The Sacrifice (11 page)

‘What’s crazy is staying here,
to be fair,’ said Tish. ‘You never meant to come here. You’ve got to
get to Buckingham Palace. Your sister needs you.’

‘Yeah. I’m still scared,
though.’

‘It’s the middle of the day. The
sickos will all be asleep. Us three can travel fast and light. It’s only about
three miles. If we’re quick we can do it in an hour. The hardest part will be
getting clear of the Tower guards. If we try to just walk away they’ll stop us. We
need a diversion.’

‘Hold your horses, captain,’
said The Kid. ‘All of it, every word you say, all the spouting of it, you make it
sound too easy. I don’t like it. It’s too quiet. There’s Indians out
there.’

‘We’ve got to go for it,’
said Tish.

‘Well … ’ The Kid
turned to Sam. ‘I’m with you, little boots. What you say goes.’

‘I don’t want to be stuck here
forever.’

‘We’ll be fine,’ said
Tish.

‘So what do we do?’

‘The guards are looking for sickos
coming in, not kids going out. I’ll think of some way to distract them.’

Tish had an A to Z and last night
they’d discussed routes. In the end Tish had said that they should head for Great
Tower Street, then along Eastcheap, Cannon Street, past St Paul’s Cathedral, into
Ludgate Hill, Fleet Street, the Aldwych and on to the Strand, which would take them all
the way to Trafalgar Square. Almost a straight line all the way. She’d shown them
where her hideout was, the place she called ‘the Temple’; it was a large
building behind the London Coliseum, although you couldn’t tell much about it from
the simplified black and white maps in the A to Z.

This morning, when she’d heard about
the salvage operation, Tish had packed some emergency rations into her backpack, as well
as a torch, some matches, a knife and a few other useful bits and pieces.

‘We’ll get to the Temple, pick
up some support and go straight on to the palace,’ she’d explained.
‘You’ll be with your sister by this evening, instead of being stuck here
polishing armour for the rest of your life.’

They crossed the wide open area by the
ticket offices and unloaded the trolley. A group of older kids was breaking up the
wooden sections further, separating the planks and stacking them in neat piles ready to
be carted into the castle to be reused.

Tish took the opportunity to look around.
She clocked some boys guarding the perimeter. In the past, crowds waiting to go into the
Tower had gathered here, joined by sightseers who just wanted to take pictures or gawp
at the old castle. There had been food stalls, entertainers and
sometimes marching bands and displays. Now the kids used it as a sorting area before
stuff was taken into the Tower. They didn’t want to fill their living space with
too much junk, so there were a couple of rubbish tips here as well. Once they’d
built up a big pile, it was dumped in the Thames to be washed out to sea.

That morning a unit of Pathfinders had found
three cars in a private garage with petrol in their tanks and their keys hanging on a
pegboard. Two matching silver Mercedes C-Class and a red Porsche 911 Carrera.
They’d driven them to the sorting area and parked them with the vehicles
they’d collected over the months. Some small boys were standing around admiring
them.

‘Let’s get another load,’
said Tish and they wheeled their trolley back down to the river.

‘The longer we wait, the less I want
to do this,’ said Sam.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Tish.
‘I’ve an idea.’

‘What?’ Sam’s heart was
pounding. He was filled with a mixture of fear and excitement. Everything was happening
too fast for him to know if he was doing the right thing.

‘I’ll start a fire,’ said
Tish. ‘When we get back up there, you talk to the boy racers with their shiny
cars, keep them busy. When you see smoke, head for the shop. We’ll go together
from there.’

‘OK.’

Back to the river’s edge there was a
stack of wood ready for them to load on to their trolley. They plonked it on in silence.
Sam’s throat was too dry to talk. He couldn’t work out if he was most
worried about getting away from the Tower kids or of what they might have to face if
they were successful. He looked at The Kid. Couldn’t read him at all. If The Kid
was OK with the way things were heading then
Sam was OK. He’d
survived alone out there. He knew all about danger.

But what was he thinking?

Sam caught his eye and The Kid winked at
him.

What did that mean?

‘Come on.’ Tish was ready to be
off and Sam took hold of the bar. The trolley rattled and squeaked as it got under
way.

Was he right to trust Tish? Shouldn’t
he trust Ed instead? Ed had promised to take him to find Ella. Was he just lying,
though? There was all that creepy stuff about the lamb and the goat. Sam was too
confused to straighten it all out. Best just to keep moving.

Into the no-go zone … 

He’d spent time in there before. It
was where he’d been held prisoner by two grown-ups, Nick and Rachel, in their tube
train carriage down in the tunnels beneath Bank station. They hadn’t seemed to be
affected by the disease. They’d said they wanted to help Sam, told him they were
keeping him safe.

Just like Ed.

And just like Ed they hadn’t wanted
him to go … 

Of course the grown-ups weren’t
normal. They had the disease in them. Deep down and hidden. And they’d been
fattening Sam up so they could eat him. It was The Kid who’d rescued him. Sam had
escaped the forbidden zone one time. And now here he was getting ready to run back into
danger, like an idiot.

Was he really planning to leave the safety
of the castle? Somewhere he’d always dreamt of living? He looked across at the
high yellow-grey walls.

Tish was right.

This place might be a castle, but for hundreds
of years it had also been a prison. If he stayed here too long he’d never get
away. He’d forget about Ella; she’d fade from his memory like his parents
had. It was less than three weeks since he’d last seen her, but so much had
happened in that time. He’d moved from one world to another. He tried to picture
her now, but all he could remember clearly was a photograph that had been on the
mantelpiece at home. Him and Ella with Father Christmas. Ella looking like she was about
to cry, Sam looking embarrassed.

She was two years younger than him.
Preferred to wear boys’ clothing to girls’ and had short dark hair.

That was about it.

It wasn’t enough.

He had to find her. She was all he had left
of the past.

They unloaded their delivery and he strolled
over to the cars with The Kid while Tish slipped away.

He stood watching the older boys, who were
taking it in turns to sit in the driver’s seat of the Porsche. Out of the corner
of his eye he saw Tish going over to the end of the row of older cars. He was supposed
to be distracting these boys, wasn’t he?

‘How fast does it go?’ he asked
one of them.

‘About a hundred and
eighty.’

Sam nodded.

‘Cool.’ In truth he didn’t
really know very much about cars, but 180 miles an hour did sound pretty fast.

‘Has it got a full tank?’

‘Half full. It drinks a ton of fuel as
well.’

‘Yeah.’ Sam nodded again. He was
running out of things to talk about.

‘I like the colour.’

‘You want to sit in it?’

‘No. I’m all right.’ What
was taking Tish so long? He nudged The Kid in the ribs. ‘Help me out here,’
he hissed.

‘It’s got four wheels,’
said The Kid, who evidently knew less about cars than Sam. The older boy laughed.

‘You’re weird,’ he
said.

‘I’m no weirder than a dog with
the head of a cat and the heart of a humming bee.’

‘I guess not.’

Mercifully Sam saw a puff of black smoke
waft above the row of cars.

There was a shout.

‘Hey!’

The smoke thickened, turned into a column.
Kids were shouting and running towards the cars. There was a hubbub of voices.

‘It’s on fire.’

‘Fetch some water.’

‘Don’t get too close, it might
explode.’

‘What happened?’

Sam and The Kid edged away from the
commotion, moving backwards through the crowd of kids who were congregating around the
fire. They reached the ticket offices and found Tish waiting for them.

‘I thought it would never catch
light,’ she said. ‘But look at it go now!’

The guards were wandering over from the
perimeter, drawn by the fire, forgetting what they were supposed to be doing. In the end
they were all just children and couldn’t be expected to have the discipline of
trained soldiers.

‘What did you do?’ Sam asked,
staring at the flames that were leaping above the cars.

‘Set fire to some crap on the back seat
of an old Ford Focus.’

‘Will it be all right?’

‘Of course it won’t be all
right!’ Tish gave a short, slightly crazy-sounding squeal of laughter.

‘Now let’s go.’

They ducked behind the ticket offices and
made their way quickly round the big modern building behind. In fact it was two
buildings, joined by a huge glass wall and roof. A pedestrian walkway led between it and
an old church. They pounded along it, fully expecting to hear someone screaming for them
to stop.

It didn’t happen.

Sam realized he was crying. This
wasn’t right. To be running away from other kids. He was letting them down. He
felt really bad for Ed. Ed had been the kindest. He’d only wanted to help Sam,
keep him alive. Ed was sensible. Tish seemed reckless and a bit strange.

Sam knew he’d be putting Ed to a lot
of trouble – all of them. They’d wonder what had happened, probably get together a
search party. Ed would worry about him. And he was clever. He’d work it out.
He’d know that Sam had gone off to look for Ella. Sam hoped he wouldn’t try
to follow. He didn’t want to put any of the castle kids in danger. He remembered
what Ed had said, about how he couldn’t risk other kids getting hurt for
Sam’s sake.

And now look what he’d done.

It was Tish’s fault. She’d
rushed him into it. Dragged him into the forbidden zone. Even the bravest fighters from
the
Tower didn’t come here. Not Ed. Not Kyle. Not anyone. And
there was only this green-shirted girl to show them the way.

Already his legs were aching, his chest
burning. He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long. His sword slapped
painfully against his side and twice now he’d almost tripped over it. His helmet
was heavy on his head; the breastplate he was wearing, part of a child’s suit of
armour, cut into him. He wished now that he’d left the armour behind.

‘Can we slow down?’ he gasped,
trying to catch up with Tish and The Kid.

‘Whassup, shortstuff? Ain’t got
the legs for it?’ said The Kid.

‘I’m getting a
stitch.’

‘We need to make sure we’re well
out of sight of the Tower,’ said Tish.

Sam stopped and looked back. The road had
curved to the left and he couldn’t see anything of the castle past the tall
buildings. And if he couldn’t see the Tower then surely nobody in the Tower could
see him.

‘They can’t see us here,’
he said. ‘We’re miles away.’ He bent over and rested his hands on his
knees.

‘We should keep going,’ said
Tish.

‘Should we?’ Sam said
angrily.

‘Of course.’

‘We’re running from the wrong
people,’ Sam muttered and stretched his aching side.

‘Chin up. We made it,’ said The
Kid. ‘Out of the frying pan.’

‘You know the rest of that saying,
don’t you?’ said Sam.

‘What saying?’

‘Out of the frying pan.’

‘I just made it up.’

‘No, you didn’t.’

‘Yes, I did. I’m a
wordsmith.’

‘Oh, never mind.’ Sam
straightened up and looked around. They were on a boring street of offices and banks. Ed
had told him that this part of town was where people had come to work during the day. No
one had really lived here. There were no normal shops, just a few sandwich bars and
coffee places.

He hoped it would stay boring. The last
thing he wanted now was excitement. Maybe he’d worried too much. It was still and
quiet. There was nobody else around. No signs of life at all apart from a few pigeons
flapping about.

So far so good.

He knew that it could be a trick, though.
Tish and her friends had been attacked by grown-ups close by here, hadn’t she? He
just hoped that all the grown-ups were asleep now, down in their cellars.

‘We have to hurry,’ said Tish.
‘The quicker we get through the zone, the better.’

‘How long did it take you
before?’

‘About an hour.’

‘That quick?’

‘Maybe two. It’s hard to say,
because when we got chased, we lost our way. Get moving, though, Sam, yeah? We can talk
as we run.’

‘Fast walk,’ said Sam. ‘I
can’t run for two hours. I’m not Superman.’

‘We won’t have to; it’s
only till we’re out of danger.’

‘And how far is that?’

‘To be honest, I don’t know.
It’s the kids at the Tower
that made up the idea of the zone. We
don’t call it that. We don’t measure it or anything.’

‘But you don’t usually go this
way?’

‘No. Everyone knows it’s
dangerous. So let’s hurry, yeah?’

‘OK.’

Sam jogged off after Tish and The Kid. He
had drawn his dagger and was gripping it tightly in his hand. It gave him some degree of
comfort, though he knew that if he saw any grown-ups he would simply run as fast as he
could in the opposite direction rather than stop and fight.

A couple of minutes later they came to some
burnt-out buildings. There was rubble strewn in the road that they had to pick their way
through and Sam spotted a couple of dirty skeletons in the ruins, their bones jumbled up
with steel girders, broken masonry, cables and charred furniture.