They could have his scraps – that’s all they were good for. He was top dog and they were snivelling filth. They looked up to him. They followed him. He could get them to do whatever he wanted. He was powerful, the most powerful of them all, and they understood it.

He kicked one of the mothers in the side of the head and she fell sideways, her neck broken.

The father belched and a thin stream of brown bile bubbled from his mouth. The girl had entertained him for a while and it had triggered memories, of coming here long ago. He thought perhaps he had lived here back then, before his brain had been cooked and tangled and twisted out of shape by the disease, before his flesh had been ruined by blisters and boils and sores.

He had come here with his boy, his Liam, he remembered that much, and he had sat and watched his team. Now the grass was up to his knees, weeds were sprouting. It had changed, this place, but it was the closest thing to a home that he had. They were creatures of habit, these sick grown-ups, slinking back to the places they knew so well.

More and more of them had been coming to the stadium. Tramping in from every direction. Drawn to it, just as they’d been drawn to it before – on Saturdays and Sundays, on weekday nights when the floodlights had blazed overhead and the grass had glowed bright green.

If he really concentrated, strained and struggled and forced his mind to be still, he could remember how it had been back then, with every seat filled and all of the fans shouting and screaming and hurling abuse as the players kicked the ball.

Kick, kick, kick …

Back then they had followed their team. Their Arsenal. And now they followed him. He had the badge of power on his chest. The red cross on the white. He was St George. Their leader, their saviour. He would kill the dragons.

All they had wanted before was to win, to beat every other team, be champions of the world. He would make it happen now. All he had to do was beat the enemy. Beat them down until they were bloody. Kick, kick, kick … Kick them down and butcher them and eat them.

That was what he was. Yes. It all came back to him now. He was a butcher. He could see himself in his shop. Meat is life. He could smell it in the air. The vans would arrive and they would bring in the boys and girls, and he would hang them from spikes and slit them from their belly to their throat, watch the blood draining away, pull out the guts, the heart and liver and lungs. He closed his eyes so he could see it more clearly. Licked his dry and cracking lips.

There they were in his gleaming white shop. The children hanging neatly, staring at nothing, opened up and cleaned, drained of blood so that they were white.

Chop, chop, chop, the butchering would carry on. Choice cuts. Shin, neck, breast, ribs, rump … He hummed to himself, rocking backwards and forwards, lost in the delight of it all, the sights and sounds and smells. The words kept on coming back to him – loin, leg, shoulder, cheek – he rolled them around his mouth.

He would lay the sweet red meat out on his counter and the mums would come in, or sometimes the dads, and he would wrap the little packets of flesh and sell them.

He smiled as he hummed.

He loved the night, after he had eaten, when his head cleared and his memories returned. His special lads were nearby, finishing off one of the other girls. Cracking the bones so they could suck out the sweet marrow inside. They were the clever ones, like him. They stuck close by. His dogs. His boys. They brought him what he needed. Fresh meat. Living children. And every day he grew stronger.

Watching the girl being chased around the pitch had been fun for a while, almost like watching a game of football, but now he wanted to finish it. The girl and her fidgety scurrying movements irritated him. The young ones made him angry. He wanted to kill them all. He wanted to snap their necks just like he’d snapped the neck of the skinny mother.

Bored.

He yawned and stretched, his joints clicking. Then he belched again and spat a mouthful of bile on to the mother who sat in the grass chewing an ear. He lumbered across the pitch.

Bored.

Still the girl had not given up. She made a fresh break for it, sprinting towards the east stand. She pounded along, hoping against hope that this time, unlike the countless times she’d tried it before, this time would be different, she would make it to the edge and get away from this hideous place.

At the last moment a fat mother wearing a T-shirt with the Playboy bunny logo on it waddled over to cut her off and as the girl tried to duck past her she swung one of her heavy fat arms, bowling the girl to the ground. She crawled on, her breath hissing in and out of her tight throat. A father, long hair hanging down over his face, stamped on her. She squealed and rolled to the side, then struggled to her feet and limped back to the centre of the pitch.

St George was waiting for her. In the half-light it looked as if he was smiling, but the girl couldn’t be sure. Grown-ups didn’t really have emotions any more; they were just killing machines. There was something different about this one, though, something cleverer, more human …

She dropped to her knees in front of him.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘Please help me …’

For a moment the light of intelligence came into his face. He cocked his head to one side, like a dog listening, and a frown flickered about his eyes. He nodded his head, opened his mouth to speak. His jaws moved up and down, his tongue waggled in his mouth, but only a gurgling sound came out.

Was it possible he understood her? That she had stirred some memory of a time when adults looked after children?

‘Please,’ she said again. ‘I don’t want to die.’

He opened his arms wide, and now he definitely was smiling. The girl got up and staggered into him, pressed her head against his chest and drenched his vest with her tears. He wrapped his arms round her. One hand stroked her bloody hair. He too was crying as he breathed in her scent. That warm sweet scent they all shared, the smell of life.

‘Thank you, thank you, thank –’

The words were choked off as his grip tightened. Her chest was crushed so she could no longer work her lungs. She felt her ribs snapping.

Oh well, she thought, as the blackness swallowed her. At least it was all over now …

St George mumbled something into her hair, remembering holding his boy. Protecting him with his strong arms. Recalling the old days, the good days, when it had been the two of them against the world.

29

They were gathering under the dinosaur skeleton in the main hall. Some of them were excited, chattering away, unable to stand still; others were quiet and drawn into themselves; a couple looked downright sick. DogNut paced up and down, his head bobbing on his long neck, beatboxing softly, waiting for Robbie, the boy who had opened the gate for them last night. Robbie was in charge of security at the museum and would be useful to have along on DogNut’s expedition.

After breakfast DogNut and Paul had gone around talking to the more adventurous kids, collecting a posse. ‘Who wants to come and kill the monster?’ Afterwards Paul had taken DogNut up on to the roof and shown him the beacon fire. Despite the fancy name it wasn’t much more than a pile of junk in an old brazier that when lit sent up a tall column of smoke. If any of the hunter gangs were nearby, they’d see it and come to the museum, as they knew it meant a reward of some sort if they were able to help out. Paul had explained that Robbie was the only one authorized by the council to give the order to light it. But Robbie had left early, well before DogNut had woken up, to escort a work party of kids to a nearby courtyard to harvest crops.