The Sacrifice

by Charlie Higson

  A stranger. That’s what he was to them.

  He unslung his crossbow from his back and headed over to the door, saying goodbye to the two lovebirds on the sofa on his way out. He moved fast down the stairs, then went more cautiously out into the street. Keeping close to the buildings, using any cover he could find, his crossbow up and ready. He was soon at the garden he’d been watching from above. A narrow, overgrown strip between a low front wall and a house.

  There was nobody there. Apart from a kid’s bike with one wheel missing, the garden was an empty tangle of long grass and weeds.

  Had he imagined it then? Humans were very good at seeing patterns in random shapes. Faces in clouds, monsters in a pile of rumpled sheets, the image of Jesus Christ on a piece of toast. Had he created a living person out of some shadows and weeds?

  He had to admit that he’d been lonely lately, with only the shambling Fear for company. St George and his lieutenants, Bluetooth, Man U and Spike. He really didn’t need any imaginary friends right now.

  He hopped over the wall into the garden, looking for some clues, anything that told him a person had been there. There was nothing obvious. He looked closer. Yes. He wasn’t losing it. A flattened patch, where the grass and weeds had been crushed.

  Someone had been here.

  Unless it was a dog or a cat.

  He suddenly flinched as a shape moved fast past him and then another. He froze.

  It was only two squirrels chasing each other. He smiled and let his breath out in a rush. Watched as the squirrels scampered up the tree, darted about up there, chattering. Then one jumped down into the road and dashed across to the other side.

  And that was when Shadowman saw the three kids.

  22

  Instinct kicked in. The habit of survival. Without it he would have been dead long ago. He’d ducked down behind the wall before he’d even thought of doing it. He waited, and when nothing happened, he risked peeping over the bricks.

  The three kids weren’t looking his way. They were camped behind a car and all their attention was focused on the tyre centre. Shadowman had a quick look around, in case there were more of them.

  Couldn’t see anyone else.

  Now he studied the kids more closely. They were two boys and a girl, about his age. One boy carried a crossbow similar to his own, the other had a home-made spear and the girl carried an iron bar.

  They looked pretty streetwise. They’d have to be to have survived this long. They all had long hair, tied back behind their heads, and were wearing protective bike leathers pumped up with skateboard elbow and knee pads. The boy with the spear also had on what looked like a police stab-proof vest over his jacket. Shadowman would have loved one of them.

  Another movement caught his eye. It was a father. Old and skinny, nearly naked. He wandered out of the tyre centre and began to cross the forecourt.

  That was bad. They were waking up.

  There was a whizzing noise and the father fell over, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his ribs.

  What were these kids doing? Attacking his strangers? What had been the point of that? The father had been old and weak …

  Shadowman stopped himself. Was he really feeling sorry for a stranger?

  It was the kids he had to worry about.

  They were still crouching behind the car. The boy had reloaded his bow. Now the girl said something and they moved forward. Started to creep towards the gate into the tyre centre forecourt.

  No, you idiots. Not in there.

  He had to warn them. This wasn’t a small nest of dozy adults. This was The Fear. There were nearly a hundred strangers in there. Tough and organized. The kids wouldn’t last two seconds. To take on an army you needed an army of your own.

  He was shafted either way. If he did nothing the kids would stumble in there and be overwhelmed. If he shouted out then the strangers would surely hear him and that would bring them out like a swarm of disturbed bees.

  He hissed through his teeth …

  ‘Sssss … ’

  Nothing. They hadn’t heard him.

  He raised himself up a little higher. Tried a hoarse whisper.

  ‘Hey … ’

  Still nothing.

  He picked up a small stone. Threw it at the girl. It hit her in the back, made a little pock sound.

  The boy with the crossbow spun round, bringing the bow up as he turned, and he fired the bolt straight at Shadowman all in one swift, clean movement.

  Damn, he was fast.

  But Shadowman was faster. He dropped to the ground and the bolt whizzed harmlessly over the top of the wall and embedded itself in the side of the house.

  Shadowman stayed down, hugging the wall, pulling out his knife just in case. He heard the three of them coming back over the road.

  Well, he wasn’t going to let himself be killed like this.

  ‘I’m one of you,’ he said, just loud enough for them to hear. ‘I’m a kid.’

  ‘Show yourself.’ The girl’s voice. Making no attempt to keep quiet.

  Bloody idiot.

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ he said. ‘There are strangers nearby.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Please … Be quiet. Whatever you call them. Grown-ups, zombies. There’s a hundred of them over the road. If you disturb them we’ll all be up shit creek.’

  ‘Why should we believe you?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t you?’

  ‘Show yourself.’

  ‘As long as you promise not to fire another bloody bolt at me.’

  ‘OK … ’

  Shadowman was furious. All the time he’d put into studying The Fear, tracking them, learning about them, could all be wasted by these bloody kids. They were going to ruin everything. If the strangers woke now it was the end for all of them. He had to try to convince the others of the danger they were in.

  He got into a crouch then gently eased his head up over the top of the wall. The three kids were spread out, weapons ready, the lethal crossbow trained at his chest.

  ‘Put that crossbow down,’ he whispered as loudly as he dared.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked the girl. ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘Yes. But please believe me. We have to get away from here now and we have to do it fast.’

  ‘I’m sorry, mate.’ The girl was doing all the talking, seemed to be in charge. ‘We don’t trust no one.’

  ‘You have to listen to me. You have to trust me. There are adults in there and they’re not nice ones. If you disturb them … ’

  ‘We know there’s something in there,’ said the boy with the spear. ‘And how do we know you ain’t lying to us? Might be food or something. Something you want.’

  ‘There’s no food in there, only grown-ups.’

  ‘We ain’t scared of no zombies,’ said the second boy. ‘This is our turf and you shouldn’t be here. Where you come from?’

  ‘Buckingham Palace.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Where you from?’

  ‘The centre of town,’ said Shadowman wearily. ‘I’ve been following these grown-ups for days.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Jesus Christ! That’d take too long to explain. And you lot are making too much noise. Now I’m going to come out from behind this wall and I’m going to start walking slowly away from here. I want you to follow me.’

  ‘You might just lead us into a trap.’

  ‘Why the hell would I want to do that? I’m one of you. I’m a kid. We have to get away from here now. And when we’re at a safe distance, I’ll explain everything.’

  ‘We don’t trust you,’ said the girl.

  ‘Well then, just let me go. I’m no threat to you. The mothers and fathers inside that building are the enemy.’

  ‘We’ll merk them,’ said the boy with the spear. ‘They don’t scare us. We cleaned out every zombie round here. We own Kilburn.’

  Shadowman wasn’t listening. His sharp ears had picked up a noise coming from inside the tyre centre. He was
sniffing the air. The three kids didn’t move.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Please get away from here. I’m going to start running any second now. You don’t know how dangerous these grown-ups are.’

  ‘Course we do,’ said the boy with the spear, almost shouting. ‘How d’you think we’re still alive? We know everything there is to know about zombies and we kill any we find, that’s why we’re here. We saw some last night and we’ve been hunting them. And now we’ve found them. So now we’re going to kill them.’

  Shadowman saw movement in the tyre yard. Dark shapes emerging from the buildings. He vaulted over the wall, yelling at the kids to run.

  But he saw that it was already too late.

  Somehow two groups of strangers had got out another way and were advancing down the road from both directions.

  23

  ‘I don’t get it, Ed. Yesterday you were telling everyone we shouldn’t mess with the zone. Now you tell me you want to get in there.’

  ‘Things have changed, Jordan. It’s like this game … ’

  Ed pointed to the two armies set out on the tabletop. He and Jordan were in Jordan’s rooms in the Queen’s House, re-enacting the Battle of Austerlitz, where Napoleon had crushed the combined armies of Russia and Austria. Jordan was obsessed with war games. He’d brought a load of tiny painted soldiers with him in his backpack of essentials and had found loads more in a collection at the Tower. He liked to recreate famous battles and see if there could have been a different outcome. He studied the rulebooks for hours and ate up history books, learning all he could about the different troops and their abilities.

  The soldiers on the table were an odd mix: about half were authentic Napoleonic figures, the others were mostly made up from later wars, the Crimean War, the Boer Wars, the First and Second World Wars, but there was also a regiment of Greek hoplites standing in for French grenadiers. Truth be told, Ed found these games a bit boring – they could go on for hours – but he knew that if he wanted to talk to Jordan for any length of time the best thing to do was suggest a war game.

  As usual, Ed was losing, even though he was commanding Napoleon’s superior army, the army that won the original battle.

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Jordan narrowed his eyes, magnified behind his thick glasses, and studied the troop layout, leaning in very close to check he hadn’t missed anything. ‘What’s like this game?’

  ‘Well.’ Ed leant back in his chair, relieved not to have to think about the game for a minute. ‘You know what it’s like. You decide on your tactics, but you have to change them as the battle goes on. What’s that quote you’re always throwing at me? About tactics?’

  ‘No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy?’ said Jordan.

  ‘That’s it.’ Ed nodded. ‘That’s exactly what I mean. We both started this game with a plan. We both thought we were going to win, but you didn’t do what I wanted you to do. Your moves didn’t fit my plans. So I changed my plans and you changed yours, and, the way it goes – things change.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jordan. ‘Things change. You’re right. You got to keep an open mind.’

  Ed nodded. ‘And you need to change it now and then,’ he said. ‘Like I’ve changed mine. Because things have happened that I need to react to. Yesterday I wasn’t sure about charging into the no-go zone and getting people hurt. And for what? To stop people from getting bored? To expand our territory?’

  ‘Yeah, all of that.’

  ‘But, as far as I can remember, I sort of agreed to it in the end. When we were ready for it. But now – things change. Sam’s gone. And it’s my fault. He kept on asking me to go with him and I kept telling him to wait. He didn’t wait.’

  ‘What were you waiting for, Ed? For DogNut to get back?’

  ‘Mainly.’

  ‘He ain’t coming back, Ed,’ said Jordan. ‘I think we got to accept that.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe you’re right.’

  ‘Which means one of two things.’

  ‘What?’ Ed sneaked a look across the table at Jordan. He knew Jordan didn’t like people to look at him, but sometimes, when you were having a conversation, it helped to look at the person you were talking to. He wanted to know what Jordan felt about DogNut. He never discussed his emotions, so Ed had to try and read them in his face.

  It was hard, though. Jordan’s face rarely gave anything away and his glasses changed his eyes. Right now the general had his eyes fixed on the game, bent over, his nose almost touching the little soldiers, so he wasn’t aware that Ed was studying him.

  ‘It means that either he’s dead,’ said Jordan, ‘or he’s found a sweeter deal than what he can get here. Found some place he’d rather be. That boy always was ambitious. Never liked being the underdog. Top dog was the only position he wanted. The soldier knew he could never be better than number two as long as I was here. So maybe, just maybe, he found somewhere he could be number one.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Ed looked away as Jordan raised his face. ‘But DogNut was loyal. He had respect. You know that. He wouldn’t do something like that without reporting back.’

  ‘Wouldn’t he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Ed shrugged. ‘As I was saying, things change.’

  ‘They surely do. Your move,’ said Jordan, nodding at the two armies.

  Ed sighed and set about laboriously moving blocks of troops, checking everything with the rulers and charts, the various compasses and protractors, that were strewn all over the table.

  ‘My heavy cavalry division is charging your Jaeger Regiment.’

  ‘You sure?’ Jordan frowned. ‘They’ll come within range of my grenadiers.’

  ‘Yeah. I just want some action, Jordan. All this creeping about is getting frustrating.’

  ‘It ain’t creeping about, Ed, it’s manoeuvring.’

  ‘It’s dull is what it is, Jordan. I want to see some blood on the table.’

  ‘Go ahead, man, but you’ll be wasting a lot of troops.’

  ‘Unleash hell!’

  In this case unleashing hell wasn’t quite as dramatic as it sounded; it meant rolling several dice and making complex calculations on a piece of paper, and the end result was exactly as Jordan had predicted. Ed took out a few skirmishers, but came too close to the grenadiers, who shot his cavalry to pieces.

  At least it had livened the game up a bit. Ed didn’t have the patience to be a great tactical player. He would have made a terrible general. It had always been the same with him. He was happier playing sports like football or cricket, where all you had to do was go out there and do your best. Games like chess did his brain in. He’d always start well, bold and decisive, and then he’d get bogged down. Couldn’t cope with the strain of trying to think ten moves ahead, checking all the possible outcomes of shifting one small piece on the board. He’d do something reckless, take down a bishop, say, even though he knew it was risky and would leave one of his own more valuable pieces exposed. And if he was playing someone like Jordan, who was patient and calculating, never flustered, able to look twenty or thirty moves ahead, he would lose.

  Every time.

  Just as he knew he was going to lose this battle.

  Jordan now set about marshalling his own forces.

  ‘So how many people you want to take with you?’ he asked as he slid some hussars a few centimetres across the table.

  Ed ran his fingers through his hair. It had come to the crunch. ‘Twenty,’ he said. ‘To be on the safe side.’

  ‘Can’t spare twenty,’ said Jordan bluntly. ‘We need all our troops to guard the forage parties or we won’t be able to bring enough food back.’

  ‘I’ll only be gone a day.’

  ‘Is what DogNut said.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, I thought you might say that.’ Ed smiled and shook his head. ‘So over to you. How many can you offer?’

  ‘I don’t want you to go at all, Ed. You know that. You’re important to me here. The kids like you. If anything goes belly-up you’re a good man to have aroun
d. Specially now that everyone seems spooked by what I done to Brendan and them two little boys tipping up. Baa baa black sheep and all that. I mean, what if you do a DogNut on me?’

  ‘I won’t. You know me, Jordan. You can trust me.’

  ‘Yeah. You could get taken down, though.’

  ‘Not if you give me enough fighters I won’t.’

  ‘What’s your plan?’

  ‘Sam wanted to go to Buckingham Palace. That’s miles away through the most dangerous part of town. He got a head start this afternoon. We only just realized he’s gone unfortunately.’

  ‘And the other two? The weird kid and the girl?’

  ‘Yeah. She must have gone with them. I can’t try to follow them now. It’s too late. It’s getting dark, dark and dangerous. I’ll leave tomorrow when it’s light.’

  ‘You’ll move faster with a small squad.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Pick from your own unit. You and five others. I can’t spare no more than that.’

  It wasn’t enough, but Ed knew that it was all he was going to get. Jordan liked to play it safe, keep troops in reserve. It was one of the reasons he always won these war games. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Thanks. I just need to know Sam’s all right. You understand?’

  Jordan looked at Ed for the first time. His eyes seeming to bulge behind the lenses. ‘Ed, dude,’ he said. ‘If something was going to happen to the youngers it would have happened today. It would have happened in the first hour they was gone. That out there is the badlands.’

  ‘I know. And it’s my fault he went there. I promised to look after him and I didn’t and now he’s gone.’ Ed was on the verge of tears. He had made himself responsible for Sam and he’d let him down. He knew it was just his own guilt that was making him mount an expedition. The chances of finding Sam if he was in trouble were pretty small. But he had to do something.

  ‘I’ve lost friends before,’ he said. ‘People I should have looked after. I don’t want it to happen again. I don’t care how dangerous it is. I’ll risk that.’

  ‘It’s happened, though, Ed. It’s done.’

  ‘No. I’m not going to believe that Sam’s dead. He might be holed up somewhere. Under attack. Praying that someone will come and get him, Jordan. And I can’t just leave him. I can’t.’