A car had driven into the side of the tube station, creating a gaping hole in the big steel shutters. A skeleton sat at the wheel. You never normally saw skeletons anywhere.

Sam ducked in and clambered over the ticket gates. He fumbled in his pocket for the torch he’d picked up at Waitrose. Pumped the handle and flicked the switch. He scribbled the blue-white beam over the walls. There was only one thing for it; he would have to go down towards the platforms. A shriek outside spurred him on and in a few seconds he was rushing down the unmoving escalator two steps at a time, his torch beam zigzagging wildly, showing flashes of torn posters for holidays and televisions and shops and other useless things.

It was a mess at the bottom. Fallen bricks, tangles of wires, pools of yellow water… a dead body crawling with maggots. There had been a fire here recently and he could smell smoke.

The grown-ups were still following him. They were on the escalator. Their noisy progress echoing off the tiled walls. Grunts and heavy breathing and clumsy feet. Sam looked quickly to right and left and chose right.

He ran on through the passenger tunnels until he reached a platform. He quickly shone his beam along the rusting tracks. There was water and rubbish lying between the rails. He jumped down, pressed himself against the wall below the platform and switched off his torch.

It was utterly dark. A darkness like he had never known before the disaster. There was no source of light anywhere. No winking safety bulbs. No glow of electrics. The world had ceased to exist. Sam suddenly became aware of his other senses. First the cuts and scrapes on his bruised body, then the sleepers and a metal bolt digging into his side. Next came the smell of dust and oil and damp and decay pressing into his nose. Then his hearing. Nearby some dripping water, and a small animal moving about, a mouse or rat. Further away, but moving closer, the grown-ups. He could sense that they were unsure in the dark. Their footsteps uneven. There was a cough, a sneeze, chattering teeth. Long fingernails scraping on the tiles as they felt their way along.

He prayed that they would give up and return to the light. He was too small to bother with. They couldn’t hope to find him.

Go away. Go away. Go away.

They arrived at the platform and one came close. Sam could hear it sniffing and smell its foul stink, like a blocked toilet. There was a rustle of clothing as it knelt down, and then it began to run its fingers along the edge of the platform. The dry skin sounded like paper.

Go away… Please go away.

Another one. He heard it flop on to the rails and begin to work its way towards him.

How quickly would they give up?

Could he risk trying to make a run for it or was it safer to stay here?

If he ran he’d have to put the torch on and that would tell the grown-ups where he was.

Then the one above him slithered over the wall, almost landing on him. He heard its feet slop into a puddle.

There were two of them down here on the tracks now, moving about. It would only be a matter of time before others followed. They knew he was here. They would feel about in the darkness for him. Eventually they would find him.

Sam’s heart was racing, his whole body shaking. They would sense it. He was biting his shirt to stop from crying out in fear. It was no good. He couldn’t stand it any longer. He pointed his torch towards where he thought the nearest one of them was and snapped the beam on for half a second.

It caught the grown-up full in the face; it gasped and put its hands up to cover its eyes, but not before Sam had got a good look at it. A father, his nose split almost in two, showing a nasty black hole in the gap. His lower jaw hanging loose. Sam quickly skimmed the beam both ways along the tracks, just long enough to get his bearings. Then he rolled over and dropped down into the gutter that ran along between the rails. There were about eight centimetres of water in the gutter. Sam hobbled along, somewhere between a crouch and a crawl. Moving as fast as he dared in the dark towards one of the railway tunnels. His hands on the rails on either side. Behind him the grown-ups followed, grunting and panting. He had spotted at least six of them when his torch had been lit.

He gave another quick squirt of light. Just in time. Another second and he would have run into the end of the gutter. He clambered up and into the tunnel. It would be harder going now. He had to make his way over the sleepers without slipping. It was the same for the grown-ups, but they would be able to follow him by the noise he was making.

He stumbled on, every few seconds lighting the way ahead. The tunnel split into two and he made a quick decision, taking the left-hand branch. A little further along he came to a stopped train. It fitted too tightly in the tunnel for him to squeeze past so he would have to go underneath.

He dropped on to his belly and crawled under the front of the train, wriggling like a worm. It was hard work and difficult to move without making a noise. Were the grownups still following? He shone the torch back. There were three of them there, peering under the carriage, their eyes bulging red and swollen, their tongues lolling. One of them flopped down and started to slither his way forward.

Sam switched off the torch.

Blackness again.

He crawled on. His knees stinging. The sound of his followers too close behind.

The one in front worked his way nearer and nearer, his rancid breath coming in short rasping gasps. He got hold of Sam’s ankle. Sam kicked out and kept kicking. He felt something break like a twig and he hoped it was at least a finger. No matter how hard he kicked it, though, the grown-up wouldn’t let go. It was then that Sam remembered the butterfly pin. He had it stuck through a fold of cloth on the front of his sweatshirt. He pulled it loose, curled back round and struck – jab, jab, jab, jab, jab – right where he thought the grown-up’s face would be. It was like poking a watermelon. There was a shriek and the grown-up let go and thrashed about like a wounded animal.

That might hold the others up. Sam crawled on. He risked another burst of light. The bottom of the train seemed to stretch away forever ahead of him, but off to one side was a dark hole in the tunnel wall. Maybe a way out?

He stuffed the torch back into his pocket, lay flat and, making as little noise as he could, moved slowly sideways over the rail, past the wheels of the train where there was a gap between two carriages. He couldn’t risk the torch. It would show the grown-ups where he was. So he ran his hands over the wall until he found the opening and ducked into it. He heard the grown-ups move past him, still under the train. It wouldn’t take them long to realize he wasn’t ahead of them any more, but would they be able to find this hiding-place? Sam backed deeper into the hole; the ground sloped downwards into shallow water. He soon came to a solid wall. Once more he used his hands to get the shape of his surroundings and he discovered that he was at the bottom of a shaft of some sort. It was open above his head and, what’s more, there were metal rungs fixed to the wall. He hauled himself up and climbed into the darkness.

21

‘I didn’t know. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know… We couldn’t tell…’

Arran was lying where he had fallen, surrounded by dead grown-ups, and Maxie, Blue and a stunned circle of the rest of the Holloway kids. The girl was kneeling by him, her hand pressed to his chest where the steel shaft of the arrow stuck out. Her bow was lying next to his body.