The Dead (48 page)

Whichever direction Ed spun the wheel it didn’t seem to be having any effect on the boat. He soon had no idea which way they were facing and felt a rising sense of panic.

Then he heard Jordan say, ‘Is that loaded?’ And he turned to see Matt waving an old British Army Browning revolver.

Matt nodded, his face twisted by a wild excitement. It was clear that Jordan didn’t know whether to believe him. Did Matt even know how to fire it?

But it would be stupid to risk testing him.

Jordan looked at Ed.

‘Do something.’

‘I’m not responsible for him,’ said Ed.

‘He’s one of yours.’

Ed gave a nervous laugh. ‘He doesn’t follow me. He follows the Lamb.’

‘Will he shoot?’

‘He’s crazy enough.’

Now Matt spoke. ‘Get the wheel, Archie,’ he said. ‘Steer us downriver to St Paul’s.’

Archie was shaking. His nose was bleeding and one eye was bruised. He pushed Ed out of the way, took hold of the wheel and tried to take control of the boat.

‘I can’t do it, Matt. I don’t know how.’

‘Let the Lamb guide you!’

‘Use the Force, Luke,’ Ed scoffed, and Matt glowered at him.

‘I can’t do it,’ Archie shouted, his voice high and wobbly.

‘Yes you can!’

On the lower deck Aleisha was shaking and holding her arm tight to her belly. She was sitting on one of the benches with her back against the windows. Kyle had found a first-aid kit and he and Courtney had disinfected the wound and bandaged it. It had looked bad, ragged and torn by Frédérique’s teeth. Aleisha was trying to stay cheerful, but was slipping into shock, shivering, her teeth clattering, her eyes rolling up in her head.

Courtney put her arm round her.

‘We’re all right now, babe,’ she said, and Aleisha forced her grey lips into a smile.

‘Yeah.’

Kyle looked out of the windows into the night.

‘I’m going to see what’s up,’ he said. ‘We’re all over the place. Doesn’t feel like no one’s driving this thing.’

He walked off but as he got to the exit there was a horrible crunch and the boat lurched to the side. Everyone was thrown to the floor and Courtney was aware of a massive stone bulk passing the windows.

‘We’ve hit something!’ she shrieked.

The windows all down the side where Aleisha had been sitting were cracked. Two of them had smashed completely, letting in smoke and the rushing, roaring, gurgling din of the river. There was also a screeching, scraping noise and the sound of splintering wood and breaking glass.

Courtney looked for her friend. Aleisha had fallen to the floor and hit her head on the table on the way down. She was still just conscious, but dazed. Courtney took a step towards her as the boat gave another sudden lurch and tilted over at a crazy angle. Kyle grabbed Courtney to stop her falling. Aleisha rolled against the side.

‘Hold on, Aleisha!’ Courtney tried to break free from where Kyle was holding her steady, and the next moment, with a deafening crack, the boat split completely open. A gush of water burst through, reaching in like a giant black hand, and closed round Aleisha. And then it withdrew, sucked out as the boat tilted back the other way.

‘Aleisha!’ Courtney screamed, but her friend was gone.

‘You idiot, Matt,’ Ed shouted, picking himself up from where he’d been thrown to the floor by the force of the collision. ‘That was Westminster Bridge.’

‘We’re sinking,’ said Archie, clinging on to the wheel to keep from falling over.

‘It’s worse than that,’ said Jordan, looking out of the windows. ‘We’re breaking up. We need to find the lifeboats.’

‘Out there, look!’ Archie nodded through the window of the wheelhouse. There was a short deck in front of them with two dinghies tethered to it.

‘We’ll never all fit on them,’ said Ed. ‘There must be at least thirty of us.’

‘Look for more,’ said Jordan, struggling over to the door. ‘I’ll get these two sorted.’

Matt was staring out at the flames that raged over the south side of the river, his face lit with writhing yellows and scarlets.

‘
The third angel sounded his trumpet
,’ he said quietly. ‘
And a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water – the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter
.’

Kyle had got rid of his garden fork and swapped it for a fire axe. He was up on the roof of the top deck with three of Jordan’s boys, hacking through the ropes that held four more lifeboats in place. It was tricky and dangerous work with the cruiser lying at such a steep angle, and every few seconds it gave a sharp jolt as the water tugged at it, slowly tearing it in half.

Ed appeared and helped them, clinging on to a bit of rope to keep from falling off. Amazingly, Kyle still seemed to be enjoying himself, as if this was all some mad game.

Kids were swarming over the boat in a panic. There was nowhere to go except up on to the roof or on to the short deck at the front. Ed heard DogNut down below yelling at them not to jump in. He leant over and shouted down to him.

‘There’s lifeboats up here. We’ll get them into the water, but be careful getting in. Jordan’s got two more boats at the front.’

The next few minutes were a nightmare. Ed was only dimly aware of all that was going on around him. Kids trying not to fall off the cruiser as she broke up. Other kids trying to get the boats into the water without losing them. Dead bodies and bits of floating wreckage knocking into them. Screams. Shouts. Arguments. Hands burned on ropes. Clothes drenched with water. Courtney yelling in one ear about Aleisha. DogNut yelling, ‘Hurry up! Hurry up!’ in the other.

Then the kids were spilling off the cruiser as she sank lower in the water, packing the lifeboats and threatening to capsize them. Jordan was in control at the front, snarling at the kids to slow down. Ed was trying to keep some sense of order on the roof.

‘Don’t aim directly for the lifeboats,’ Ed barked as kids lowered themselves over the side, or jumped or slipped. ‘You’ll sink them. You’ve got to land in the water next to them. The guys in the boats can pull you in.’

The water between the cruiser and the lifeboats was soon thick with splashing kids. It was too dark and too chaotic to tell if anyone was sinking or being swept away. Ed just prayed that most of them would make it.

Now it was his turn. If he left it any longer, the cruiser was going to sink and drag him under.

He launched himself into the air. Hit the water with a punch to his guts. The cold snatched his breath away. He reached out for the nearest lifeboat and then it was gone and he was under the water. Someone had landed on top of him, forcing him down. He felt hard shoes kicking at him. It was freezing and he could sense his body shutting down. A pale face looked at him through the murk, the features frozen into a scream, eyes wide, mouth gaping, then it floated away and he was alone again. The current pulled at him. He wanted to shout but had his mouth clamped shut against the poisonous waters of the Thames.

Then suddenly he was in the fresh stinging air. The light of the fire was blinding him. Strong hands had hold of his jacket and he was being pulled into one of the boats.

It was Kyle, still grinning like a madman. ‘Nearly lost you there, chief,’ he said, dumping Ed in the bottom of the boat. Ed lay there, useless as a landed fish.

‘How many of us made it?’ he croaked once he’d got his voice back. Nobody heard him, so he struggled to sit up. He saw Courtney packed in among the other kids next to DogNut. She was crying.

Ed looked back at the cruiser. It had finally split in two. The back half had sunk, but the top half was still afloat and drifting down the river, half submerged.

Then he saw an amazing sight. Matt and Archie and the four remaining acolytes were standing on top of the wheelhouse roof, like the crew of a submarine coming into harbour. They were holding their banner upright, their faces reflecting the fire that raged over south London. They didn’t look scared or worried at all. Rather they appeared to be quite calm and at peace.

Ed looked at the banner. It was brightly lit by the flames, and the image of the golden boy on it seemed to be glowing. Behind him the other boy, the shadowy one, looked as if he was made of smoke. The way the banner fluttered, the Lamb and the Goat appeared to be alive, moving. And then the lifeboat passed under Waterloo Bridge and that was the last Ed saw of Matt.

The last stragglers were crossing the bridge, the feeblest, the weakest, the sickest, shambling along as behind them the flames tore at the sky, raining down ash and soot.

He’d stayed behind to eat a part of one of the small bodies lying in the road. The others, the stupid ones, just wanted to get away from the fire. Not him. He knew he had to eat. Meat Is Life. He’d stayed there, squatting in the road as the fire ripped into the buildings. It was pretty. He liked fire. Always had done.

The fire couldn’t get him, though. It couldn’t leap across the road or the round thing, the thing the cars went round, round, the roundabout, the magic roundabout. But there was nothing left for him here. He belched. He was full. He picked up his bundle and walked towards the bridge. They were over there, the ones he needed. He could smell them. The living food.

There was water below him now. He stopped to look. And over there … He knew those houses, the big boys lived there, the bastards, he knew the name …

HP sauce, or something, the jolly green giant.

Big Ben.

Aaaah, it was all too much for him.

All he knew was that the bastards lived in there, in the spiky buildings. The ones who made the laws …

Politicians.

You see. He still had the words in him.

Politicians.

He looked down into the river. It was full of fire and death and pigs.

No, not pigs …

He looked at the boiling colours. He wanted to drop something in, see it splash. That’s what you did, wasn’t it? There was a game.

Pig sticks.

No.

Not pigs.

Pooh.

Pooh sticks.

Race them under the bridge. Two sticks. See which one came out first the other side. He’d played it with him, the little one, the boy, what was his name …?

Gone now.

They’d played it, racing sticks under a bridge in the park. Played the game. He wanted to drop something in now. He had something. This thing in his hands. Didn’t know what it was. Why was he carrying it?

It weighed nothing, just a bundle of scraps and twigs.

A stick, yeah. It was a sort of stick.

He propped it on the wall of the bridge then pushed it over, watched as it turned and fluttered in the air, as if it was trying to fly away. And somehow it turned into a boy. A little angel, flying down …

Down and down it fell.

And then the tiny splash.

Watched it float away under the bridge.

Now what? There was something he was going to do, something about a race and sticks and pigs and a jolly green giant.

It had gone.

No mind. No mind. Get over the water to the other side. Get home. Go see his boy.