‘It won’t happen again if we kill them all.’

‘Listen, Paul, you really should go and rest. Lie down somewhere.’

‘You don’t want me here, do you?’

‘Quite frankly, no. Not if you’re a danger to the patients.’

‘A danger to them!’ Paul screamed. ‘You’ve got it all round the wrong way, Justin. You’re on their side. You all are.’

‘Please, Paul, go and chill. I’ll find someone else to look after the lorry.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m going!’ Paul snapped, and he stormed off, swearing at a couple of little kids who were feeding some chickens inside a big pen.

DogNut watched him go. Not sure what to think. Paul’s aggressive attitude was making it hard to feel any sympathy for him.

‘He’ll be all right,’ said Justin.

‘He did have a point, mate,’ said DogNut. ‘It’s seriously screwy keeping those sickos in there.’

‘He’s been looking after them for ages,’ said Justin. ‘He was always good with them. Like a zookeeper. I always thought, in a funny way, he was quite attached to them.’

‘It ain’t right, Justin.’

‘What if you got sick, DogNut?’ Justin snapped, finally losing his temper. ‘What if you found you had the disease? You’d want a cure then, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t laugh at what we’re doing here.’

‘True that. But just how d’you think you’re going to go about finding a cure? You? Huh? A fifteen-year-old kid?’

‘Come with me and I’ll show you,’ said Justin.

‘No way,’ said DogNut. ‘You ain’t showing me any more pet sickos.’

‘We don’t have any more. At the moment it’s just these three,’ said Justin. ‘No. I want to show you the labs.’

‘The labs. Of course. Every mad scientist needs a laboratory …’

42

Jester’s party were standing by the long-empty departures board in King’s Cross station, tensed and alert, their darting eyes stretched wide as they adjusted to the dim light – not fixing on anything, looking in every direction for any signs of movement. The last hour had been incredibly stressful and their bodies were so pumped with adrenalin they felt wired to the mains. They gave off a pungent reek of stress and fear. Shadowman hadn’t had time to tell the others to try to mask their scent, and was worried that the smell might attract any strangers who might be hiding out in here. Strangers loved dark places and the tube tunnels beneath the mainline station were a perfect nesting place.

It appeared to be deserted up here, however. Nothing moved. The shops had long since been looted. Trains that would never again go anywhere stood dead at the platforms.

They’d been driven steadily eastwards as they tried to avoid the roving gangs of strangers who seemed to be everywhere in this part of town. Any moves to go north, the direction in which they had originally been intending to head, or south, back towards the palace, had been blocked. A particularly determined group of strangers had followed them for the last half-hour as they’d meandered backwards and forwards, trying to find a hiding-place or a safe path away from the danger. In the end they’d taken a route that ran roughly parallel to the Euston Road and had eventually come to King’s Cross station.

It had been Jester who’d suggested they should actually go into the station. He’d pointed out that the train tracks were wide and clear and open and some distance from any buildings. It was unlikely that any strangers would be hiding out on the rails, and if any did approach they’d be able to see them from a long way off.

As none of the others had a better suggestion, they hadn’t argued, and they’d trooped in off the street.

Jester was trying to sound confident. ‘The tracks run straight north from here,’ he said. ‘We can make good time and cover a lot of distance pretty quickly.’

‘What do we want to go north for?’ said Tom.

‘You’re not seriously thinking of carrying on with this stupid trip, are you?’ Kate added.

‘The best thing we can do is find some other kids to help us,’ said Jester.

‘What bloody kids?’ Tom was getting angrier and angrier.

‘Listen, Tom,’ Jester pleaded, ‘we’re not going to find any train tracks running south, are we? Not from round here. We’re on the wrong side of London. So let’s just get well away from this place, OK?’

‘Crap.’

‘Shut up,’ said Shadowman.

‘You shut up,’ said Tom. ‘You ain’t exactly been a lot of help so far.’

‘Don’t have a go at Shadowman,’ said Jester.

‘Both of you shut up,’ Shadowman snapped, and Jester looked shocked.

‘What –’

‘Listen!’

Shadowman said this so urgently they all fell silent and listened. There was the familiar shuffling sound of approaching strangers.

‘Crap,’ Tom repeated. ‘Crap, crap, crap.’

They emerged from the shadows into a pool of light on the station concourse, a long line of strangers much more diseased than the ones they’d seen out on the streets. Some of them looked barely human. Huge chunks of their faces were missing, and what flesh remained was swollen and bloated and popping with boils.

‘Crap.’

‘Too many to fight,’ Shadowman shouted. ‘On to the tracks!’

They raced past the departures board and vaulted over a set of ticket turnstiles, then careered along the platform. There was a long Intercity train parked on each side, the type of trains that seem to go on forever. The kids’ feet pounded on the hard concrete of the platform. They might have looked like any group of passengers running to catch a train if it wasn’t for the collection of diseased and rotting adults that followed them.

They ran past an endless blur of doors and windows, but at last came to the end of one train and were able to jump down on to the tracks. Then they were out past the great overhanging canopy of the station roof and into the daylight. They slowed down. Every time they were forced to run it took more out of them – their legs ached, their lungs burned, their throats were dry, their feet sore and blistered in their grubby old trainers.

They kept moving, looking down so as not to lose their footing as they stepped from one sleeper to the next, avoiding the loose clinker that lay between them.

Tom, crippled by a stitch in his side, stopped and bent over. Acid had risen in his gullet and he wanted to be sick. Surely they didn’t need to run so hard now. The strangers had appeared to be a particularly badly infected bunch, and unlikely to keep up. And hopefully their fear of the sun would hold them back.

Tom straightened up.

‘Oh, crap.’

Now they all stopped. Appalled at what they saw ahead of them. A tunnel, and every single train track ran straight into its huge black mouth.

‘That’s just great,’ said Tom. ‘Well done, Jester. We’ll find some tracks to lead us north, will we? Have a nice walk in the fresh air?’

‘How was I to know?’

‘Why did we listen to you?’

‘I ain’t going in there,’ said Alfie, staring at the dark tunnel, trying not to cry.

‘We’ll just have to get off the tracks,’ said Shadowman, hoping to avoid another pointless and tiring argument. He’d been holding back, biting his tongue, not wanting to step on Jester’s toes, but he was beginning to wonder whether he should take charge. It would at least take the pressure off Jester.

‘Yeah?’ said Tom. ‘Good plan, Batman. I’d never have thought of that.’

‘Piss off, Tom,’ said Shadowman.

‘Leave Tom alone,’ said Kate, moving next to her boyfriend.

‘All you two do is moan,’ said Shadowman. ‘How does that help, exactly?’

‘Sod you,’ said Tom bitterly. ‘Once we’re away from here, I don’t care what any of the rest of you say, me and Kate are going back to the palace.’

‘They’re coming,’ said Alfie.

They looked back to see that the strangers from the station were trying to slither down off the platform on to the train tracks.

Shadowman looked around – there was a bank on one side, too steep to climb. A mess of fences and building works on the other. They could run or they could fight. He saw a way to unite the group and lift their spirits. The strangers would only be able to get down in ones and twos. They were groggy and uncoordinated, they struggled with their balance and climbing was something they found difficult.