The Hunted (26 page)

Ed was reminded of the secret drinks stash in Shadowman’s basement at the club in London. Only the shelves in the cellar here weren’t piled high with alcohol. It was food. Rows and rows of boxes and cans and bottles and jars and packets and plastic containers, all with identical packaging; plain white with black lettering –
Emergency food supplies
– with the date and contents and various government stamps and labels and warnings. There was fruit, vegetables, rice, pasta in sauce, meatballs, spam, noodles, condensed milk, long-life milk, fruit juice, biscuits. Anything you could think of, it was here. All kept neat and in order.

‘Three lorries turned up one morning,’ said Amelia. ‘And men in gas masks brought the food down here and put it on the shelves under my supervision, and I signed for it and they went away, and that was that. No questions asked. Just following orders. We’ve been living off it ever since. We have fresh food as well. There’s a large vegetable garden and an orchard. We keep a few chickens and ducks and pigeons.’

Ed looked along the shelves. He was reminded that those who had the food had the power. He remembered Mad Matt’s warehouse near St Paul’s. But what happened
when it ran out? Could any of them grow enough food to live on?

‘You have to tell us what you learnt, Amelia,’ he said. ‘Is there any hope?’

Amelia clutched Ed’s arm with her thin, bony hand. ‘
You
are our hope, Ed,’ she said. ‘You children. You are not infected. I learnt that much. The young, like
us
, are not infected.’

‘Why?’ asked Lewis. ‘Why aren’t we infected?’

‘Let’s go back upstairs,’ said Amelia, her voice fragile and fluttery. ‘I’m getting tired. I need to sit down.’

They made their way back to the front room. It took a while for Amelia to get her breath back. She was strong, though. Ed could see that she
had
to tell them what she knew.

‘You were born after the infection spread across the planet,’ she explained once she was settled. ‘You must think of it like spores. Did you ever see a mushroom pop and spray a little cloud into the air? Spores. Like tiny, tiny little specks of dust.
Poof!
’

She looked at Kyle, who was not really following any of this, sitting there bored, spinning his axe in his hands and picking dried blood off the blade.

‘You reminded me of it earlier,’ she said.

‘Huh?’ Kyle gave her a vacant, dumb look.

‘When you clapped the arm of your chair.’

‘What have I done now?’

‘Nothing wrong. But do it again.’

‘Do what?’

‘Bang your chair.’ Amelia mimed the action.

Kyle did what he was told – thumped his hand down on to the arm of his chair, sending up a cloud of dust that was
picked out by the sunlight coming in through the windows.

‘There,’ said Amelia. ‘You see it? If it didn’t catch the light it would be invisible to you. That’s what happens when a mushroom puffs out its spores. Up they go, into the atmosphere, spread by the wind, and by animals and people. Up into the clouds, down into the lakes and rivers. We think that the disease was spread in a similar way. It must have happened very quickly. And it certainly happened without anyone noticing.

‘The disease would have originated somewhere isolated and there must have been an incident, something that exposed it, and introduced it into the wider world. It broke out of wherever it had been hiding, and it was carried to busier places and incubated unknowingly. And then –
pop!
– like spores on the wind, it spread itself, and anyone infected became a carrier until –
pop!
– they passed it on. More spores.’

‘All this happened before we were born?’ Ed asked.

‘It’s the only explanation.’ Amelia looked out of the window, lost in her thoughts for a moment.

‘The modern world,’ she said quietly after a while. ‘What a place it was. We were all linked via roads and shipping lanes and aeroplanes. We did the work of the disease for it …
Pop
,
pop
,
pop
. It spread across the planet until nearly everyone alive must have been a carrier. And then, some fifteen years ago, it stopped spreading and started to grow. So, you see, anyone born after that first infestation was untouched. That’s you children. You are free of the disease. My fear is, though, that when it has reached a certain stage it will emerge again.
Pop!
The spores will be on the wind once more.’

‘They’re massing,’ said Trio.

‘What’s that, my dear?’

‘The sickos, the diseased adults, they’re massing. All grouping together.’

‘Perhaps they’re getting ready for the final stage,’ said Amelia. ‘But I don’t know. There’s still so much I can never know.’

Amelia was growing tired, her body slumping. She gave in to small yawns that she tried unsuccessfully to hide behind her hand, and her head kept tipping forward.

‘South America,’ said Trey. ‘That’s where it came from. The Amazon rainforest, the big green.’

Amelia seemed to come awake suddenly, to come alive.

‘Are you sure of this?’

‘Yes. Because our parents were the carriers. The people who first brought it out of the jungle and into the wider world.’

‘I knew you were special when I saw you,’ said Amelia, her eyes glinting. ‘You and I are going to need to have a long talk.’

Framed by the bedroom window, the moon was riding high in the sky, thin clouds drifting in front of it, lit up a ghostly grey. A few stars showed through the silver veil, but there was a mistiness to the night that blurred and hid things. Brooke wondered how many other children might be looking up at the moon right now.

She was focusing her attention out there, in space, because she was finding it hard to think about what was going on down here. Right here, in this room where Macca was slowly dying. Little old Norman had done what he could, but Macca had lost a lot of blood and an infection had got into his body and the doctor didn’t have the drugs to fight it. Macca was burning up, his skin turning blotchy. He was feverish, slept most of the time, a restless, fidgety, troubled sleep, and would wake up babbling.

The only thing that seemed to calm him down, to make him happy and peaceful, was Brooke. She hadn’t left the room since they’d arrived.

Ha! Big joke. She’d been winding Macca up in the car, playing him for a fool, lining him up for a great big smack in the mouth. And it had never come, because the stupid bloody fool had got himself bitten. Five days they’d been here now and Brooke had hardly left his side.

Before they’d known just how bad the wound was Ed had promised Macca that they wouldn’t leave him behind. Ed was going crazy now, desperate to be moving on, but a promise was a promise.

And, whatever happened, Brooke knew she couldn’t leave Macca. If she wasn’t there when he woke up he’d scream and rave and thrash about, accuse other people of trying to poison him. Brooke wasn’t even sure if he really knew who she was any more, whether she was his girlfriend or his sister or his mum, or some angel with fluffy wings come fluttering down from heaven. There was just some part of him that seemed to need her.

She’d only come along on this stupid journey so that she could spend time with Ed, get closer to him, and she’d hardly done that at all. He was downstairs helping the crumblies, keeping his mind off the delay, the endless bloody waiting. Amelia had given him work to do in the garden. And they’d all been talking to the crocks about the disease, learning stuff, all except Brooke who was stuck here with Sickboy.

She’d lost count of the times she’d thought about leaving him to it. She hardly knew him after all. He’d been nothing to her. Just some smelly, mouthy kid who’d come shuffling through the door behind Ed when they tipped up at the museum. She didn’t owe him nothing.

Brooke put her hand to his forehead. It was damp and burning up. Like touching a hot oven. She got a wet flannel from the bowl of water on the chair next to the wall, dabbed at his face like Norman had shown her. Macca didn’t react, didn’t move at all, not even to flinch or try to push her away, like he used to do in the first couple of days. His breathing was heavy and raspy and broken, with
no proper rhythm to it. Occasionally he’d have these fits of sucking in air in great gulps, his whole body shuddering.

She felt like weeping. What was she doing here? What were any of them doing here? She should be back at the museum with her friends. Not stuck here with these old people and this sick boy. Nobody cared. They’d dumped her here.
Oh, Brooke, she can look after our friend
. She stood up and walked quietly to the door. Maybe if she could just get out of here for a few minutes, go and walk in the garden in the moonlight,
anything
. It was driving her crazy.

‘
Mum?
’

She stopped in the doorway.

‘Mum? Is that you?’

She turned. Macca was sitting up. His eyes were very shiny, haunted. She walked over to him and eased him back down on to the pillows.

‘It’s all right, Macca,’ she said. ‘It’s all right, go back to sleep.’

‘I don’t want to go to school tomorrow, Mum. I don’t feel well. Is it all right if I don’t?’

‘Yeah, of course it’s all right. You don’t need to go to school if you don’t feel up to it.’

‘OK. Is it all right if I go on my PlayStation, though? I know I’m supposed to be ill, but I’m well enough to go on the PlayStation, aren’t I?’

‘Yeah. Why not? You can do whatever you want, Macca.’

‘Yeah … of an. … And could I … and I … and is there … why is there? Where are you? Why am I here?’

Brooke looked at Macca. He was crying. She wiped the
tears away with the flannel. His eyes seemed to focus. He stared intently at her.

‘I’m really scared, Brooke,’ he said, back in reality.

Brooke found this harder to deal with. She didn’t want to tell him the truth.

‘I’m hurt really bad,’ he said. ‘I can’t swallow and I’m scared that I’m going to die.’

‘Don’t think about it, Macca. Worrying won’t help. You just need to rest and get stronger.’

‘Do you believe in God?’

‘I don’t know. That’s a weird question.’

‘And that’s a terrible answer.’

‘It’s the truth. I never think about all that. I don’t know if there’s a God.’

‘Me either. But I’m scared there’s nothing there. Just nothing. Like blankness.’

‘Don’t think about it, Macca.’

‘Billy.’

‘What?’

‘Billy, it’s my name. William McIntyre.’

‘I never knew that.’

‘Nobody does. Everyone calls me Macca. Or Maccy. My mum used to call me Billy, no one else.’

‘Do you want me to call you Billy?’

‘Don’t matter. I’m not bothered … I just, I just wanted you to know … what my name was. My real name. It’s important. You see, if you bury me will you write my real name? On a stone, or something? I don’t know how it works, I never went to church. I don’t know how it is, with, like, God and all that. How you get into heaven. But they should know my real name at least, I think. William McIntyre.’

‘Don’t think about all that, Macca.’

‘It’s not fair, is it really? I’m only just fifteen. It’s not really long enough for a life. There was lots of things I wanted to do.’

‘Oh, Macca, will you stop it now? You’ll have
me
blubbing. And I
never
cry.’

‘You know when we was getting out of the car …?’ said Macca. ‘When that sicko … Was it recently or was it last year? When was it?’

‘Just a few days ago.’

‘Yeah? OK. It must of been a dream then?’

‘What?’

‘Us doing all them other things together. You and me. We went travelling all over. Fighting sickos. Must of dreamt that bit. Never mind. It was still cool. But you, when we were getting out of the car, there was something you were going to tell me. What was it, Brooke? I’ve been thinking about it.’

‘I don’t know, Billy. I can’t remember.’

‘For real?’

‘Yeah, for real. Go to sleep and stop worrying about stuff.’

‘But was it a good thing or a bad thing?’

‘A good thing obviously. Why would I say a bad thing to you?’

‘I’ve never been up to much. I’ve always been a bit small for my age. I never had a proper girlfriend. Girls never went for me, so I used to bad-mouth them. If I get well will you be my proper girlfriend?’

‘Of course I will,’ said Brooke without blinking.

He closed his eyes.

Brooke threw the flannel back into the bowl and it hit with a splosh, spilling water on to the floor.

Despite what Norman had said about him having no chance, she wasn’t going to let Macca die. She was going to keep him alive. She’d make him well. She’d do everything she could.

So that when he was fit enough, and knew what was going on, she’d tell him exactly what she thought of him.

Yeah.

She realized she was crying.

‘Now look what you’ve done,’ she said.