The Sacrifice

by Charlie Higson

  And now look what he’d done.

  It was Tish’s fault. She’d rushed him into it. Dragged him into the forbidden zone. Even the bravest fighters from the Tower didn’t come here. Not Ed. Not Kyle. Not anyone. And there was only this green-shirted girl to show them the way.

  Already his legs were aching, his chest burning. He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long. His sword slapped painfully against his side and twice now he’d almost tripped over it. His helmet was heavy on his head; the breastplate he was wearing, part of a child’s suit of armour, cut into him. He wished now that he’d left the armour behind.

  ‘Can we slow down?’ he gasped, trying to catch up with Tish and The Kid.

  ‘Whassup, shortstuff? Ain’t got the legs for it?’ said The Kid.

  ‘I’m getting a stitch.’

  ‘We need to make sure we’re well out of sight of the Tower,’ said Tish.

  Sam stopped and looked back. The road had curved to the left and he couldn’t see anything of the castle past the tall buildings. And if he couldn’t see the Tower then surely nobody in the Tower could see him.

  ‘They can’t see us here,’ he said. ‘We’re miles away.’ He bent over and rested his hands on his knees.

  ‘We should keep going,’ said Tish.

  ‘Should we?’ Sam said angrily.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘We’re running from the wrong people,’ Sam muttered and stretched his aching side.

  ‘Chin up. We made it,’ said The Kid. ‘Out of the frying pan.’

  ‘You know the rest of that saying, don’t you?’ said Sam.

  ‘What saying?’

  ‘Out of the frying pan.’

  ‘I just made it up.’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  ‘Yes, I did. I’m a wordsmith.’

  ‘Oh, never mind.’ Sam straightened up and looked around. They were on a boring street of offices and banks. Ed had told him that this part of town was where people had come to work during the day. No one had really lived here. There were no normal shops, just a few sandwich bars and coffee places.

  He hoped it would stay boring. The last thing he wanted now was excitement. Maybe he’d worried too much. It was still and quiet. There was nobody else around. No signs of life at all apart from a few pigeons flapping about.

  So far so good.

  He knew that it could be a trick, though. Tish and her friends had been attacked by grown-ups close by here, hadn’t she? He just hoped that all the grown-ups were asleep now, down in their cellars.

  ‘We have to hurry,’ said Tish. ‘The quicker we get through the zone, the better.’

  ‘How long did it take you before?’

  ‘About an hour.’

  ‘That quick?’

  ‘Maybe two. It’s hard to say, because when we got chased, we lost our way. Get moving, though, Sam, yeah? We can talk as we run.’

  ‘Fast walk,’ said Sam. ‘I can’t run for two hours. I’m not Superman.’

  ‘We won’t have to; it’s only till we’re out of danger.’

  ‘And how far is that?’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t know. It’s the kids at the Tower that made up the idea of the zone. We don’t call it that. We don’t measure it or anything.’

  ‘But you don’t usually go this way?’

  ‘No. Everyone knows it’s dangerous. So let’s hurry, yeah?’

  ‘OK.’

  Sam jogged off after Tish and The Kid. He had drawn his dagger and was gripping it tightly in his hand. It gave him some degree of comfort, though he knew that if he saw any grown-ups he would simply run as fast as he could in the opposite direction rather than stop and fight.

  A couple of minutes later they came to some burnt-out buildings. There was rubble strewn in the road that they had to pick their way through and Sam spotted a couple of dirty skeletons in the ruins, their bones jumbled up with steel girders, broken masonry, cables and charred furniture.

  It was as they were clambering over the last stretch of rubble that they heard a rhythmic tapping noise. It seemed to be coming from a side-street. Like metal hammering stone. The sort of sound you used to hear coming from building sites. As the children stopped to listen, the sound stopped. They waited. Nothing.

  They moved on, and as they did so, the sound started up again, this time appearing to come from a different direction.

  ‘Can you hear that?’ Sam stood frozen in the road.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ said Tish. ‘A bird or something.’

  ‘Why? How do you know? Have you heard it before?’

  ‘No, but what else could it be? Let’s keep going.’

  ‘What bird makes a noise like that?’

  ‘To be fair, it could be anything.’

  ‘I think we should go back. I don’t like this.’

  ‘We can’t go back now. We’ve come this far.’

  ‘But there’s still a long way to go. I shouldn’t never have listened to you. This is a dumb idea. We should go back and talk to Ed. Persuade him.’

  Tish suddenly grew angry and yelled at Sam. ‘We are NOT going back! Don’t be such a wimp. We’re OK.’ Then she grabbed him and pulled him along the road.

  Her shout had sounded horribly loud, reminding Sam of how quiet it had been before.

  Apart from the clicking that was.

  For a moment after her rant there was a deep, empty silence, then the clicking, tapping, knocking sound started up all around them, seeming to come from every direction.

  ‘Tap, tap, tapping on my cough-cough-coffin,’ said The Kid.

  ‘Great,’ said Sam. ‘That’s made me feel a lot better.’

  ‘I don’t like it, Captain.’

  ‘It’s just something banging in the wind,’ said Tish. ‘It doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘What wind?’ said Sam and he jerked his arm free of her grip, stuffed his dagger in his belt and drew his sword. The Kid did the same.

  ‘Ready for anything,’ said The Kid. ‘Come at me, varlet, and I will spike thy gizzards.’

  They moved on down the street at a fast walk, the noises keeping pace with them. Up ahead they could see the white stonework of St Paul’s rising up into the sky. Sam’s head was throbbing, filled with a dull ache. His muscles were sore with tension.

  He spotted a sign for Mansion House tube station and the throbbing in his head got suddenly worse. He associated the London underground sign with dark tunnels and hungry grown-ups.

  And then his heart sank into his boots.

  The road was completely blocked. There was a sort of barricade made from a burnt-out bus and a pile of cars all tangled together with junkyard bits and pieces. The kids would have to climb over it or go round it via one of the side-streets.

  The streets from where the noises were still coming.

  Tap-clink-tap-clink-tap-tap-tap …

  ‘What do we do?’ Sam asked Tish. ‘Did you come this way before?’

  ‘It was all a bit of a panic, to be honest with you.’

  ‘Oh God,’ said Sam. ‘Please, let’s just go back.’

  ‘We’re nearly there.’

  ‘No, we’re not. Don’t be stupid. Trafalgar Square’s ages away still.’

  ‘I meant we’re nearly out of the zone.’

  ‘I’m going back.’

  ‘I never had you down for a chicken,’ said Tish.

  ‘He ain’t no chicken, matron,’ said The Kid. ‘He’s just got a sensible head under his hat today. We didn’t think this through. We got a choice. This is fifty-fifty. Danger one way – home the other.’

  ‘This way.’ Tish turned her back on the two of them and started to climb over the barricade. Sam and The Kid had no choice but to follow her, clambering over the pile of junk.

  When they got to the top, they heard Tish swear and found her standing there trembling.

  There were five grown-ups waiting in the road on the other side. Crouched low, curious and wary.

  17

  ‘That�
��s just great,’ said Sam. ‘That’s really great. What do we do now?’

  ‘You want to phone a friend?’ asked The Kid.

  ‘No. I want to go back to the Tower.’

  ‘Is that your final answer?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sam turned and started to scramble back down the barricade. Just before he got to the bottom his scabbard caught on something and he tripped and fell, bashing his arm on a car door as he went. He landed in a heap, swearing and trying not to burst into tears again. The Kid and Tish came down and helped him up.

  ‘You OK?’ Tish asked.

  ‘No, I’m not. I feel like an idiot. What are we doing here?’

  ‘You want to phone a friend?’ asked The Kid again.

  ‘Shut up,’ Sam snapped, not amused by The Kid’s jokes any more. ‘Just shut up, can’t you?’

  But as he picked up his sword, he saw that they were trapped. A larger group of grown-ups was shuffling along the road towards them. And more of them were coming from the south.

  They were wary like the first group. Like wild dogs he’d seen on nature programmes, keeping in a pack, holding back as they studied their prey, getting ready to move in for the kill. They were a mixed bunch, all ages and states of decay, their clothes and skin so black and greasy they looked like they were wearing wetsuits.

  Sam swore, felt his whole body shaking with a toxic cocktail of fear and fury and self-pity.

  ‘This way,’ said Tish, and she headed down a narrow alleyway that cut off the main road to the north. Sam and The Kid kept hard on her heels. No time to think. No time to plan. Just run and keep running as the blood hammered in your ears.

  If it had been an organized ambush then it hadn’t been very well organized. The grown-ups had left the alleyway clear.

  Unless of course that was the plan, to funnel them down here …

  Ambush? Don’t be stupid. Grown-ups don’t make plans.

  Except this was the forbidden zone, wasn’t it? Where the normal rules didn’t work. Where the grown-ups behaved differently. That’s what Ed had said. They were unpredictable. Strange things happened. That’s why it was so dangerous.

  That was why it was no-go.

  Why-why-why had he listened to Tish? Why? This was horrible. He’d been so safe in the Tower he’d forgotten just how scary it was out on the streets. He’d blanked it out of his mind. Those awful days getting from Holloway to the Tower. Wetting his pants, blubbing with fear, frozen into a terrified little ball of nerves. Part of him wanted to do that now. Lie down, curl up and wait for it all to be over.

  But a bigger part of him made Sam run.

  It was dark in the alley, the high walls seeming to lean inwards. There were old tailor’s shops and black and gold painted pubs on either side, so different from the modern buildings on the main road. This was a part of historical London, like something out of a Dickens film on TV.

  Except Dickens films didn’t have cannibal grown-ups chasing kids.

  As he ran, Sam could hear the tapping sound echoing all around him. It seemed much nearer, coming from right next to him … up above … inside his head …

  He could see nothing, though. Nothing.

  Just run.

  They came to a junction, but the road to the left was blocked with another barricade.

  ‘Keep going!’ Tish shouted.

  Keep going where? Sam thought. They should be heading back to the Tower. Not trying to press on deeper into the zone. Well, it was up to the grown-ups now, wasn’t it? It all depended on which way they chased the three kids.

  There was a large red-brick church ahead of them, with another passageway running off to the left.

  Sam called out to Tish.

  ‘Do you know where we are?’

  ‘Go left.’

  They ran down the back of the church and came out into a small square. There was a single twisted tree and the statue of a man who looked a little like a pirate.

  The clicking was even louder than ever here and Sam gradually became aware that the dark places, the doorways, the corners and steps, even a couple of parked cars, were filled with grown-ups. They were sitting squashed together in groups and they all had something in their hands – bottles, cobblestones, bricks, bones, bits of metal – and were banging them together, like ghostly buskers.

  For the moment, though, they weren’t attacking.

  ‘What do we do?’ Sam asked.

  Behind them their pursuers were coming up the passageway.

  ‘We’re so close,’ said Tish.

  ‘Close to what?’ said Sam. ‘Don’t be stupid, we’re not close to anywhere.’

  ‘I’m not stupid,’ Tish hissed. ‘Don’t call me stupid.’

  ‘You brought us here, didn’t you?’ said Sam, careful not to raise his voice. ‘Right into the middle of … grown-ups.’

  ‘This is Nibelheim,’ said The Kid.

  ‘Maybe if we just keep going they won’t chase us,’ said Tish, ignoring The Kid.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Sam asked.

  ‘How am I supposed to know?’ said Tish. ‘Stop asking me questions.’

  ‘Them’s dwarves, hammering out their gold,’ said The Kid and again the others ignored him.

  They started walking slowly, slowly, not wanting to disturb the grown-ups, heading for the north side of the square where it was open on to the main road. Expecting every step of the way one of the grown-ups to jump up and come after them.

  For a few seconds it looked like they were going to make it. The grown-ups just stared at them with dull, lifeless eyes, tapping out their rhythm. There was a powerful, evil stench hanging in the air, trapped by the buildings. Sam tried not to look too closely at the mothers and fathers, at their pockmarked skin, their boils and swellings, the rotting patches in their flesh. The green flowerings of mould.

  While the sound of their tapping drilled into his skull.

  ‘Different drummers,’ whispered The Kid.

  Sam shushed him.

  ‘We need to go into Alberich’s cave.’

  ‘Shut up … ’

  And then there was a movement. A bloated mother squirmed out of a car and started to limp towards them. It acted like a signal. Everywhere now grown-ups were stopping their tapping and standing up, advancing towards the three children.

  18

  Sam spun round and quickly saw that the exit from the little square was blocked. And the grown-ups were closing in.

  ‘I’m telling you, Siegfried,’ said The Kid, no longer bothering to whisper, his voice harsh and urgent. ‘We need to go into Alberich’s cave.’

  Sam swore at him. ‘We don’t have time for this!’ he snapped.

  ‘Listen to me, bonehead. I know this place,’ The Kid kept on. ‘I been here before. That statue there, that’s old Alberich. And that tree is the white ash, the great white hope. And down under its roots is Alberich’s cave.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Sam’s voice was jittery and hoarse with panic. He glanced at the statue. ‘That’s not Alberich. It’s someone called John Smith.’

  ‘Trust me,’ said The Kid. ‘I’m the tunnel king, remember? Monsewer Rat. There’s a way out of this mess.’

  ‘Are you saying there’s a tunnel entrance near here?’

  ‘Yes, dumb-bell, what did you think?’

  The Kid darted off and the other two kept close behind. More and more grown-ups were coming alive, pressing in from all sides.

  ‘We’re gonna have to cut the cake!’ The Kid yelled, and raised his sword above his head, charging at a knot of grown-ups, his dress flapping. He slashed the sword wildly in the air and the grown-ups fell away. Sam was right behind him, swinging his own sword and screeching a wordless war-cry.

  They battered a path to the side of the square, and there, close to the wall of the church, was a large iron manhole cover. The Kid slid his sword into its scabbard and dropped to his knees. Humming manically to himself, he slipped a metal tool out of his jacket pocket and stuck it into one of the handle
s on the cover and began hauling it up. Tish squatted down to help him shift it sideways, while Sam kept the grown-ups back, thrashing his sword in the air and screaming.

  Once the cover was off The Kid wriggled down into the dark hole beneath. Tish came next and finally Sam. He turned his back on the grown-ups, made his sword secure and hurled himself into the opening in such a mad rush that he bruised himself all down one side and took the skin off his shins.

  There was a ladder fixed to the wall below. Sam just managed to get hold of it and descended into the darkness. There was no time to replace the manhole cover. Above him three grown-ups peered through the opening, dribbling saliva that fell past him and spattered on the floor a couple of metres below.

  One of the grown-ups started to crawl head first through the square hole, blocking out the light.

  ‘Look out!’ Sam yelled as suddenly a heavy shape fell past him. He heard a wet slap as it landed.

  ‘Stupid bastard,’ he said with some relish. ‘Stupid grown-up bastard.’

  A torch beam came on and played up the wall, guiding Sam down the last few steps. Tish and The Kid both had torches out. The Kid shone his on the grown-up that had done the nosedive. It was a young father, still alive, but with a broken back. It flopped about, hissing. Tish kicked it in the head and it stopped moving.

  ‘Follow me,’ said The Kid, trotting off along a low tunnel, his head bowed. There were damp brick walls with ancient cabling running along them. Dirty warning signs. Puddles on the ground.

  ‘Where are we?’ said Sam. ‘Where does this tunnel go?’

  ‘They all link up,’ said The Kid. ‘The tubes, the dirt-pipe sewers, the gas and ’lectrics and waterworks and wormholes. Don’t ask The Kid what’s what, is all just tunnels to him. Tunnels and caves. I gave them all a name so’s I could member ’em. This place is Alberich’s cave, the place of dwarves. Thought I recognized that tap-tapping. Heard it before when I was sploring once.’

  ‘Who’s Alberich?’

  ‘That statue up there, I know it ain’t really Alberich. Alberich’s a dwarf. My dear departed grandpa, God rest his battered soul, was an opera-loving geezer. Piles of old black records filling his little flat with warbles. Some of it rubbed off on me. One piece I used to listen to all the time, fierce and loud it was, all clanking and banging. The Ring Cycle, the Rheingold, going down into Alberich’s cave in Nibelheim and all the anvils hammering out a sound to wake up the slumbering hills. The Kid loved that sound, so he did.’