‘Grown-ups.’

‘But you said –’

‘It doesn’t matter what I said,’ Arran snapped.

As Arran raked the beam across the ground another figure appeared. It was a boy of about fourteen, dressed in a patchwork of colourful rags and mismatched cloth, with an old leather satchel over one shoulder.

‘Let me in!’

‘Don’t let him in! Don’t let him in!’

A group of grown-ups ran at the boy and he disappeared from view. Arran desperately tried to catch him in the beam.

More kids were crowding on to the balcony, trying to see what was happening. Panicked. Shouting and screaming.

‘Arran, what do we do?’

‘Who is he?’

‘Are they attacking us?’

‘Can you see anything?’

Arran couldn’t think straight. They had fallen into a trap earlier. He wasn’t going to let it happen again. He had to make the right decision. But his head was throbbing and the noise in his ears…

‘Shut up!’ he roared. ‘All of you be quiet!’

There was silence.

Arran gave the torch to Maeve who had pushed through the jostling kids to be at his side.

‘Keep this trained on the road,’ he said.

‘What are you…?’

But Arran was already going.

He found Callum inside the canteen.

‘Get on the roof,’ he said, giving orders on the move. ‘I need some decent light out there, throw down some burning torches. And stay up where you can see what’s happening. I need you to be my eyes!’

They could just hear a thin pitiful scream from outside. The ragged boy.

‘Please. Help me!’

‘Let him in,’ Maxie yelled, running over to Arran. ‘He’s a kid.’

‘No, no, it’s not safe,’ shouted Callum. ‘We don’t let anyone in. This is our place.’

‘He’ll be killed – he’s just a kid.’

A wave of sickness hit Arran. He held his head in his hands, closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He kept seeing that other face – the mother from the pool. He rubbed his temples.

‘Arran…?’ It was Callum, tugging at his elbow.

Arran exploded.

‘I thought I told you to get up on the roof!’

‘Yes, but –’

‘Get up there now! I’m going out. If it gets bad, use a bomb.’

‘A bomb? They’re for emergencies.’

‘And what does this look like to you?’

‘OK, OK.’

Callum turned and ran off.

‘Ollie?’ Arran called out. ‘Where’s Ollie?’

‘Here.’

‘Clear the balcony and get out there with your sling – take anyone else who’s a halfway decent shot. I need covering fire.’

‘OK.’

‘Achilleus?’

‘Here.’

‘Get a war party together – our five best fighters – and get some weapons. Maxie, I need a back-up team. Anyone else who can fight. Bernie and Ben on the doors.’

‘No way, Arran,’ said Ben. ‘You can’t open them. You don’t know how many grown-ups are on the street. If they get inside…’

‘If I say we open them, we open them. There’s a kid out there.’

‘You can’t let him in. We don’t know who he is. What if we lose more of our own?’

‘Every kid in London is one of our own, Ben. OK? Now stop questioning me.’

‘Sorry.’

Arran strode across the canteen, now crowded with little kids. They moved around in a frightened pack, like a flock of chicks. As Arran and the other fighters moved through them they hurried to get out of the way, shrieking.

‘For God’s sake, somebody get this lot to the storage room,’ Arran shouted. The storage room was the safest place in the supermarket, and it was where most of the kids slept.

Arran took a side staircase that came out near the main entrance.

Bernie and Ben were waiting to wind up the steel shutters.

Arran nodded to them and went over to the weapons rack. Achilleus was already there with five others, including Josh, their eyes glinting in the half-light.

There was a bang from the front of the shop. A cracking sound. Arran grabbed his club and went over to the windows. He pulled aside a steel shelving unit that had been jammed up against them for safety. At first it was too dark to see anything through the filth and grime. He leant forward, pressing his face against the cool glass. Suddenly he jumped back as a body flung itself at the window with a loud thud.

It was a grown-up. A father. Arran watched as he smeared his ruined face along the glass, like some grotesque child’s prank. It left a long snail’s trail of pus and snot and saliva as it carried on to the side and downwards before flopping to the ground. It looked dead.

The windows were made of reinforced glass, but if someone really wanted to they could probably break their way through.

Achilleus had followed Arran over.

‘You really going out there, man?’

‘Yes.’

‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’

Arran looked at Achilleus, but said nothing.

When he got back to the entrance the shutters were nearly up and Maxie was speaking to Callum on the roof through the speaking tube. Arran pushed her aside and barked into the mouthpiece.

‘Have you thrown down the torches yet, Callum?’

‘Just lighting them now.’

‘Can you see anything at all?’

‘Hard to make out what’s going on. There’s a whole bunch of grown-ups. Some are attacking the shop, the rest seem to be attacking a kid. He keeps getting away from them. He’s running around like a nutter. Don’t know how much longer he can hold on.’

‘How many grown-ups?’

‘Can’t tell. They don’t seem very organized.’

‘Is the kid armed?’

‘Don’t think so. Wait, they’ve got him. He’s surrounded.’

Arran swore and ducked under the shutter into the mall.

What they called the mall was little more than a covered walkway that ran down the side of the shop from the street at the front to the car park at the rear. Arran looked quickly in both directions. Apart from a couple of dead palm trees in pots, it was empty.

‘Clear!’ he yelled and Achilleus brought the others out behind him.

‘Bernie and Ben! We need the street doors open.’

The emos came out. They weren’t fighters, they were engineers. They both looked terrified.

‘Can’t you open the barricade?’ said Bernie, her eyes darting about anxiously.

‘No,’ said Arran. ‘We need all the fighters ready for action. Now hurry.’

‘But there’s grown-ups out there.’

‘We’ll kill them if we have to,’ said Arran.

‘Yeah, you wimps,’ scoffed Josh. ‘They don’t scare me. I can’t wait to get out there. It’s gonna be a massacre.’

‘It’s too risky,’ said Bernie.

‘Whoever that kid is, he’s in trouble,’ said Arran.

‘What if he’s one of them?’ said Ben. ‘What if it’s a trap?’

‘Then we’ll kill him as well.’

There was movement from the shop as Maxie brought her back-up squad out. They had longer defensive pikes designed to keep attackers at bay.

‘You stay back here,’ said Arran. ‘Defend the mall. If anyone gets past us you’ll need to stop them getting inside.’

‘You sure about this?’

Arran tried not to sound too angry.

‘Yes,’ he lied.

Then Freak appeared, looking pale-faced and wild-eyed. He was holding a short spear.

‘I’m coming with you,’ he said.

Nobody argued.

Bernie and Ben reluctantly moved over to the barricade and prepared to pull it back. They had rigged a system of two great gates on wheels made from bits of metal they had laboriously cut up and bolted together by hand. The metal was mostly from old cars.

They undid the padlock, pulled the chains loose and slid the heavy iron bars aside. They then slowly rolled back the gates with a terrific squealing of metal against metal.

As soon as the gap was wide enough Arran hurled himself through. A startled grown-up was standing nearby. Arran clubbed it on the head and it hit the pavement with a crunch.

Next out was Freak, itching for a fight, with the others behind him.

‘Come on,’ said Achilleus and his fighters fanned out in the road. With Arran and Freak at the front they marched over to where at least twenty grown-ups had formed into a crude circle.