‘Do you want us to drop our weapons?’ Einstein shouted and Blue hissed at him.
‘Don’t be a dick. We ain’t dropping our weapons. You heard what the man said. We ain’t lived this long by taking risks either.’
‘We don’t want to hurt you,’ said Jackson.
‘Much,’ Achilleus muttered under his breath.
‘Then what are you doing here?’ came the voice.
‘Good question,’ Achilleus replied, quiet enough so that only the kids nearest to him could hear. ‘If this goes on much longer it’s no more mister nice guy. I am going postal on these noobs.’
‘We’ve come to get drugs,’ shouted Einstein. ‘Medicine. We’ve been trying to find out about the disease, maybe find a cure. We thought there might be, like, useful stuff here.’
‘Oh, there’s useful stuff here all right,’ came the voice. ‘But it’s not yours. It belongs to us.’
‘To be fair,’ said Blue, ‘it belongs to Promithios, but I take your point. Salvage rights. We get it. But maybe we can just talk?’
‘Come and find us then.’
‘OK …’
Silence. One by one the candles went out. Jackson edged closer to Blue.
‘We don’t know what they are,’ she whispered. ‘We don’t know what any of this is.’
‘If you’re telling me to be careful,’ said Blue, ‘save your breath. I’m always careful.’
‘I mean, like, did you see that thing?’
‘Yeah. It didn’t make much sense, but … Did it look dangerous to you?’
‘There were others. He might have been, like, a trap or something, a decoy, you know, like a lure, like hunters use.’
‘Torches on,’ said Blue. There was still a pale haze coming in through the skylights, high up in the roof, but they were dirty and didn’t let a lot of light in. Without the glow from the candles the place became even murkier. Blue fished out his torch and snapped it on. He heard Achilleus and Ollie and the other Waitrose kids winding theirs up.
‘Where do we go then?’ asked Einstein.
‘Towards the music, I guess,’ said Blue. ‘Stick close together. Ollie, watch our backs. Achilleus, take the right. Jackson, you can have the left. Let’s move.’
58
Mick, where are you when I need you? Blue felt horribly exposed without his friend by his side. At least he was guarding their way out. That was comforting if they needed to make a speedy exit. But Blue hadn’t gone it alone like this for a long time. It was like blundering into a fight without a familiar weapon in your hand. He sent out a silent prayer for Mick to give him some of his strength.
The kids crept forward, eyes scanning the gloom. Trying to see if anything was hiding among the stacks of boxes.
Blue became aware of a movement, something shuffling on the other side of a row of shelves.
What was it …? Impossible to tell.
Somewhere he heard laughter, sounded like a girl; it seemed to skitter away and get lost in the huge space, and then there was a scraping sound off to their left.
‘Anything behind us, Ollie?’ he asked.
‘Nothing.’
It was hard in the half-light to pinpoint exactly where the music was coming from, too many hard surfaces for the sound to reflect off, and as they wove among the shelves it seemed to sometimes get quieter and sometimes louder. Blue listened hard until he was fairly sure he had pinpointed the direction they should be heading. Of course that didn’t mean the things, whatever they were – monsters? – would be there. But it was all he could think of at the moment. He kept expecting that croaky voice to come floating out of the darkness again, shouting ‘Warmer’ and ‘Colder’ like in a child’s game. At last they cleared the end of a row and he saw an open metal staircase leading to a raised platform. There was a lit candle on every step. At the top was what looked like some kind of an office, some four or five metres above the warehouse floor.
‘Do we go up?’ Einstein asked.
‘It’s what they want,’ said Blue.
‘Is it what we want?’
‘Do we have a choice?’
‘Guess not,’ said Einstein.
‘Achilleus, you take point,’ said Blue, almost whispering. ‘We’ll follow on behind.’
‘Sure.’ Achilleus shoved Paddy out of the way. ‘Paddy, dress back, yeah?’
‘I need to stick close to you, I’m your helper. I can fight.’
‘No to all three, soldier. Not right now. I want a proper fighter at my back, not a caddie. We don’t know what’s up there and I don’t want to be worrying about you.’
‘But Achilleus.’
‘Shut it and do what you’re told, you little rat.’
Scowling and muttering, Paddy dropped back and Jackson took his place. Achilleus looked her up and down and nodded his acceptance. The stairs would only take two people safely side by side, and even then they’d be getting in each other’s way if they had to fight. So Achilleus made sure he was in front with clear space around him. He gripped his spear with both hands widely spaced. It wasn’t the best weapon to use in cramped conditions, but it was the best he had.
He started to climb. The stairway had one return halfway up, where it switched back on itself. Achilleus reached that point safely and waited for the others to join him before proceeding. He wasn’t taking any chances.
They clattered on up to the top. The sound of the jazz was much louder here, though it was slightly tinny and distorted. It was a long time since Blue had heard any recorded music. A couple of his mates had played guitars back in Morrisons, but this was different. He’d almost forgotten what proper music sounded like. This was all brass and drums and piano, a driving beat, but something from ancient history. Old and weird to Blue’s ears.
The noise of their feet on the stairs partly drowned the music out and when they got to the top Blue realized it had finished; there was just a weird, repetitive clicking noise. At least nothing had attacked them. There was another candle burning in the office; he could see its flickering glow through the window.
‘A game,’ Ollie had said. And that’s what it felt like. The things, the monsters, the creatures … whatever they were, were playing with them. Blue wanted this over now. Wanted his questions answered. He’d had enough. If there was something nasty waiting for them in the office then he was ready for it. He’d smash it to pieces. He shouldered his way to the front of the group where Achilleus had halted again, pushed past and went on through, three of the others coming in behind him.
There was nothing waiting for them in the office except an old-fashioned record player standing on a desk. It was a wind-up one with a big, shiny brass trumpet thing where the music came out. The sort of record player you saw in old movies. There was a black plastic record turning on it, the heavy needle clicking over and over at the end of the track. Blue went over to it, lifted the needle off and pulled a lever that acted like a brake, stopping the turntable from rotating.
‘They got us where they want us,’ said Jackson. ‘Now what?’
‘It’s up to them now,’ said Blue. ‘I ain’t playing their games no more.’
Ollie came in and lifted the record off the turntable. Read the label.
‘“Take the ‘A’ Train.”’
‘You take it,’ said Blue wearily and Ollie laughed.
‘It’s what the track’s called. Duke Ellington.’
‘If you say so.’ Blue was too strung out to try and get his head round this piece of information. Was the track important? Was it a message? Or was it just …
‘In here.’ A voice called to them from somewhere behind the office, through an open doorway. Blue glanced at Ollie and Jackson. Shrugged. He was the leader. It was up to him to lead. He wasn’t sending Achilleus ahead this time. The ‘monsters’ had had plenty of opportunities to lay traps for them. He set his face hard, raised his spear and started to walk, brushing the door frame with his shoulder as he went past it. Ollie and Jackson followed him.
The
re was a large raised area back there, a platform with a floor made of wooden boards. It extended out above some lower shelving units and had protective railings around the edges. It had something of the feel of a secret den, or a kids’ tree house. A selection of furniture had been dragged up there: armchairs, sofas, rugs, tables, some beds, a sideboard with an empty goldfish bowl on it, a fat, old-fashioned TV set with no workings inside it.
And monsters.
That was the word that had lodged in Blue’s mind. Planted there so firmly by Seamus that he couldn’t get rid of it, even though he could see that the three people up here weren’t technically monsters. They were kids. Like him. Only not like him.
Blue’s team were filtering out on to the deck. Achilleus appeared, eyes wide, mouth open in a sloppy grin.
‘Freak of the week,’ he said.
‘Shut up,’ said Ollie. ‘That’s not funny.’
‘Freak lives.’
‘I said shut up. Can’t you see they’re kids?’
‘Nope.’
It was hard. They obviously were just children. But something had changed them.
There were two boys and a girl. The girl sat in a big, high-backed chair that looked a bit like a throne, and indeed she was wrapped in some sort of robes and had a crown on her head. Although, as Blue looked more closely, he saw that it wasn’t a crown; she had a ring of bony growths on the top of her bald skull, jutting up and stretching the skin. And he saw, too, that she was sitting in a wheelchair, and the ‘throne’ part of it was just painted cardboard, or maybe thin sheets of wood, that had been fixed to the back of it. Her face was slack and expressionless, but her eyes were glittering and intelligent, watchful. The boy standing next to her was only wearing a pair of ragged jeans. His body was huge and bulging with muscle, like something out of a comic book. His muscles, however, had grown in an unbalanced, misshapen way, giving him a lumpy look.
A badly drawn comic book.
Blue used to read a lot of comics. One of his favourites was about an ancient Celtic warrior called Sláine, who went into a warp spasm in battle, so that his whole body distorted. Well, here was the living Sláine, in permanent warp spasm. The boy’s head appeared small in relation to his body, and one eye was unnaturally large, maybe five times the size of his other eye.
The second boy’s head was completely normal, but the rest of him was twisted, as if his skeleton had been broken and remade. His back was in an S shape and his arms and legs were bent. He was sitting on the floor, his knees up round his ears, taking his weight on his arms. He was smiling.
‘You found us then,’ he said.
Found what exactly? Blue didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to stare, but it was hard not to. He fixed on the boy’s eyes – he was a human being after all. But what the hell had happened to him?
‘I hope you’re not planning on attacking us,’ said the boy. ‘But I’ll just warn you.’ He jerked his head at the tall, muscular kid. ‘Him there. The big golem. He’s stronger than Arnie in his prime. He’ll rip you apart. He won’t be scared of your weapons.’
‘That’s tough talk, tiger,’ said Achilleus. ‘Seeing as how you is bare outnumbered.’
‘Oh, there are more of us,’ said the boy on the floor. ‘Hidden about the place. Watching. So … maybe we’ll accept your offer.’
‘What offer?’ said Blue.
‘To put your weapons down.’
‘Wasn’t my offer.’
‘Don’t care whose offer it was,’ said the boy. ‘Why don’t you be nice and show that you come in peace, eh?’
Ollie nudged Blue. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We don’t want a fight.’
Blue didn’t like being told by Ollie what they did and didn’t want. He was still trying to make sense of this weird situation. Maybe they would need to fight. What did Ollie know about these kids? Nothing. Blue stayed rock solid. Weapon in hand.
‘Blue …?’
‘Shut up, Ollie, I’m thinking.’
Ollie backed off. Apart from the Incredible Hulk, these kids didn’t look dangerous. They’d lived this long through the bad times, so they must know what they were doing, though. They must have some sharpened survival skills. The kid on the floor certainly seemed smart. Ollie kept coming back to that one thought. If they’d wanted to attack Blue’s team they could have done it before now. But Blue had lived this long as well, hadn’t he? And he’d done that by making sure he didn’t take any chances.
‘OK, here’s what we’re gonna do,’ he said at last. ‘Ollie, you take everyone else back downstairs and make sure nobody does nothing stupid. Hang on to your weapons, and keep a look-out. I don’t want no more surprises. Jackson, Einstein and Emily, you stay with me. Any weapons you got, lay them down.’
There was some muttering and complaining, but Blue didn’t budge and in a minute it was quiet. There was still tension in the air, wariness from both sides, and Blue could sense the rest of his team were as confused as he was, but the situation was less likely to kick off now. They settled down in armchairs, embarrassed, not knowing where to look. The boy on the floor walked closer to them in a crouch, using his hands. His limbs were loose and awkward; they moved in odd ways almost as if they had extra joints. His head wobbled. His back snaked from side to side.
‘My name’s TV Boy,’ he said, and held out a dirty hand for Blue to shake, the fingers long and bent. Blue didn’t hesitate; he gripped the hand, squeezed it and then gave him the full homie handshake. TV Boy kept up with him and gave it back, finishing with a thumb press.
Blue smiled, introduced his team, and then it was TV Boy’s turn.
‘That’s the Warehouse Queen,’ he said, nodding at the girl, who remained expressionless but watchful. ‘She’s kind of in charge,’ TV Boy went on, ‘but she don’t say much. The boy wonder is Monstar. Half monster, all star. And he will kick your ass inside out if you step out of line.’
‘We ain’t stepping out of line if we can help it,’ said Blue. ‘But I have to tell you I don’t know where the line is right now. No offence and all, but this is bare strange. You gonna have to tell us just what the hell is going down here.’
‘OK,’ said TV Boy. ‘You want to know? We’ll show you.’
59
This is the journal of Lettis Slingsbury. It is quiet now and I can write. Some things have been happening that I need to set down in the record.
My last entry was about the argument we were having about going outside to bury Gabby. I had to stop writing before because the others were distracting me and I never got to the end of the story. The story is still not over, but there is more to tell and while it is quiet again I can carry on with my writing.
I have read my last entry. I am sorry if it is not really good proper writing and too much of it is about me. I liked writing at school, but I’m not a professional obviously.
I was telling how the others were arguing and arguing about who would volunteer to be the first to go outside.
In the end I think it was Daryl who said it (I am trying to remember all this, and the words I am writing that people were saying are not necessarily the actual words they said, they are as close as I can remember and sometimes the right person might not have said the words I said they said, but it’s the best I can do under these difficult circumstances).
So someone, I’ll say it was Daryl because I’m pretty sure it was him – it was his idea at least – said it didn’t need to be just one person going outside, that was stupid. Lots of us should go, then it would be safer. If anyone was definitely going to go, outside, which I still didn’t think was a good idea, then at least it was sensible if they didn’t go alone. We talked about it and thought that maybe half of us should all go out together and see what was in the sheds and find tools and quickly dig the hole, all working together to do it quickly. The other half would stay behind and make it safe in the church, and sort of guard the doors from attack and look after Caspar.
So they asked for volunteers. But still nobody said t
hey would go outside and there was another long argument. And in the end Jasmine lost it big time and started sort of screaming that it was horrible being in here with a dead body and that even if they didn’t find any tools or even look in the sheds they should take the body outside. It didn’t seem like a very Christian thing to say, but she was just scared and freaked out I suppose. I thought this was maybe a stupid idea, to leave a body outside, because sickos might not be able to smell it if we kept the corpse inside, but if we took it outside they would definitely smell it and come from miles around, like a pack of hungry wolves. But I didn’t say anything because I could see that Jasmine was very upset and all crying and everything.
‘Will you go outside then?’ said Reece. ‘As it was your idea.’
Jasmine said she would, and she said come on, are none of you as brave as me? Come on, we spent all day yesterday outside! I’ll go outside by myself if that’s what you want. And more of that sort of thing.
I’ve always liked Jasmine, she is one of my friends, but she has always been quite moody and when she gets cross she gets really cross, and goes red in the face, all shouting and crying, and it can be a bit scary, but it had the desired effect. Lots of children now said they would go outside and didn’t want to be thought of as cowards.
In fact it was almost quite funny, because there were too many now. We didn’t want everyone outside and risk being attacked out there with no one to guard the church, so there was more arguing. The thing was, all the tougher kids who usually stop the arguments and tell people to shut up and what to do were all on the search party, so nobody was really in charge. It was like trying to organize a game when everyone’s arguing about the rules and what teams you’re on. And it was quite boring. I went away and sat on a pew (a church bench) with two of my friends who joined me (this was Aiyshah and Scott). I didn’t think I needed to watch the argument and observe what they were all saying because they were just going round and round in circles like a dog chasing its tail. After a while, luckily, the others sorted it out to their satisfaction and got ready to go outside.
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