed you were
called Angus,’ he said quietly, not sure if he was allowed to speak or not. Matt
had so many rules and they kept on changing.

‘What did you think my name
was?’ The Kid asked.

‘I don’t know, could be
anything, could be Frankenstein or Dracula or Brian. I can’t think of you with a
real name. Your nickname suits you fine. Though I guess Angus does sort of
fit.’

‘You think, yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Think on, midget brain. The Kid
don’t give out his moniker freely.’

‘What d’you mean?’ said
Sam. ‘That you’re really called Monica?’

‘No way, Horace.’

‘So is Angus your real name or
isn’t it?’

‘Course it isn’t.’

‘Well, how
come … ?’

‘I ain’t no dumb-ass,’
said The Kid. ‘I keep my earlugs flapping and my peepers peeping. I sponged up all
the info I could back at the Tower. When I hear something, it goes in my brain and
sticks. It’s all in there, but it’s a bit of a jumble. Well, I talked to the
Tower kids, didn’t I?’

‘What d’you mean? What
about?’

‘I got interested in those fairy tales
of the lamb and the goat. The Kid loves a good fairy tale, doesn’t he? So I boned
up on it, found out all I could. There was quite a few of the population knew Matt from
way back when. They knew him when he was daubing up his banner all fancy like. Big joke
it was. They all loved that story. Ho, ho, yes, indeed, ladies and gentlemen.’

‘What happened?’ Sam asked.
‘I don’t get it. What was the joke?’

‘Well, one of Matt’s
microlights … ’

‘You mean acolytes.’

‘Is what I said. Boy called Harry was
given the job of writing up some old Latin words on their big flag.
Agnus Dei
,
if I’m not mistaken. Which I’m not. Only he got his arse and his tits mixed
up, and made a right pig’s elbow out of it. Harry doesn’t spell so well – my
sympathies go out to him. Me and writing don’t always get on.’

‘You might get your words
muddled,’ said Sam, ‘but you make more sense than some people I’ve
met. So are you saying that’s why it says Angus Day on the banner? Harry got it
wrong?’

‘As I say. Big joke. The Kid likes
jokes, appreciated it,
stored it away in the hamster cheeks of his
noggin to chew on at a later date, savvy?’

‘So why did you tell Matt that was
your name then?’

‘Well, first of all to stop him
whacking me like a bad dog. But mainly cos I thought it might buy us some
ticker-ticker-timex, throw the cat-o’-nine-tails among the pigeon fanciers.
Bamboozle them right and proper. Only thing is it seems to have landed you in the
Shinola with me. Apologies, my learned but stunted friend.’

‘I’m no shorter than you,’
Sam protested.

‘Inside I’m ten miles
high,’ said The Kid.

‘Yeah, well, inside I’m twenty
miles high and have laser beams that can shoot out of my eyes.’

‘That’s nothing,’ said The
Kid. ‘I can make cheese out of wine.’

‘Numbskull.’

‘Deviant.’

‘Twassock.’

‘Whippersnapper.’

‘Fish lips.’

‘Slimy sculpin.’

‘Gibberfish.’

‘Gurnard, grunt, flabby whalefish,
banjo catfish … ’

‘Seriously though, Kid,’ said
Sam. ‘What’s going to happen to us, d’you think?’

‘Bad things,’ said The Kid.
‘Mad things.’

‘I still don’t seriously believe
they’ll do anything.’

‘Are you nuts?’ said The Kid.
‘They’ve been playing too much Twister. They are
round
the twist
and we are without a paddle. You were there, Spam, you saw him take his whip to
me.’

‘How’s your back? Does it
hurt?’

‘What d’you think?’ said The
Kid. ‘Red raw and sore as brambles it is. I tell you, I hope they
do
sacrifice me, and put me out of my misery and torment.’

‘Don’t say that.’ Sam was
on the verge of crying. This was all too much for him. Playing his silly games with The
Kid was the only thing that took his mind off what was happening.

‘Don’t despair, little
guppy,’ said The Kid. ‘We’ll find a way. We always do. We’re the
dynamic duo.’

‘I don’t feel very dynamic right
now.’

‘You don’t look it. You look
like an upright poodle with a bad case of the singing squitters.’

‘Yeah? Well, you look like a shaved
baboon who’s been got at by a blind face painter.’

‘That’s what I am, Sam, green
eggs and ham.’

They had come to a section of the Wall,
strung out across the road between two low modern buildings. The Wall was piled high
with junk and salvaged building materials. Through the gaps in it Sam could just make
out a horde of grown-ups on the other side.

Matt held up a hand and the procession
halted; another wave of his hand and the musicians stopped playing. A ghostly echo of
the music seemed to carry on all round them, however, and Sam realized it was the
grown-ups outside the wall – the Clickee Cult as The Kid had named them – tapping on
anything they could find. It was as if the City had been turned into a giant
ticking-clicking-clanking machine.

Matt waited while Archie Bishop selected a
key from the collection that hung from his waist. He went over to a door that was
chained and padlocked shut, fiddled with the lock until it snapped open and then
unthreaded the chain.
Meanwhile, many of the kids in the procession
were busy lighting candles.

Once the doors were open Matt led them all
inside. There were more candles in here, fixed to the walls. Kids lit them as they went
past. They went through two more locked doors and each time Archie had to unlock them
with a different key. The noise of the chains as they rattled loose was very loud in the
enclosed space. They seemed to be in some kind of industrial building. The walls were
rough and undecorated and the doors they passed through were made of metal.

Finally they came to a stairwell and Matt
took them down, their feet scuffing on the concrete steps. At the bottom they passed
through a final door into a vast underground room. Their candles now seemed feeble,
unable to penetrate the dark depths. But Sam could see enough. His mouth dropped
open.

He hadn’t been expecting anything like
this.

They were in a massive warehouse, filled
with tall shelving units piled high with cardboard boxes. And it was clear what was in
the boxes.

Food.

Sam read the labels on the nearest stack –
rice, pasta, tinned vegetables, soup, cereal, baked beans, fruit juice. The next
shelving unit was filled with an endless supply of drinking water in plastic bottles.
Then there were oils and sauces, spices, salt and sugar and jam and peanut butter,
chocolate bars and sweets, biscuits, tinned fish, tinned fruit, dried fruit, currants,
raisins … Sam’s head was spinning.