The End (47 page)

Paul turned quickly as Boney
collapsed into harsh laughter. Jester was pushing his way through David’s kids towards him. Paul turned back to Boney-M.

‘What does he want?’ he said, but Boney-M had gone, and when Paul looked up at the sky there were only seagulls there.

Jester looked at Paul. He didn’t know the boy at all. Had no idea what his story was. Why he was so unhinged. How he could communicate
with the sickos. He’d run away from the Natural History Museum and joined David at the palace only a couple of weeks ago. He’d been crazy when he turned up and he was crazy now.

All Jester knew at that moment was that Paul was helping David, and David was helping St George. And Jester had to stop it. He should have done this before. He should never have let it get this far. He
looked past Paul, past their flimsy wooden barricades, to where the vile horde of adults was trudging slowly towards Jordan’s kids. Ignoring David’s camp.

It wasn’t David’s wooden wall that was keeping the sickos from attacking them. It was Paul, using whatever weird skill he had. It was all down to his link with the sickos. However it worked, it had to be shut off, and there
was a chance now, a tiny chance, that Jordan could swing the battle. Obliterate St George and his army, stop them from being any kind of threat. Surely every sicko for miles
around was gathered here today. What if the kids could wipe them out?

Jester was going to do it. He was going to do the right thing. He was going to stop Paul from helping.

‘Paul!’ he shouted. ‘Stop
this. Switch it off. That signal in your head. The voice you use to talk to them. Silence it.’

Paul shook his head. He was dripping with sweat, bone-white, the veins showing beneath his skin, his eyes red and feverish. He was trembling. But he was shutting Jester out.

‘I said stop,’ Jester yelled. ‘Stop now. Stop what you’re doing.’

‘I can’t stop it,’ said Paul, his voice
not much more than a whisper. ‘It’s too late. It’s done. Let them all die. Let this be the end. The end of everything. Armageddon. Let it all finish now. No more pain. No more fear. Why struggle? Why fight against it? Let it all come down …’

‘
You
might not have anything to live for,’ said Jester angrily, tears in his eyes, ‘but
I
do. All those other kids out there do. You can’t
allow them to die. You’re not more important than them.’

‘We’re none of us important,’ said Paul. ‘We’re all just parasites. What difference does it make if we live or die?’

‘All right then,’ said Jester. ‘If that’s how you want it then that’s how it’s gonna be.’

He threw himself at Paul, grabbed him by the throat and toppled him to the ground. He could hear kids behind
him shouting. Ignored them. Kept up the pressure on Paul’s neck.

He didn’t know if he could do it. If he could take Paul’s life. Even knowing that if he did he could be saving
hundreds more. In the end Paul was a boy like him, and he had a look of such deep sadness in his eyes it was making Jester weak. He was just about to let go when something appalling happened. The side of Paul’s
neck gave way like wet paper, as if there was nothing under the skin, the flesh all rotted away to nothing. Jester’s fingers sank inside Paul’s neck and his head flopped to one side as a gout of green and yellow pus squelched out from under his roll-neck collar. Jester yelled in fright and jerked his hand away. It was dripping with grey jelly. More of the jelly was oozing out
of Paul. It seemed to be alive, writhing and bubbling and crawling. Paul pulled down his collar. There was a huge dark hole in his neck, packed with living jelly.

‘Thank you,’ he said, smiled and his eyes rolled up in their sockets and closed.

Jester doubled over and was sick into the grass.

Someone was pulling at his coat. Jester felt it rip. He looked round. It was David.
He pulled Jester to his feet and away from Paul. Jester couldn’t look back, but David’s eyes were fixed on Paul’s dead body.

‘What have we done?’ said David. ‘What were we thinking …?’

Jester could feel a change. The link with the sickos had been broken. The magic circle was no more.

They had no protection.

70

Franny was working in the palace garden. She had a small team with her, heads down, kneeling by a vegetable bed. As long as they worked, they didn’t have to think about what was going on in Hyde Park. All the kitchen staff were still here, the garden workers, the nursing and household staff. All going about their business as if nothing was any different. Occasionally the
wind would change direction and they’d hear sounds from the park – music, the cries of birds, shouting. Screams. Not enough to tell them exactly what was going on, but enough to remind them that something was. Something huge and momentous. And then there had been a series of explosions.

She was pleased that David was out there fighting the adults. Ridding the world of them.
He would come back in triumph as their saviour. He’d be pleased that Franny had kept things together here at the palace. Maybe he’d even …?

No. He never thought of her that way. She was just good old Franny. Franny who looked after the garden. Franny who kept everything in order, who made sure they always had food.

She straightened up. Her back was stiff. She arched her
spine, pulling her shoulders back, hands behind her head, and glanced up at the palace.

She frowned.

Pod was back. She set off running towards him, dodging between the beds, up to where he stood by the main doors that led from the palace to the garden.

Was it over? Had he come back to tell them the good news? Victory? No … As Franny got nearer, she could see that he was
troubled. Frowning and fidgety, running his fingers through his thick helmet of hair.

‘What’s up?’ she said. ‘Is everything all right?’

Pod shook his head.

She hadn’t seen him like this before. Pod never worried about things. He just got on with stuff.

‘What is it?’ Franny asked, desperate for news. ‘Why are you back? Is David back?’

‘No,’ said Pod. ‘He is
not
. David is not back.’

‘What’s he doing?’ said Franny. ‘Are we beating the strangers?’

‘We’re not even fighting them,’ said Pod.

‘What do you mean? Why aren’t we fighting them?’

‘Because we’re on their side,’ said Pod and he laughed the worst, most horrible laugh Franny had ever heard.

Most of the other gardeners had come up to see what was going on. They were crowding
round Pod, all asking for answers.

‘You’ve got to tell us,’ said Franny. ‘We don’t know anything here.’

And then Pod looked at her, with horror in his eyes, and he told her. And as he talked Franny put her hand in her mouth, biting the soft flesh between her thumb and forefinger. So hard it started to bleed. She felt like she was
going to be sick. When Pod told her how David
had shot Nicola, she actually screamed.

‘I had to come back,’ said Pod. ‘I couldn’t stay there. It’s wrong what David’s doing. If he comes back here we mustn’t let him in.’

Franny was trembling.
Not let David back in?
The world was shifting all around her. Everything she believed in was being turned upside down. What were they going to do without David? But what had David
done? It couldn’t be true. It made no sense.

And then three of Pod’s guys came running out of the doors and into the garden.

‘You gotta come quick,’ one shouted and Pod hurried inside.

Franny followed. Desperate to keep up with what was going on. They got to the central courtyard. People had gathered here and there was a babble of voices. A group of palace kids were arguing
with a group of squatters from St James’s Park.

‘Oi! What are you doing?’ Pod shouted when he saw what was going on. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

‘No, what are you doing here?’ said a squatter. Franny recognized him as their leader, John. ‘Shouldn’t you be in the park with King David? Partying with your zombie brothers?’

‘No,’ said Pod. ‘We’re not supporting David any more.’

‘Neither are we,’ said John. ‘We’ve come to defend the palace for when David comes back against you.’

Pod smiled. Franny didn’t. Pod wasn’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. She wanted to shout out –
you shouldn’t trust these people
.

One of Pod’s guys came over.

‘This lot got in before we could close the doors,’ he said. ‘There’s bare more out on the parade
ground. Do we let them in?’

‘I’m not sure they should come in,’ said Pod.

‘Nice way to make us welcome,’ said John. ‘We thought you was our friends. We supposed to be allies. We have an agreement.’

‘Your agreement was with David,’ said Franny.

‘No matter,’ said John. ‘We can make a new agreement with you. I’m just gonna go open the doors first.’

‘No, you’re not,’
said Pod.

‘Could you even stop us?’

Franny saw that the squatters were all armed and a couple turned to threaten the palace kids. The squatters were outnumbered, but they were a vicious-looking bunch.

‘Get out of here,’ said Pod, red with anger.

John looked round the courtyard. Franny wondered if he was remembering his humiliation here, when Achilleus had beaten him
in single combat.

Then he slapped Pod round the face, stunning him into silence.

‘We taking over,’ he said. ‘See? David had his chance and he blew it. This is our place now.’

The other squatters sniggered.

‘No,’ said Pod. ‘No, no, no. This isn’t right. We need to talk about this.’

‘Talk about this,’ said John, and he shoved his spear through Pod’s chest. Pod choked
and grunted. He gave a low growl in his throat and slowly sank down until he was sitting on the ground, his jumper already soaked with blood. Franny ran to him and he held tight to her. He was shivering, his face white.

‘I’m really disappointed,’ he said, and then went limp in Franny’s arms.

‘Let the others in,’ said John. ‘We’re in charge here. Let’s raise our flag and celebrate.’

‘Yeah,’ said Carl, John’s second in command. ‘It’s party time!’

71

The sickos were slowly closing in from all sides. Like an overflow of thick brown sludge. Jester watched as a group of them reached down and took hold of Paul’s body and pulled it into the mob, as if they were one huge organism and their hands were feelers, sucking him into their gut. Jester didn’t want to picture what they would be doing to Paul. Other fallen bodies
around them were being dragged away in the same manner.

David and Jester were now surrounded by a circle of the palace guard, wearing their red blazers, their guns facing out. It was like a scene from history – the Battle of Waterloo or Custer’s last stand. A tiny force holding out against an unimaginably large one. David’s boys had started by firing volleys, but now all they managed
were ragged, weary shots as they reloaded, working their way through the few bullets they had left in their magazines. The air was filled with the smell of cordite and they were surrounded by a thin haze of smoke. With each bang, a sicko jerked back or fell, but the ones behind just kept on coming, trampling over the dead and wounded, coming closer and closer, ever closer.

There
was no way to stop them.

Jester had a sword in his hand. He’d never been the greatest fighter in the world. He was better than David,
though. He’d never seen David even try to fight. He didn’t even have a weapon. Jester was ready. He would fight hard, though he knew he was going to lose in the end. He could already picture those filthy hands grasping for him, those mouths slobbering
at his face.

He looked to David. He was trying to be brave. Standing tall, a leader to the last … but his face was pale, the muscles rigid and frozen.

‘We nearly did it,’ he said.

‘Was it so important?’ said Jester. ‘Was it worth losing our lives, just to be at the top of the heap?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did we do anything right?’ said Jester.

‘I don’t know, I don’t
know, I don’t know.’

Jester turned to David. He was crying.

‘All I want now is my mum,’ he said. He looked about ten years old. ‘All I want is to be with her. I want her to hold me and say she loves me. I want her to tell me that everything’s all right. That’s how the world used to be. It was simple. And then we grew up. I just want my mum.’