The Uninvited

by Liz Jensen

  I’ll wait for you.

  And that’s what I do. It’s intriguing to see them like this, in their feral state. An older boy and a younger girl in grubby goggles seem to be the ringleaders. They’re grouped in a car park next to a parade of closed shops. It’s a no man’s land. They don’t seem to have any particular focus, until almost idly, one of them picks a loose brick off the low wall of the Sainsbury’s Local car park and hurls it at the window of the store. The glass fractures, but doesn’t break. Apparently energised by his action, the kids begin loosening more bricks and joining in. Before long, they’ve smashed a hole large enough to get through, and they’re pouring inside. Freddy’s still with them, and as I lose sight of him my anxiety mounts: might there be a back door they’ll all escape through, and disappear? But a minute later they start emerging, clutching tins of food. An argument starts up, with shouts, violent elbowing, shoving and snatching. I’m too far off to catch the words, if there are any. More kids come out of the shop, weighed down with consumables, some bleeding from glass cuts. Several are clad in new eyewear, the price-tags still attached. Freddy, clutching a tin in each hand, seems completely at home among them, as if this were just an extension of life at the Unit. Then, for no obvious reason, the squabbling tails off. One of the kids must have some chalk, because he starts drawing the burst eye on the end wall of a row of terraced houses, in white. A group of ten or so makes encouraging noises while passing round a bottle of ketchup. In turn, they upend the bottle into their palms and smear the paste on their hands before stamping their prints on the wall. Then they lick their fingers and punch the sky with their fists, clicking and hooting. A baying cheer goes up across the whole group.

  Where is Flynn?

  The sky is darkening. I remember that the forecast was for rain.

  As soon as he comes, we must both rush in and grab Freddy. We may have to fight the others off, but they’re small, and we’re stronger. It will be a kidnap operation. He’ll resist. I have no doubt of that.

  I’m flow-charting the repercussions of this when it happens.

  I don’t have time to think.

  Or move.

  They come up from behind, silent. One grabs my wrist with a small hand. I swing round and face them: it’s a new group, comprising ten or so kids. Then there’s a squeal and suddenly the group I’ve been watching is rushing in towards me too. It’s a pincer movement. Then they’re all over me, pummelling as high as they can reach. I’m still trying to fight them off when I lose my balance and crash backwards down the slope. I take advantage of the momentum and roll at speed. This buys me some time, but when I stop I’m disoriented and my skin is buzzing with nettle stings. When I get my bearings I spot Freddy, at the front of a whole swarm of them beating down through the weeds towards me. His eyes are gleaming with a new light.

  I don’t know what his intentions are, but when he throws himself at me in a monkey leap, I know what to do. Grabbing him tight, I hurl us both further down the slope of the railway siding in a chaotic, desperate tumble. He’s kicking and pummelling at me with his fists, but this time I’m not letting go. The others are closing in, hooting and clicking, when from the corner of my eye I spot Flynn and Ashok racing up the track, with Naomi following behind. Suddenly, Freddy gives a spasm, then flops like a rag doll, as if the breath has been shoved out of him. Rushing up, Flynn grabs him and hauls him off me. Then, handing him to Ashok, he rugby-tackles a boy with a stick who has launched himself at us like a missile. Just then, something hits me hard on the back of the neck. I fight the dizziness, but fail. I’m falling and I need to vomit. Bright lights bombard me.

  Then the world shrinks to a pinprick and goes black.

  When I wake up, I’m in the fragmenting relics of a dream about CERN. I am working there, looking after the ghostly sub-atomic particles known as neutrinos. They resemble airborne amoeba and my job is to feed them and ensure they stay in their cages. Far from travelling faster than the speed of light, as in the famous experiments, they move in sluggish slow motion. It’s not clear why they can’t just float through the bars and away. I find my role as their keeper stressful.

  It takes some time before I realise I’m upstairs in the bed I once shared with Kaitlin. A woman is with me. But it’s not Kaitlin Kalifakidis because Kaitlin Kalifakidis is dead. I don’t know why I don’t recognise her immediately. Perhaps because she’s still in her funeral outfit.

  She is beautiful.

  ‘Hello Hesketh,’ she says.

  ‘I dreamed about particle physics.’

  She laughs. ‘I’d expect nothing less. We brought you back to Fulham. It seemed like the best idea. You need to rest up for a few days.’

  ‘Did I lose him?’ It hurts to speak. I must have cut my lip.

  ‘No. He’s here. Asleep in his room.’ I’m aching all over. My ribs hurt. ‘I’ve had a look at you. You probably have a cracked rib. Then there are a few flesh wounds and a lot of bruising.’

  I am stark naked under the sheet. Realising this, I get an immediate erection which forms a little tent. I don’t bother trying to hide it.

  ‘I want to kiss you,’ I say.

  Naomi smiles. ‘That would be impractical. You haven’t seen what your mouth looks like. You were lucky. They could have killed you.’

  I reach out and take her hand. She doesn’t pull away. Instead, she pats my arm with her free hand. I don’t know how to interpret this. It’s a gesture my mother might have made. But one gesture can lead to another. I’m about to experiment by bringing my other hand into the equation, and reaching for her face, when the door opens.

  ‘My God, boy. You look terrible,’ says a familiar voice. My erection vanishes as suddenly as it came. Naomi and I disengage as Professor Whybray approaches the bed. He takes my chin in his hand and looks into my eyes searchingly. ‘Are you back in the land of the living?’ I nod. ‘Well thank God you’re safe, boy. I came as soon as I could.’

  I say, ‘My apologies concerning the loss and possible destruction of your jacket.’

  He waves his hand dismissively. ‘You had a close shave.’ He pauses. ‘I caught the news on the way here. They found a dead child in the Forest of Dean. Butchered. Quite expertly it seems. The internal organs were missing. And so were the fingers. There was evidence that some parts of the body had been consumed.’

  I sit up in bed, painfully. Naomi adjusts the pillows behind my head.

  My mouth hurts when I speak. ‘Out there, I saw a kid – he had that necklace. It’s made of—’ I can’t continue. Something is stopping me. A blockage. I frown and clear my throat. ‘It fits with the older kids expecting the younger ones to be their slaves. The idea of honour. And ikenie.’

  ‘If this was a dismemberment,’ says Professor Whybray quietly, ‘it makes it harder to argue against rounding the children up and treating them with drugs. I feared something of this nature. I should perhaps have articulated it. But I couldn’t bring myself to, er . . .’ He stops. When he speaks again, his voice cracks. ‘I couldn’t bring myself to find an appropriate term.’

  He still can’t. But I can. Ancient and primitive tribes were never my main field of study, but I have read the central texts. And so has he.

  The term is ritual cannibalism.

  ‘Let’s see the news,’ murmurs Naomi, switching on the small TV set that stands on the chest of drawers. Kaitlin and I used to lie here watching Newsnight. She flicks through the channels until she finds the BBC.

  ‘In Britain, the Home Office is stepping up work on the conversion of the O2 building into a holding centre for child terrorists in the southeast. Other cities are working on similar conversions in the wake of the startling new evidence of physical mutation. Medical findings just released indicate the pre-teen attackers share an unexplained anomaly of the kidneys. This has prompted urgent new discussions in governments worldwide about the best way to handle the escalating crisis.’

  ‘My God,’ the professor chokes. ‘They went public with it!’ He bangs his f
ist on my bed with surprising force. I wince in pain. ‘They’ve hijacked our work! I’d never have approved this, never.’

  My heart starts banging. I am getting overloaded. I fold a mental ozuru.

  ‘This will appeal to the worst in everyone,’ says Naomi. ‘They’re sub-human. Evil. That’s the message!’

  ‘Hell,’ storms Professor Whybray. ‘Why does ignorance have to be so much more damned powerful than knowledge?’

  I finish my ozuru. ‘Because it’s more dynamic,’ I tell him. ‘That’s how it fills empty spaces faster. That’s how it comes up with theories that knowledge can’t.’

  Freddy K, Freddy K, Freddy K.

  ‘You know what’ll happen when they get them into those facilities,’ says Naomi, her face flushing red.

  Professor Whybray looks as broken and miserable as he did the day Helena died. ‘I fear the worst. It’s an old story,’ he says. ‘But it’s one I never thought we’d hear again. They’re freaks now. It’s official. They can do anything to them. Anything.’

  I fold another ozuru in my head. A huge and beautiful one, in red.

  I can’t let ‘anything’ happen to Freddy K.

  And I won’t.

  From now on, he’s staying by my side.

  CHAPTER 15

  The next morning I wake in tremendous pain. It’s Thursday 4th October. The forecast is for a high of thirteen degrees and a low of four. Naomi urged me to stay at home for the next couple of days: she could easily arrange for Miranda to ferry Freddy to Battersea. But I want to see her. I want to experiment with holding her hand again. I also need to get Professor Whybray’s advice.

  Freddy is in a truculent mood. He won’t discuss the events of yesterday. When I suggest we stay at home for a while and work on the Lego model he thrusts out his lower lip.

  ‘I want to go to Battersea.’

  I do too.

  It’s eight minutes past eleven by the time we get in the car.

  Despite the grey sky, Freddy insists on wearing his small sunglasses. Out of habit, I consider the structure of the clouds on the horizon.

  ‘Cauliflower,’ says the boy, out of the blue. Cauliflower is his version of ‘cumulus’. ‘And look over there,’ he says, pointing upward. ‘That’s lasagne.’ He means stratus. Because of this sudden and unprompted return to the normal Freddy, I’m smiling when I turn the corner into the Unit’s access road.

  But when I see the ambulance, my smile dies. There are also two police cars and an army jeep. A cluster of soldiers stands at the facility’s entrance: one of them spots me and waves me away, indicating the diversion sign. Quickly, I reverse out, find a side road, and park. I don’t think the soldier registered Freddy, but I’m not taking any chances. I tell the boy to lie down on the floor in the narrow space under the back seat. Now. Thankfully, his reaction is of instant alarm. He whips off his seatbelt and scrambles to the floor. I unhook the DVD player from the back of the seat, and hand it to him.

  ‘Here. You stay lying down, and watch this.’ I cover him with the blanket Kaitlin kept for picnics. ‘Put your head right under. It’s nice and dark. You have to stay hidden. Wait here like this till I get back. Don’t move. If you do, they’ll see you and they’ll take you away. You won’t like that. If you stay here I’ll keep you safe. I promise.’ I’m struggling to keep my voice level. ‘Just watch the DVD, OK? I’ll be back before the end of this episode. But if I’m not, keep watching. And if I’m still not back, just go to sleep.’

  I hear a muffled ‘OK.’ He sounds scared. Good. He should be. Fear will keep him safe.

  I lock Freddy in the car and walk around to the side entrance where there’s another soldier on guard. I show him my pass. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘There was an incident here a couple of hours ago. Whole load of creatures escaped. We’ve got search parties out now; they can’t have gone far. And no one’s going to mistake them in that uniform.’

  ‘Are you saying all of the children are gone?’ He nods.

  ‘None’s left in there. As far as we know.’

  ‘What about the staff?’

  ‘They’re taking the injured ones to hospital now. The rest are at the police station giving evidence.’

  ‘How can so many children have escaped? This is a closed facility.’

  ‘Sabotage I’m afraid, sir. Looks like one of your colleagues deactivated the door codes.’

  I think fast. ‘I came to pick up some documents. A report for the Home Secretary. She’s expecting it today. I need to get in.’

  He shrugs. ‘The danger’s past, but it’s not charming in there, I’m warning you mate. It’s a crime scene, so don’t remove or touch anything.’

  He waves me in. I want to run, but I force myself to walk. I take the thirty-six stairs two at a time. The place is deserted. No milling kids, no clucking or hooting or humming, no bright uniforms: just the hollow feel of a place suddenly and inexplicably deserted. I think of bees and Marie Celeste syndrome. The corridor leading to Professor Whybray’s office has been cordoned off. Some soldiers are standing there, blocking my view.

  ‘And you are, sir?’ asks one of them as I approach.

  ‘Authorised staff,’ I say, brandishing my ID.

  ‘Good,’ she says briskly. ‘You can identify your colleague for us, then.’

  She signals to the others to step back. When they move to the edges of the corridor I see that there’s a body on the floor, face down.

  It is male and it belongs to someone tall. I am totally unprepared for this. I put my hand against the wall to steady myself. I recognise the high-quality leather shoes. The white hair. I start to rock.

  ‘We’ll turn him over for you, sir. Are you ready?’ Two soldiers reach down.

  No. I will never be ready. They roll him over gently. His shirt is wet with fresh blood. His eyes are open. The left one has been horribly damaged. There is blood under his nose and his mouth is crusted with vomit. The skin that is not red or purple – on his neck and his left hand – is papery and translucent white.

  ‘Is he dead?’ I don’t know why I ask. I know the answer. I rock harder.

  ‘Bit of a shock for you, sir,’ says the female soldier. ‘I’m sorry.’

  I rock some more. ‘It’s OK. I don’t feel anything. Maybe I will later.’

  Or maybe I am a robot made of meat. Perhaps if I am, that is a good way to be, because it enables me to think and act rationally. I run a mental flow chart. It tells me to get hold of the professor’s notebook and then find Naomi.

  ‘How did he die?’ I ask. It’s important to know the facts.

  ‘Trampled by the look of it,’ says a man in a white suit and a face mask. ‘They probably attacked him in a gang. Jumped up and down on him. Not difficult. He was elderly. Crushed out the life.’

  Crushed out the life. He was seventy-three years and five months old. Young, in today’s world. He might have lived to a hundred.

  ‘Where’s Naomi Benjamin? I need to talk to her.’

  ‘She’s at the police station.’

  ‘Is she under suspicion?’

  She shrugs. ‘Can’t say, sir. They’re all being questioned.’

  Professor Whybray is dead, Professor Whybray is dead, Professor Whybray is dead, I say to myself over and over as I head for his office. I find his notebook in his briefcase and pocket it. I can’t risk taking anything else. Professor Whybray is dead, Professor Whybray is dead, Professor Whybray is dead. It doesn’t help. It doesn’t feel real. Another person would feel something. They might cry. Instead, I think about the escaped children. They’ll catch some. But others will evade them. They’ll live wild in forests and on beaches and in holes. They’ll raid shops for tins, dig for bugs, mill about in their cochineal uniforms until they get discarded or fall apart and they are stinking and dressed in rags and eating insects. Killing, dismembering and devouring each other and making little hand-prints in human blood.

  Freddy is asleep on the floor of the car. The Dry World DVD is still
running. I don’t bother waking him, but drive straight to the police station. If she isn’t there, I’ll go to the hospital. That is my strategy. It’s the only one I can think of. I park and lock Freddy in. It’s a risk. There is a 40 to 60 per cent chance that he’ll wake up and panic. But I have no choice.

  ‘I’m looking for Naomi Benjamin, from Battersea Care Unit. I gather she’s here.’ The policewoman at the reception desk scrolls through a file on the computer. I see Naomi’s name before she does. I also register the context.

  Charge: sabotage.

  Can Naomi really have deactivated the door codes and let the children loose? If she succumbed to whatever madness overcame Sunny and Jonas and Farooq and de Vries, then maybe the answer to that question is yes. But it’s none the less unthinkable. Or could it be that she feared what would happen to them if they stayed? I need to know.

  The policewoman asks, ‘Are you her lawyer?’

  I’m not cut out for deception. But there aren’t many options. I select the best. I point to the folder I’m carrying. ‘I need to speak to her right away.’

  ‘Interview room’s second door on the right.’

  I try not to run there. I am a lawyer now. Lawyers don’t run. Not in the course of duty. It’s mostly a desk job.

  The door has a small reinforced window through which I can see the back of Naomi’s head. She’s sitting in a chair opposite a female police officer who is writing notes. I knock. The WPC looks up. She is freckle-faced and fair-haired and young. She can’t be more than twenty. She says, ‘Come in’.

  I enter and wave the folder. ‘I’m representing Naomi Benjamin.’

  ‘Well I hope you can get some sense out of her,’ sighs the young policewoman, getting to her feet. ‘She’s not exactly co-operating.’

  Naomi hasn’t turned. She is sitting very rigidly. There is something odd about her posture.