Текст книги "The Enemy"

Автор книги: Charlie Higson

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

24

They crossed the road at the top of Parkway and entered Regent’s Park by Gloucester Gate.

The park had changed. The flowerbeds were overgrown. The short, well-kept grass was now waist high and tangled with weeds and wildflowers. Here and there young saplings pushed up through the undergrowth. Only a few centimetres tall now, but in time this would become a forest.

There was a playground near the gate. A relic from a forgotten age. And the little kids stared at it in wonder as they passed. Maxie gave Godzilla back to Joel and went to relieve Josh and join her team on the right flank.

Josh walked up front where Jester and the others were discussing the best route to take.

‘Best stick to the path, I reckon,’ said Blue. ‘It’ll be clearer and we’ll have a better view. Who knows what might be hiding in the long grass.’

‘Like those raptors in Jurassic Park,’ Josh chipped in.

‘There’s a lot of things out to get us in London these days,’ said Blue, laughing. ‘But dinosaurs ain’t one of them.’

‘You never know,’ said Josh. ‘The world’s turned upside down. I wouldn’t be surprised. Nothing surprises me any more.’

‘Don’t be scared of no dinosaurs,’ said Blue.

‘Who said anything about being scared?’ said Josh. ‘You know what they call me? Josh, the Boy without Fear. I’m gonna kill me a dinosaur.’

‘Don’t nothing scare you, man?’ said Blue, trying not to laugh.

‘Nah. Grown-ups is stupid, and slow. And they got no weapons. Dogs is stupid too. Nothing scares me. Something tries to scare me I just kill it, man. Dead.’

‘Well, I’m glad you’re on our side,’ said Blue. ‘Now, let’s get going.’

They had to stretch out along the path as it wasn’t as wide as the roads they’d been travelling on. The flanking parties stayed close on either side, pushing through the grass.

The emos, Ben and Bernie, were helping the smaller kids along, listening to their chatter.

‘That’s the zoo over there,’ said Monkey-Boy, pointing past a line of trees towards where some of the zoo’s structures were just visible.

‘I used to like the zoo,’ said Ella. ‘I had a birthday party there once. My favourites were the lions and tigers.’

‘What happened to all the animals, do you think?’ asked Joel, clutching Godzilla tightly. ‘When all the keepers died?’

‘Did the animals all starve to death?’ said Ella. She sounded tearful.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Bernie comfortingly. ‘I expect the keepers moved them somewhere safe.’

‘They wouldn’t have had time,’ said Curly Sam, one of those annoying small kids who thought they knew everything.

‘I’m sure the keepers had time to make sure they were all right,’ said Bernie.

‘Did they let them out then, do you think?’ said Ella.

‘Yeah, ’spect so,’ said Ben, smiling at Bernie. ‘They would have set them free.’

‘Then they might be in the park,’ said Ella, suddenly fearful, and Ben immediately regretted saying anything.

‘I thought you liked the lions and tigers,’ said Bernie quickly.

‘I did when they were in cages,’ said Ella, ‘but not running free.’

‘Lions are dangerous,’ said Monkey-Boy.

‘Will we be eaten?’ said Joel. ‘Like the Christians?’

‘What Christians?’

‘In the Colosseum. In Rome. They used to feed Christians to the lions.’

‘If any lions did get out,’ said Bernie, ‘then they’d be miles away from here by now. They’d be long gone. They’ll have gone to the countryside to find cows and deers and things like that.’

‘I don’t want to go to the countryside,’ said Ella. ‘I don’t want to be eaten like a Christian.’

‘You’re not going to be eaten by a lion,’ said Bernie.

‘Yes,’ said Curly Sam. ‘The only thing that’s going to eat you is a grown-up.’

‘That’s not a very helpful thing to say,’ said Bernie.

‘It’s true, though,’ Curly Sam insisted. ‘They eat kids.’

‘What was that?’ said Ella, her voice very high and thin.

‘What was what?’

‘I heard something moving in the grass.’

‘It’ll be the bigger kids,’ said Bernie, trying to sound calm, even though she, too, thought she had seen something moving. ‘They’re protecting our sides.’

‘No. It wasn’t a big kid.’

‘Maybe a rabbit then, or a cat.’

‘Like a lion?’

‘Look,’ said Ben, trying not to lose his patience. ‘There’s nothing there. Nothing’s going to eat you. We won the battle, didn’t we? We’re strong. Nothing can get to us.’

‘We’re safe, aren’t we?’ said Joel.

‘Yeah,’ said Ben. ‘We’ve got Godzilla to look after us.’

Joel hugged the puppy tighter. ‘Godzilla can’t fight,’ he said. ‘He’s too young.’

‘I was only joking,’ said Ben. ‘I just can’t win with you lot, can I?’

They had come on to The Broadwalk, a much wider path that ran down the centre of the park beneath rows of tall trees. There was enough room here for them to spread out a little. Bernie called Lewis over. He shambled up, scratching his untidy Afro.

‘Did you see anything?’ she asked.

‘What you mean?’ said Lewis.

‘In the grass?’

‘Nope.’

‘Did you hear anything?’

‘There’s nothing in the grass, we’d have seen any grown-ups.’

‘It’s too dark to see anything properly.’

‘We’ve got torches.’

‘We heard something,’ said Ella. ‘Maybe a lion.’

Josh came back from the front and looked at the frightened bunch of kids.

‘Can’t you keep them quiet?’ he said. ‘They’re getting spooked.’

‘They can’t help it,’ said Bernie. ‘They’re small. They’ve got overactive imaginations.’

‘I saw something again!’ said Ella.

‘No, you didn’t,’ Bernie snapped.

There came a rustle in the leaf canopy above their heads and everyone stopped walking and fell silent.

A twig snapped.

Something was moving through the trees.

‘What is it?’

‘Grown-ups, maybe.’

‘They can’t climb trees,’ said Lewis.

‘How do you know?’ said Josh. ‘Our problem is – we’ve been stuck inside those stupid supermarkets too long and we’ve thought we knew what was going on in the world. I used to sit on that roof with Callum and think I could see everything there was to see. Well I couldn’t see nothing. Except that tiny little bit of Holloway. For all we know there are grown-ups that’ve sprouted wings and learnt to fly.’

‘They can’t fly, can they?’ asked a fearful Ella.

‘Stop it, Josh,’ said Bernie. ‘You come back here and tell us not to spook the kids and now you’re terrifying them. It’s bad enough as it is without having to worry about flying grown-ups.’

‘They can’t fly, can they?’ Ella repeated.

‘Of course they can’t fly,’ Bernie almost shouted. ‘Most of them can hardly walk.’

‘There’s definitely something in the trees, though,’ said Lewis, looking up.

‘Probably squirrels.’

‘Too big for a squirrel,’ said Maxie, who had also heard something and had come over to consult with Lewis.

‘Well, I ain’t climbing up there to find out,’ said Lewis.

‘Look out, we’re getting split up,’ said Ben, pointing to the front of the column where the fighters were walking on.

Maxie swore and ran after them, shouting to Blue to stop.

‘What is it?’

‘Wait for the others to catch up.’

‘Why have they stopped?’

‘The little kids are getting scared. There’s something in the trees.’

‘Yeah, we heard it. We reckon it’s best to push on.’

‘Can you see anything up there?’

‘Too many leaves. Whatever it is, it’s good at hiding.’

‘Shouldn’t we at least warn everyone to be careful?’

‘We start shouting orders, the kids’ll get even more scared,’ said Blue. ‘You go round and tell them. And get the others to hurry up.’

Achilleus came over.

‘Why ain’t we moving?’ he said.

‘We need to look up, Akkie,’ said Maxie quietly. ‘There’s something in the trees.’

‘I hate to say it, but there’s something in the grass too,’ said Achilleus, peering into the darkness.

‘What?’

‘Something’s crawling about in there. Not big enough to be grown-ups.’

‘What is it then? Could it be other kids?’

‘Dunno,’ said Achilleus and, before Maxie could stop him, he put a hand to his mouth and shouted. ‘Hey! Who’s there? Show yourself.’

Nothing. The grass was absolutely still.

‘We need to press on,’ said Blue and he started walking again.

‘Wait,’ said Maxie, but it was no use.

Her heart was thumping as she made her way back to the huddled mass of smaller kids.

‘You have to hurry up,’ she said; glad, in a way, to be doing something to take her mind off Arran.

‘I don’t like it under the trees,’ said Ella.

‘Don’t go in the grass,’ said Maxie. ‘Don’t you dare go in the grass.’

‘Why not?’

‘Just don’t.’

‘Why? Is there something there? Is there something in the grass?’

‘No. We just need to stick together, is all.’ Maxie sensed a mounting panic among the smaller kids.

Whitney had sensed it, too, and was going round telling them not to be scared. Maxie looked to the front. Blue and Jester and the others were getting further away. She felt like she was slowly losing control.

‘Get going,’ she said, hustling kids forwards.

Half the small kids walked on, the rest milled around fearfully. Some were even heading back the way they had come.

‘Hold still!’ Maxie shouted but at that moment something dropped from the trees and landed with the effect of a bomb going off among the children. In an instant they were running, screaming, in all directions.

Before Maxie could do anything, something else dropped from the trees. Then another. Grey blurs that shrieked as they came down. She gripped Arran’s club.

It seemed that they were going to have to fight every step of the way into town.

25

It was chaos. The kids were running in all directions while more and more of the things – whatever they were – dropped down on to them from above. It was impossible in the dark to make out exactly what they looked like. They were just grey blurs as they plummeted, yelping and shrieking, through the air. They had to be animals of some sort. Too small to be grown-ups. Maxie shoved her way through the panicked crowd to where she saw one land. A girl was face down on the ground with one of the things on her back. It was hairless, with mottled pinkish-grey skin studded with sores and boils. It had long arms and stumpy misshapen legs. Maxie ran to it and whacked it in the back with her club. It barely moved. It was a powerful, solid lump.

It let out a hideous high-pitched scream and lurched towards Maxie.

Maxie kicked out at it and the thing grabbed her leg. She could feel the incredible strength in its arms. Before it could bite her she quickly butted the end of the club into the top of its skull. It croaked and fell away with a pitiful whine. She struck it once more in the head and it collapsed into a lifeless heap. At least the things could be killed. She helped the little girl up from the floor. Her back and neck were scratched and bleeding and she was sobbing uncontrollably, her tiny body shuddering. Whitney scooped her up and cradled her in her arms.

‘I’ll look after the kids,’ she said to Maxie. ‘You rally the fighters.’

Maxie yelled at the top of her voice.

‘They’re attacking the little ones! Everyone help!’

She saw two of the beasts dragging Curly Sam into the long grass by the hair and ran after them. She got there just as Lewis and his team arrived. The animals were swiftly dealt with and Curly Sam was returned to his friends.

‘What are they?’ Lewis ran his torch beam over the dead animals. They had huge, black eyes, great ragged ears and long yellow fangs strung with saliva and spotted with blood. Like the grown-ups, their skin was covered with oozing pustules and ugly lumps.

‘Gross,’ said Lewis, curling his lip with disgust. ‘They’re some sort of mutated children.’

Maxie didn’t know what to think. Anything was possible. Before they had the chance for a proper look, though, they were called back into the fight. The beasts were everywhere, scurrying in and out of the legs of the kids, bowling them over, snatching the smallest ones. The fighters tried to get at them, but it was difficult in the dark with all the kids in the way.

Maxie switched on her torch and saw a group of little kids break off the path on the other side further down.

‘Stop them!’ she shouted, but it was too late. She saw them go into the grass, which came up almost to their shoulders, and one by one they went down.

Thank God Blue and the others had realized what was going on. They charged back from the front, weapons at the ready, and scattered a knot of marauding beasts. The noise was appalling. The animals screeched and squealed and bellowed, which terrified the kids even more.

Maxie saw a fighter run past with one on his back, its hands over his face, clawing at his eyes. She smashed it in the spine with her club and the two of them fell over. The animal was quickly up, though. It ran at her on its knuckles, teeth bared into a ferocious grin. She butted it in the face, but only succeeded in knocking it back for a moment and making it furious. It was soon up again and coming at her. She didn’t have time to swing her club and could only try to fend it off. Its skull seemed to be made of iron. Then it managed to get hold of the club and wrenched it out of her hands with tremendous force. Now she was unarmed. She didn’t want to run because she was terrified of it getting on to her back. It flung the club aside in a rage and lifted both hands above its head. She backed away and saw it preparing to charge. Then there was a flurry of activity as someone stepped in and stabbed it with a spear.

It was Josh.

‘They don’t scare me,’ he said as it ran off, dripping blood.

Maxie spotted Joel. He was sitting on the ground hugging Godzilla. She was glad that he was all right. As she watched, though, a fighter blundered into him and kicked him over. Godzilla was jogged from his arms and he shot off into the grass, whimpering.

‘Leave him!’ Maxie shouted, but Joel ignored her and was soon lost from sight in the confusion.

Blue and Freak arrived.

‘Get everyone together,’ Blue yelled. ‘We need to make a run for it – get out from the trees and on to the road.’

‘Yeah, but some of the kids have gone off into the long grass,’ said Maxie, looking for Joel.

‘Then go get ’em back,’ Blue ordered.

‘OK.’ Maxie turned to Josh. ‘You take the other side. Make sure you get any stragglers.’

‘Sure.’ Josh grinned. ‘You might need this,’ he said, handing Maxie Arran’s club.

‘Thanks.’

Josh ran off.

‘I’ll take this side,’ said Maxie.

‘I’m with you,’ said Freak.

They ran into the long grass and found Lewis and his team already bringing back a group of runaways.

‘Is that all of them?’ Maxie asked.

‘Think so.’

‘What about Joel, the little kid with the puppy? Have you seen him?’

Lewis shook his head. ‘Nah.’

Then Maxie heard a shout. Thin and high and far off.

‘Come on!’

Maxie set off with Freak in the direction of the sound, swinging the club in front of her to clear a path. They hadn’t gone far when two of the beasts suddenly reared up, clutching rocks.

‘I’ll deal with them,’ said Freak. ‘You get the kids.’

Maxie ran on. Hoping she was heading in the right direction.

‘Joel!’ she called out. ‘Where are you?’

Again – a small piping cry.

Maxie sped up.

There was a big black sky above and a feeling of space such as she hadn’t experienced in months. This had once been a cricket pitch and it seemed to go on forever. If it hadn’t been for the fear wrenching at her stomach she might have enjoyed this exhilarating feeling.

At last she spotted something in the darkness. Two small figures running full pelt across open ground. She roared at them to stop. They were too scared, however, and carried on running. Maxie put on a burst of speed and finally caught up with them and grabbed hold of one. It was Ella.

‘Stop,’ she said. ‘It’s me, Maxie. You have to come back.’

The other kid, Monkey-Boy, now stopped and Maxie held on to the two of them as they stood there sobbing and panting and babbling incoherently about monsters. But Maxie wasn’t listening. She had seen something behind the little kids that they hadn’t. It was approaching stealthily through the grass, bigger than the other animals. It came closer and reared up on its stubby legs, its arms out to either side like a wrestler. It had only one eye and a scarred, battered face. A crop of painful-looking boils nested in the crook of its neck. It stared at Maxie with its one, big, black, glinting eye.

Maxie straightened up, the club raised ready to strike, never taking her eyes off the brute.

It tossed its head from side to side and quickly battered its chest with its fists, and at last Maxie understood what it was. A male chimpanzee. Hairless and diseased, driven mad like the grown-ups. He pursed his huge lips and began to whoop. His call was taken up by the other apes. Maxie was sure he would strike, but a sad look settled over his face. He looked deflated, tired. He sighed, gave a last feeble whoop, then turned and walked off into the grass.

‘It’s just a monkey,’ said Maxie.

She picked up Ella and they set off back to the others. On the way, they passed several more chimpanzees, hurrying away through the grass.

Freak was standing where she’d left him. He picked up Monkey-Boy and walked with Maxie.

A little further along they heard something moving in the grass and they froze.

Then Maxie smiled and knelt down.

‘It’s only Godzilla,’ she said.

But Godzilla was whimpering and shivering and nudging something with his nose. Maxie frowned and looked closer.

‘Take the kids back,’ she said to Freak and something in her voice told him not to question her.

‘Come along,’ he said and carried on.

Joel was lying in the grass, bleeding from a wound in his head where he had been hit with a rock. His eyes were open and he had stopped breathing.

Maxie picked Godzilla up. He struggled and protested, whining quietly. He wanted to stay with Joel.

‘I’m sorry, darling,’ Maxie said and closed Joel’s eyes.

She sniffed. Her throat was tight but no tears came.

26

Small Sam woke with a start. At first he had no idea where he was. Suspended in a world of total, sightless night, he couldn’t feel his body at all. For one crazy moment he thought he might be dead. He felt a small sense of relief. Nothing to worry about any more. And then he was filled with the burning unfairness of it all. He was only a little kid, he didn’t deserve to die, what had he ever done wrong? OK, so there was the time he’d broken his mum’s favourite mug and hidden it in the back of the cupboard without saying anything. And that other time when Ella had been to a party and got a fantastic face-painting of a jaguar. It had been beautiful. She’d come in with it and he’d been so jealous. He hadn’t said anything, but when he was alone with her he’d thrown a cup of water in her face and ruined it.

All right. If he thought about it, there were lots of things he’d done wrong. But they were only little things. He’d been sorry enough about them at the time and still felt guilty when he pictured Ella with the paint running down her face mixed with tears.

Surely it didn’t mean that he deserved to die, did it?

Then he felt awful pins and needles in his legs and it came back to him. He wasn’t dead. He was stuck up the shaft in the underground tunnel. The last thing he remembered doing was tying himself to the iron rungs of the ladder with his belt. He was still jammed there, half dangling, half wedged, half dead.

He held his breath and listened.

Nothing. The grown-ups had gone at last.

What time was it? He had no idea. He had no watch. He had no way of knowing if it was even day or night. He moved his stiff and painful shoulders, trying to get the blood circulating again, and then squeezed his legs with his tingling fingers. They were still numb. He couldn’t move until he had some feeling back in them. He waited as the fizzing spread through his nerve endings. One moment it was a faint tickle, quite nice, then it was agony and he was kicking the walls and whimpering. After what felt like ages he had enough feeling to risk undoing the belt, but, as soon as he tried to climb down, his legs gave way and he tumbled to the bottom of the shaft, landing in a painful heap in a puddle of water.

All his cuts and scrapes from the day before had woken up. His body was a mess of stings and aches and painful throbbing.

It was time to stop feeling sorry for himself, though. He needed to get up, get out of here, and get back into the daylight. He switched on his torch and carefully emerged from the hole. He leant over and flashed the torch beam up and down beneath the train. There was nothing moving in either direction. As he listened, though, he could hear distant sounds back the way he had come. Probably grownups at Camden station. That meant he would have to go the other way.

No matter. He could get out at the next station.

He crawled along under the train, powering the dynamo in his torch as he went. Stopping every now and then in the dark to listen. There were odd underground sounds. Small animals moving about. The drip of water. Deep creaks and groans. But no human sounds.

He at last reached the end of the train and could stand up and move more quickly. He trotted along. Sometimes the water became quite deep, coming up past his knees. It was black and smelt bad, but he tried not to think about it. At least nothing could be living in it.

On and on he pushed, down the curving tunnel until he saw a faint light up ahead. He hurried on with fresh energy, but as he got nearer he slowed down. What did the light mean? It couldn’t be daylight, after all, because he was still underground. It couldn’t be an electric light, because there was no electricity. It could only be one thing. Fire. He turned off his torch and studied the glow. It was flickering all right.

As far as he knew grown-ups didn’t light fires. Maybe it was a camp of kids then? Maybe kids lived down here? Or maybe it was just an accidental fire?

He walked slowly towards it. He could smell smoke in the air, like a barbecue. He remembered how whenever the sun had come out in the summer you could smell barbecues for miles around.

That had been the old days.

As he walked he gradually saw more of the way ahead. He made out wires and junction boxes on the walls, a stop sign for train drivers and a sort of traffic light thing, then the edge of the tunnel mouth, and finally bits of the station platform.

He realized that the fire was pretty small. It had seemed bigger at first because it was the only light around. There were dancing lights and shifting shadows but he could tell that they weren’t being caused by a big blaze.

He reached the end of the tunnel and peered out. He could now see the full length of the platform. He saw some signs. He was at Euston. He was fairly sure he was going in the right direction.

And there was the fire. Just by the entrance where the passengers came on to the platform. A pile of rubbish was smouldering, and a man’s legs were sticking out of it. Sitting on the platform nearby were five or six grown-ups. They were thin and dirty and feeble looking, little more than stick-people. They stared at the fire and the man’s burning legs but seemed too tired to move.

Sam swore to himself. If there were grown-ups on the platform they had probably infested the whole of Euston. He would have to somehow get past them and carry on to the next station.

He figured that if he stayed down on the tracks and kept close to the wall nearest the platform, the grown-ups wouldn’t be able to see him. He was short of breath and tried to fill his lungs with clean air. There wasn’t a lot of oxygen down here. Smoke was drifting from the fire through the passenger entrance but it was also hanging in the air above the platform. No wonder the grown-ups looked half dead. If they stayed there long enough the fumes would kill them.

Good riddance.

Sam ducked down and crawled out of the tunnel, hugging the wall, gasping for breath, praying that one of the stick-people wouldn’t get up and peer over the edge. As he passed below the fire he could hear it crackling and popping. A spark jumped through the air and a burning cinder dropped on to the far side of the tracks. Sam ignored it and pressed on.

His stomach rumbled and he froze. Had they heard it? It had sounded like a bear growling. He was so hungry. When had he last eaten? How long ago had it been? No idea. He had a bottle of water in his backpack, but he’d finished off the stale biscuits and tinned fruit he’d brought from Waitrose while he was hiding in the shaft.

Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about food. If he wasn’t careful he’d wind up as somebody else’s breakfast.

On he went. It must have taken him fifteen minutes of patient crawling to get to the end of the platform but he made it safely and scurried into the comforting darkness of the next tunnel. He glanced back. The grown-ups were sitting exactly where they had been before. Not one of them had moved. Maybe they were already dead? He didn’t want to find out.

He turned and pressed on towards the next station.

As he walked the water lying on the tracks grew deeper and deeper. At one point it was up to his waist. It wasn’t warm and it wasn’t cold, but it was still unpleasant. Black as oil with scum floating on the surface. He held his hands and arms up above it, keeping his precious torch well clear. Without light he would be lost and might end up wandering around down here forever.

No. Not forever. Only until he starved to death. His stomach gurgled even more loudly. There were sharp pains in his guts. He had to keep moving, and somehow he had to find something to eat.

The journey to the next station was a repeat of his journey from Camden to Euston, except that at one point he came to a junction with two tunnels leading off it. He chose one at random and carried on, hoping to blind luck.

After a little way, however, he found the tunnel was blocked by a big pile of what he at first thought was sticks. As he passed his torch beam over it, however, he realized that it was bones. Human bones, some still wrapped in clothing. Not bleached and white like skeletons in films, but a dirty yellowish grey. There were hands and legs and arms and ribs and skulls, all jumbled up on top of each other, stretching away down the tunnel. Maybe someone had piled dead bodies down here out of the way, or maybe the grown-ups had crawled down here to die. Whatever the reason, he could go no further in this direction, so he backtracked and went down the other tunnel.

He’d sometimes wondered where all the dead grown-ups had gone. At first the streets of London had stank. A horrible rotting smell that made you cover your mouth and nose with your shirt, but slowly it had faded away.

He shuddered. What other secrets were buried down here in the tunnels?

He soldiered on, going as fast as he could. Time ticked past and he got tireder and tireder and hungrier and hungrier. He took sips of water, which helped. Every time he put his bottle back, though, the level was lower. Soon it would all be gone.

He almost didn’t realize when he got to the next station. He was stumbling along in a daze and as he shone his torch to the side, there was a platform. Pitch-dark like the tunnel he had just emerged from.

Good. If it was dark it meant that there was nobody around. He pulled himself up off the tracks and sat on one of the metal benches along the wall. He would wait here until he got his strength back.

Where was he?

He flashed his torch over a sign.

King’s Cross.

Was that good? Or had he taken the wrong branch after Euston? He wasn’t sure. If he could only get up the stairs and back into sunlight he could find his way. He was pretty sure that King’s Cross was a normal overground station as well. That meant there would be maps.

Yes.

He remembered now. Didn’t the Eurostar to Paris go from here?

Maybe he should go there. Get right out of London. Maybe everything was all right in France. He could go to Disneyland.

He laughed.

Imagine having Disneyland all to yourself.

No. He had to find his sister, and his friends. He didn’t want to be alone. He wanted to be with them. Well, soon he would be. He’d made it this far, hadn’t he?

Cheered by thoughts of sunlight and escape, he stood up and walked along to the foot tunnel. His torch beam dimmed with each step, until it died altogether.

He stopped and pumped the handle, feeling the dynamo spin in his hand.

He pumped and pumped and pumped until he was sure he had a good charge then flicked on the beam.

It shone into the white faces of a group of grown-ups. They were packed into the foot tunnel, filling its width, standing there, waiting, their broken teeth showing yellow against their grey, papery skin.

Sam was nearly sick with shock. The blood drained out of his head and he swayed on his feet, struggling not to pass out. And then a mother made a move, darting at him, and he turned and bolted. Sprinted along the platform, his torch beam dancing madly ahead of him. Leapt down on to the tracks. Fell and hurt his leg. He was up in an instant and he limped on. Behind him he could hear the grown-ups, jumping and slithering on to the tracks.

He charged into the train tunnel and something took hold of him from the side. He yelled and struggled, but a strong arm in a heavy overcoat was holding him still. A hand clamped over his mouth.

‘Don’t move,’ said a soft voice.

A kid then? Grown-ups couldn’t speak.

But the body connected to the arm felt huge and strong. Too big, surely, to be a kid.

Sam was turned round so that he was facing back the way he had come.

‘Shine your torch back that way,’ the voice commanded, and he did as he was told.

The grown-ups were hobbling and capering along the tracks.

The big figure raised its other arm. Sam caught sight of a sawn-off shotgun, just like he’d seen in GTA.

The shotgun blasted once, sending out a bright flash and harsh boom, then a second time.

The front ranks of the grown-ups fell away. The rest turned and fled.

‘Come on,’ said the voice. ‘Time we were leaving, kiddo.’