‘No such luck,’ said Marco, who’d been keeping a lookout at the corner. ‘Here they come!’

The kids dropped into a defensive huddle, DogNut, Marco, Felix and Al at the front with Courtney, Olivia, Finn and Jessica behind them. Olivia was whimpering. Jessica put an arm round her and tried to comfort her, but it only seemed to make the little girl wail louder, her thin piercing voice bouncing off the high walls of the alley.

DogNut turned round and told her rather too harshly to shut up.

They waited in silence now, breathing hard, tensed, weapons held out in front of them, watching as the group of sickos came down the alleyway towards them.

Courtney tried to stop her short spear shaking in her hands. She didn’t want DogNut to know just how terrified she was. There was a hotness spreading down her thighs beneath her jeans where she’d wet herself. All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball on the floor. But she told herself that she had to stand there. Stand and fight.

As the sickos drew nearer, she was able to get a good look at them. They were young, mostly in their twenties, she reckoned, and for sickos they were fit. Lean and toned and tough-looking. They mostly wore sports gear – tracksuit bottoms or shorts, tight vests and T-shirts – some were half naked, displaying taut, well-defined muscles. They looked for all the world as if they’d just come from the gym. One appeared to have iPod headphones stuck in his ears; another wore a sweat band round his head. Most had the usual covering of boils and sores, but one or two of them looked completely untouched by disease.

They weren’t human any more, though.

It was their eyes that gave them away. They were dead, like sharks’ eyes.

No, they weren’t human. They were animals, intent on one thing and one thing only: catching and eating their prey.

They were also better organized than most sickos. There was a young mother at the front who was acting as their leader. She was bolder than the others, who seemed to be following her lead. She wore jogging pants and had her hair pulled into a crude ponytail. She also appeared to be wearing make-up. It was smeared over her face in a complete mess of eyeshadow and lipstick and pink blusher. Like a little girl who’d been at her mum’s cosmetics.

DogNut didn’t take his eyes off her. He gripped his sword tight with both hands. It was a civil war Roundhead sword, heavy and strong enough to split a skull. He had a breastplate protecting his torso and wore heavy leather gauntlets. He wished he’d brought a shield along with him, but he hadn’t wanted to be too weighed down. Sickos didn’t carry weapons. It was their teeth you had to watch out for. Any small cut could get infected.

The biggest danger was getting bottled up like this. If there were enough sickos, they could get in past the kids’ weapons and DogNut and his crew would be swamped. No, what was the word Courtney had used?

Overwhelmed.

‘Come on,’ he growled quietly, trying to think of a plan.

If he could take down the mother, maybe the others would back off. If he made an attack now, while they didn’t expect it, if he took the fight to them, he might just be able to finish it before it got going.

He yelled and ran at the mother, sword sweeping down from over his head. But he’d waited too long; she was ready for him. She shrank back to the safety of the other sickos. DogNut’s stroke swished harmlessly down through thin air and he couldn’t risk advancing into their ranks. There must have been at least twenty sickos crammed in here.

He lifted his sword again and bellowed a war cry. The lead mother tilted her head to one side, watching him like a bird. The father with headphones nodded and opened his mouth to let out a strangled yowl.

And then they attacked. Hurling themselves at the kids.

DogNut and the boat crew were used to fighting, and the sickos were unarmed so their first wave was easily thrown back. There was the sound of metal striking bone, hacking flesh, and then a skeletal mother lay dead at DogNut’s feet; a father was crawling away, bleeding heavily from a spear cut to his shoulder; a young mother in a bright yellow tracksuit had lost the fingers from one hand and she was shaking it in confusion, watching the blood as it sprayed up the sides of the alleyway.

So far none of the kids were hurt.

DogNut allowed himself to believe for a moment that perhaps their chances of survival weren’t as low as he’d feared.

He didn’t have long to enjoy the feeling as the bravest of the sickos came forward again: four fathers with bare torsos and grubby shorts. DogNut could see the sweat lying thick on their skin, saliva drooling from their mouths, the whites of their watery eyes mottled red and yellow and brown. They came in a pack, fast and hard. It wasn’t so easy to knock them back this time. In the cramped alleyway DogNut couldn’t get a good swing and was scared of hurting one of his friends with his sword. He spotted Al lashing out with his mace, repeatedly battering one of the sickos who wouldn’t give up. Courtney and Felix were hemmed in, stabbing and shoving. Then Marco’s spear was knocked flying and he quickly drew a long knife from his belt, but the lead mother had been waiting behind the four fathers and she darted out and clawed at his wrist with long fingernails. Marco yelped in agony and tried to stab the mother. Somehow, though, she wrenched the knife from his grasp and was just about to bite his forearm when Al hit her from behind with his mace. She spun round with a snarl of fury but, before she could go for Al, Finn punched her hard in the side of the neck with his good hand. At last she retreated with the second wave of sickos.

All except for one short father who lay still on the ground next to the dead mother.

Two down, eighteen to go.

And now the lead mother was armed. She raised Marco’s knife above her head. DogNut felt his heart sink and his energy drain away. Sickos didn’t usually know how to use weapons, but this mother must have been smarter than the others. And if she was smarter then she was more dangerous. It was now more important than ever to take her out. Easier said than done. She was protected by the knot of fathers around her.

She tipped her head back, shook the knife and let out a long high-pitched wailing scream. The other sickos joined in, hissing and gurgling, the less diseased managing a sort of sick animal whine.

The sight of the mother waving the knife seemed to give them courage and they massed for another attack. Normal human beings would have been too scared of the kids’ weapons. Sickos were stupid, though. No matter how many of them died the rest would keep on coming if they were hungry enough.

Marco straightened his German helmet. He’d managed to pick up his spear, but his face was twisted in pain. The mother had wrenched his arm and holding the weapon was obviously difficult for him. Felix had taken a knock to the head. His left ear was bleeding badly. The spear in Courtney’s hands was shaking, its bloodied tip drawing a crazy zigzag in the air. Olivia was whimpering again. The sound was dispiriting, but DogNut didn’t have the strength to tell her to be quiet.

He tried to focus all his concentration on the sickos. Tried to anticipate their attack. Pick his targets.

He knew, though, that if the sickos attacked with enough force, and threw as many bodies into the assault as they could, the small group of kids wouldn’t stand a chance.

He swore. The sickos moaned, shuffled forward, twitching and dribbling …

‘Come on,’ DogNut muttered. ‘Come on, you butters freaks, come and get some …’

And then there was no more time to think. A great press of bodies surged down the alleyway. DogNut slashed once, cut a father’s head half off his shoulders then found himself squashed up against the wall by three bodies – foul, stinking, diseased sickos. Up close he could see that their skin was worse than it had looked, eaten away by disease, lumpy with growths and boils, their gums bleeding, their eyes weeping yellowy white gunge. He headbutted one of them, felt a splash of snot and saliva and pus across his face. Spat. Tried to drag his sword up, cutting through soft flesh. He had no idea how the others were doing, stuck as he was in this desperate, hot, sweaty huddle.