The Fallen

by Charlie Higson

  ‘What are they?’ she said.

  ‘They’re all, like, plaster casts of amazing things from around the world,’ said Brooke. ‘These columns are from Rome. They’re, like, thousands of years old, I think.’

  They were in the Victoria and Albert Museum, which was right next door to the Natural History Museum across a side road. In the centre of the museum was a large courtyard that the local kids were using as an area to grow food. Some of them had been busy working away as Maxie and the others had come in off the street. But Brooke had hurried past them and on through to here, her favourite part of the museum, the cast court.

  ‘Isn’t it cool?’ she said, flinging her arms wide and spinning on the spot like a little girl. ‘This is all just here, and we can come and muck about whenever we want. This is all ours now!’

  ‘Boring,’ said Lewis. ‘Is just old shit.’

  ‘No,’ said Maxie. ‘It’s beautiful.’ She didn’t say anything more, didn’t want the others to tease her, but what she thought was that people were extraordinary creatures. To build a place like this, and fill it with these amazing objects. To make those objects. The work that had gone into it. She fought back tears. Was this the end of civilization? Would humankind ever be able to make anything as awesome as this again? How many centuries would it take before they could relearn these skills? For now they’d have to live in the ruins of the old world, build mud huts when everything else crumbled and fell down, use burning wood to heat themselves, dress in the cast-offs of the dead, stare in wonder at stuff like this.

  In a way the whole world had become a museum.

  Too much to take in.

  ‘Come on,’ said Lewis. ‘This is stale. I thought we was going shopping.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Brooke, ‘better push on before it gets dark.’

  And the spell was broken.

  ‘I’m telling you I don’t need any new clothes,’ Maxie protested for what felt like the hundredth time. ‘I’m fine. I picked up this leather jacket just the other day. It’s all I need.’

  Brooke looked Maxie up and down and sucked her teeth.

  ‘You can make a lot more of yourself, sister,’ she said.

  ‘More of myself?’ Maxie shook her head. ‘I don’t want any more of myself. I’m happy with what there is.’

  Brooke laughed. ‘You know your mind, don’t you?’

  ‘I do now. Didn’t always.’

  ‘Is it safe in here?’ asked Ella, whom Maeve had brought along to try to cheer up. She had latched on to the older girl and wouldn’t let go of her hand.

  ‘Sickos never learnt how to get in,’ said Brooke. ‘Why would they bother? There’s nothing for them here. It’s full of, like, statues and old furniture, jewellery, paintings, pottery. It’s mad.’

  ‘Jewellery?’ said Ella, her eyes lighting up.

  ‘Yeah. There’s some sick stuff in here. You want some?’

  Ella nodded, her lips pressed tightly together.

  ‘We’ll see what we can do,’ said Brooke and she led them out of the gallery and deeper into the cold, quiet museum.

  ‘This is stupid,’ said Maxie. ‘What do we want with jewellery?’

  ‘Ain’t there nothing you need in the world?’ said Brooke. ‘Nothing you want?’

  ‘Oh, I want a lot of things, Brooke, believe me,’ said Maxie. ‘I want a hot bath and a pepperoni pizza with extra mushrooms; I want a chocolate cake with whipped cream; I want my mum’s shepherd’s pie; I want my mum, and my dad, like they were before this all happened … I want Facebook, and music, and TV and the Internet. I want my friends back, all the ones who died. I want to be in the park with them, laughing, not scared of anything. I want to watch South Park again, and see them make jokes about the sickos. I want them to take the piss out of them and laugh at them, so that they’re not so scary any more. I want to rewind time. I want to be a little girl again.’

  ‘Well, I can’t help you there, girl. No way. But what about a new sword? I can swing that.’

  ‘What type of sword?’

  ‘Howzabout a katana? Would that do it?’

  ‘A katana? What’s a katana?’

  ‘Samurai sword.’

  ‘Now you’re talking.’

  ‘Right on.’ Brooke walked over to Kwanele, who was sauntering along, tapping a silver-topped cane on the floor. ‘Let’s head to the Japanese section, yeah?’ she said. ‘Then we’ll take Ella up to get some jewellery.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Kwanele and he turned to grin at Lewis. ‘We can get you some lovely Japanese robes while we’re there.’

  Lewis made a dismissive noise and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I ain’t wearing no dead Japanese swag,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe you’ll change your mind when you see what there is.’

  ‘Yeah, an’ maybe that statue over there will come to life and kiss your ass.’

  Lewis was pointing to a statue of two men wrestling.

  ‘I’m wasting my time giving fashion advice to you ragged hoodies,’ said Kwanele.

  Maxie laughed. She’d always liked Lewis and was glad that he’d come along with them. Despite what Brooke had said, she didn’t feel completely safe here. She never did when she went somewhere new. Lewis might look half asleep most of the time, but she knew that was a front and he was always ready. And lethal in a fight.

  ‘Japanese robes,’ he said to her. ‘What the guy thinking of?’

  ‘Smartening you up,’ said Brooke.

  ‘I’ve got my style,’ said Lewis. ‘I rock this look.’

  ‘You sure look funky with that Afro,’ said Brooke.

  ‘You don’t look so bad yourself,’ he replied, casting an eye over her. ‘Even if you do have that shonky bandage round your head and you’re, like, done out in some kind of weird, old woman’s nightie.’

  ‘This is a nineteenth-century English noblewoman’s dress,’ said Brooke. ‘For your information.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, it says something about you that even in that blunder you look piff.’

  ‘Are you trying to chirps me, Afro?’

  ‘Maybes.’

  ‘Well, save your horny breath for later. Believe me, you are not my type.’

  ‘Yeah? Who is your type then?’

  ‘When I see him I’ll let you know.’

  Lewis turned to Maxie, who laughed at his hopeful expression. ‘Forget it, Lewis,’ she said. ‘I’m with Blue.’

  ‘I knew it.’

  When Lewis tried Maeve she blew him off simply by raising her eyebrows and finally he turned to Kwanele. ‘Looks like you and me, gayboy,’ he said with a sleepy grin.

  ‘Sorry to disappoint,’ said Kwanele. ‘But you’re not my type either.’

  ‘This just ain’t my day, is it?’ They came to the statue of a naked woman and Lewis slapped her on the buttocks. ‘You wouldn’t turn me down, would you, princess?’ he said.

  Soon they were standing in front of a glass cabinet in the Japanese section of the museum. There were two display stands of samurai weapons inside it, though the glass had been broken and most of the swords and daggers removed. There were a couple left, though, and Maxie looked them over. In the end she chose a long katana in a bamboo-covered scabbard and a shorter knife in a sheath covered in white ray fish skin. She stuffed the knife into her belt and drew the katana from its scabbard. The blade was still shiny and unrusted. Sharp. Shimmering. She moved it through the air, feeling its perfect balance, and allowed herself a small smile. Lewis helped himself to what was left, whistling as he studied the blades.

  And then he spotted two suits of samurai armour in a nearby cabinet.

  ‘Now that is what I call beautiful,’ he said, and turned to Kwanele. ‘These the robes you meant?’

  ‘What? No. The robes are much nicer. You know, like silk kimonos, and …’

  ‘Not in my world,’ said Lewis and he smashed the glass with the hilt of his sword and hauled one of the samurai suits out.

  ‘This is bare cool,’ he said, beaming li
ke a little kid at Christmas. ‘This is treasure, dude.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Kwanele with a sigh. ‘Let’s go up and look at the jewellery.’

  As they walked on, Brooke put an arm round Maxie.

  ‘You happy now?’

  ‘Happier,’ said Maxie. ‘I’m never really happy. Don’t remember the last time I was. There’s always a tense feeling in the bottom of my stomach.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Brooke. ‘We need to have a laugh. Scare them tense snakes out of your bottom. I miss South Park too, but we can still make jokes of our own, can’t we? We can show them sickos we ain’t scared of them, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘OK then,’ said Brooke. ‘Why did the sicko cross the road?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Maxie. ‘Why did the sicko cross the road?’

  ‘Braaaiiins!’ said Brooke.

  Maxie laughed and Brooke pressed on.

  ‘How many sickos does it take to change a light bulb?’

  ‘Braaaiiins!’ said Maxie.

  ‘Oh, you’ve heard it!’

  ‘What’s the difference between a sicko and a washing machine?’

  ‘BRAAAAINSSSS!’

  Now Lewis joined in. ‘A sicko walks into a bar,’ he said. ‘WHAM! And then I hit him with the bar again, an iron bar, and knock him flat, then I hit him again, and again and again until his brains are, like, smashed all over the pavement. And then I slice him up with my new katana!’

  ‘Yeah, Lewis,’ said Brooke. ‘Funny joke. Way to lighten the mood, bruv.’

  56

  Blue watched, stunned, as Seamus gurgled in fright and pain then fell away, hitting the shelves and crumpling to the ground, dead as you can get.

  Everyone froze. Shocked. Except for Blue, who turned on Ollie.

  ‘What the hell you doing, you idiot?’

  ‘What’s it look like?’

  ‘It looks like you just killed that guy for no reason.’

  ‘I killed him because he’s a grown-up. Isn’t that a good enough reason?’

  ‘No. He was helping us.’

  ‘Since when did grown-ups help kids?’ Ollie stalked over to where the other three fathers were crouching by the shelves, weapons ready. The weird spiderlike creature and the matchstick girl had disappeared. In the distance Blue could hear old jazz music, scratchy and echoing.

  ‘Don’t attack them three!’ he yelled, and pulled Ollie back.

  ‘Don’t you get it?’ Ollie said, shrugging him off. ‘Everything Seamus said about the monsters was bollocks. It was really all about him. We had to hit him hard, not talk to him. He was clever, twisting things. Kids aren’t the enemy. Adults are the enemy. We mustn’t ever forget that.’

  ‘But he’s not diseased.’ Blue flung a hand out towards the lifeless body on the ground.

  ‘Isn’t he?’ said Ollie. ‘How do you know? Because he told you? We shouldn’t have listened. I saw that crawling thing. It was a boy.’

  ‘It was a freak,’ said Achilleus.

  ‘This is a bad place,’ said Ebenezer.

  ‘Seamus had the sickness,’ said Ollie. ‘They all do.’

  ‘Yeah? And how can you be so sure of that?’ said Blue.

  ‘Makes no odds now,’ said Achilleus, nudging Seamus’s body with his foot. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘He’s dead and we’re stuck in here with these monsters.’ Blue looked around for any signs of the creatures they’d glimpsed before. Still the other three fathers cowered by the shelves, like cornered animals, not sure what to do. Outnumbered by the kids.

  ‘We shouldn’t be here,’ said Ebenezer. ‘We should not have killed this man.’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Blue. ‘There was nothing wrong with him.’

  ‘Blue,’ said Ollie. ‘We all know it. There is no cure. They’re all sick. Seamus was sick, just not as bad.’

  ‘You don’t know that!’

  ‘Ask them.’ Ollie pointed to the three fathers.

  ‘Ask them what?’

  ‘If there’s a cure.’

  Blue looked at the three fathers. Hesitated.

  ‘Ask them!’ Ollie said more forcefully. ‘See what they’ve got to say for themselves.’

  ‘Did you really find a cure?’ Blue asked quietly. ‘Some medicine that worked?’ The fathers stared at him. He might as well have been speaking Swahili to them. There was no understanding in their eyes, just dumb animal fear and rage. They looked ready to attack.

  Ollie shifted the spear in his hands.

  ‘What’s the capital of France?’ he said. ‘Who wrote Oliver Twist? What colour is the sky?’

  The fathers switched their attention to Ollie; one of them bared his teeth. Not a smile.

  ‘All right,’ said Ollie. ‘Here’s an easier one. Can you even talk? Simple answer, either say yes or just grunt for no. Hmm? Can you? Say something!’

  One of the fathers suddenly broke and ran. Ollie raised Seamus’s spear and hurled it at the man, taking him in the middle of the back. He went down with a gasp. The other two came at Ollie, but Blue knocked one down without hesitating and Achilleus had the other. He’d been waiting for this. The grown-ups sprawled on to the concrete floor next to Seamus, blood spreading like spilt oil.

  ‘You believe me now then?’ said Ollie.

  ‘Not necessarily, but they were attacking you.’

  ‘While I was at the museum,’ said Ollie, walking over to Seamus, ‘I talked to some of the kids there. They told me about a guy called Greg. He picked some of them up in a coach way back when it was all starting to go crazy. He claimed not to be infected. Claimed he’d beaten the disease. They believed him. But he hadn’t. He’d just slowed it down. That’s all they can do. Seamus must have found a way to slow it.

  ‘But I was listening to what he was saying and I realized it was all about him. None of that stuff in there made any sense. Them being in that cage, the way the door opened, the business with the keys. It was all too much like a video game. You know – solve the puzzles to get out of the room. It was designed by kids. That’s what it felt like to me. The message on the door, the warning, all designed like a game. And Seamus – he was part of the game, part of the puzzle we were supposed to solve. He didn’t write those warnings, they were really old, they’d been there for ages, but Seamus can’t have been in that cage too long. And then the candles as we came through, and the music. It was Duke Ellington. My big brother was a jazz fan. Monsters don’t light candles and play jazz. And those three …’ Ollie pointed at the dead fathers. ‘They didn’t say a word the whole time. Why so quiet? Because they couldn’t speak. That’s why. They were too far gone … No. You can’t beat the disease.’

  ‘You don’t know that for sure, Ollie,’ said Blue. ‘You’ve got no proof. And now they’re dead and we’re still clueless about the monsters.’

  ‘You want proof? All right. I’ll give you proof!’

  57

  Ollie knelt down by Seamus’s body, put his hand to the collar of his shirt.

  ‘I saw him, when we went in there; the first thing he did was do up his top button. Why?’

  ‘I haven’t got a freaking clue. Maybe he was cold.’

  ‘Only one reason you’d do a thing like that.’ Ollie yanked the front of the shirt down and the buttons popped off and clattered on to the floor. There was a circle of lumps around Seamus’s neck, sores and boils. A couple of them had burst and were oozing pus.

  Blue swore.

  ‘You still didn’t know for sure, though, Ollie. When you topped him.’

  Ollie shrugged. Wouldn’t catch Blue’s eye.

  ‘Let’s look at this.’ Einstein had joined Ollie and was studying Seamus’s face. He peeled back the bandage that covered his bad eye. The eye was missing and the socket was filled with more growths and boils. Einstein prodded a growth with a biro and then shrank back as it burst and some sort of grey jelly bubbled out.

  ‘Nice,’ said Achilleus. ‘That’s dinner sorted.’

  Ei
nstein leant closer.

  ‘It’s moving,’ he said.

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘No, no …’ Einstein was furiously scrabbling in his backpack for something. Finally he pulled out a plastic box with a peel-off lid. He wrenched it open and poked some of the jelly into it with his biro.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt your picnic,’ said Jackson, backing towards them. ‘But aren’t we forgetting about the monsters?’

  ‘We don’t know they’re monsters,’ said Ollie. ‘That’s just what Seamus told us, and he obviously wanted us to kill them before we found out what they really were.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean they’re not still monsters,’ said Jackson. ‘I mean, did you see that thing?’

  Blue walked to the edge of the group and shouted into the shadowy depths of the warehouse.

  ‘Hey! Come on. Whoever you are. Show yourselves.’

  For a moment nothing happened.

  ‘We passed your test!’ Ollie shouted. ‘We’re here and you’re going to have to deal with us.’

  Achilleus wandered over to a shelf and put the sharp point of his spear against a box.

  ‘Come out or the box gets it!’

  Paddy laughed.

  ‘Can you understand us?’ Blue shouted.

  ‘We’re kids like you,’ said Ollie. ‘Didn’t you want us to come in here?’

  ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are!’ Achilleus called out in a sing-song voice. ‘I warned you – the box dies in five!’

  At last they had a reply. A voice from out of the darkness, a boy’s voice, starting to break so that it was a little croaky.

  ‘How do we know you won’t attack us?’

  ‘We killed the grown-ups, didn’t we?’ said Blue. ‘Isn’t that what you wanted?’

  The boy’s voice came back out of the shadows.

  ‘I’ll warn you. We’re watching you. Anything weird, anything we don’t like, and we’ll attack. We haven’t lived this long by taking risks. We’re hidden all around you.’

  Blue sighed and quickly glanced up and down the aisles of shelving. He could see nothing. There were a thousand places to hide. The shelves were high, going right up to the ceiling. It would be easy to have people perched above them, armed with God knows what.