The Sacrifice (12 page)

It was as they were clambering over the last
stretch of rubble that they heard a rhythmic tapping noise. It seemed to be coming from
a side-street. Like metal hammering stone. The sort of sound you used to hear coming
from building sites. As the children stopped to listen, the sound stopped. They waited.
Nothing.

They moved on, and as they did so, the sound
started up again, this time appearing to come from a different direction.

‘Can you hear that?’ Sam stood
frozen in the road.

‘It’s nothing,’ said Tish.
‘A bird or something.’

‘Why? How do you know? Have you heard
it before?’

‘No, but what else could it be?
Let’s keep going.’

‘What bird makes a noise like
that?’

‘To be fair, it could be
anything.’

‘I think we should go back. I
don’t like this.’

‘We can’t go back now.
We’ve come this far.’

‘But there’s still a long way to
go. I shouldn’t never have listened to you. This is a dumb idea. We should go back
and talk to Ed. Persuade him.’

Tish suddenly grew angry and yelled at Sam.
‘We are NOT going back! Don’t be such a wimp. We’re OK.’ Then
she grabbed him and pulled him along the road.

Her shout had sounded horribly loud,
reminding Sam of how quiet it had been before.

Apart from the clicking that was.

For a moment after her rant there was a
deep, empty silence, then the clicking, tapping, knocking sound started up all around
them, seeming to come from every direction.

‘Tap, tap, tapping on my
cough-cough-coffin,’ said The Kid.

‘Great,’ said Sam.
‘That’s made me feel a lot better.’

‘I don’t like it,
Captain.’

‘It’s just something banging in
the wind,’ said Tish. ‘It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘What wind?’ said Sam and he
jerked his arm free of her grip, stuffed his dagger in his belt and drew his sword. The
Kid did the same.

‘Ready for anything,’ said The
Kid. ‘Come at me, varlet, and I will spike thy gizzards.’

They moved on down the street at a fast
walk, the noises keeping pace with them. Up ahead they could see the white stonework of
St Paul’s rising up into the sky. Sam’s head was throbbing, filled with a
dull ache. His muscles were sore with tension.

He spotted a sign for Mansion House tube
station and the throbbing in his head got suddenly worse. He associated the London
underground sign with dark tunnels and hungry grown-ups.

And then his heart sank into his boots.

The road was completely blocked. There was a
sort of barricade made from a burnt-out bus and a pile of cars all tangled together with
junkyard bits and pieces. The kids would have to climb over it or go round it via one of
the side-streets.

The streets from where the noises were still
coming.

Tap-clink-tap-clink-tap-tap-tap … 

‘What do we do?’ Sam asked Tish.
‘Did you come this way before?’

‘It was all a bit of a panic, to be
honest with you.’

‘Oh God,’ said Sam.
‘Please, let’s just go back.’

‘We’re nearly there.’

‘No, we’re not. Don’t be
stupid. Trafalgar Square’s ages away still.’

‘I meant we’re nearly out of the
zone.’

‘I’m going back.’

‘I never had you down for a
chicken,’ said Tish.

‘He ain’t no chicken,
matron,’ said The Kid. ‘He’s just got a sensible head under his hat
today. We didn’t think this through. We got a choice. This is fifty-fifty. Danger
one way – home the other.’

‘This way.’ Tish turned her back
on the two of them and started to climb over the barricade. Sam and The Kid had no
choice but to follow her, clambering over the pile of junk.

When they got to the top, they heard Tish
swear and found her standing there trembling.

There were five grown-ups waiting in the
road on the other side. Crouched low, curious and wary.

‘That’s just great,’ said
Sam. ‘That’s really great. What do we do now?’

‘You want to phone a friend?’
asked The Kid.

‘No. I want to go back to the
Tower.’

‘Is that your final answer?’

‘Yes.’ Sam turned and started to
scramble back down the barricade. Just before he got to the bottom his scabbard caught
on something and he tripped and fell, bashing his arm on a car door as he went. He
landed in a heap, swearing and trying not to burst into tears again. The Kid and Tish
came down and helped him up.

‘You OK?’ Tish asked.

‘No, I’m not. I feel like an
idiot. What are we doing here?’

‘You want to phone a friend?’
asked The Kid again.

‘Shut up,’ Sam snapped, not
amused by The Kid’s jokes any more. ‘Just shut up, can’t
you?’

But as he picked up his sword, he saw that
they were trapped. A larger group of grown-ups was shuffling along the road towards
them. And more of them were coming from the south.

They were wary like the first group. Like
wild dogs he’d seen on nature programmes, keeping in a pack, holding
back as they studied their prey, getting ready to move in for the
kill. They were a mixed bunch, all ages and states of decay, their clothes and skin so
black and greasy they looked like they were wearing wetsuits.

Sam swore, felt his whole body shaking with
a toxic cocktail of fear and fury and self-pity.

‘This way,’ said Tish, and she
headed down a narrow alleyway that cut off the main road to the north. Sam and The Kid
kept hard on her heels. No time to think. No time to plan. Just run and keep running as
the blood hammered in your ears.

If it had been an organized ambush then it
hadn’t been very
well
organized. The grown-ups had left the alleyway
clear.

Unless of course that was the plan, to
funnel them down here … 

Ambush? Don’t be stupid. Grown-ups
don’t make plans.

Except this was the forbidden zone,
wasn’t it? Where the normal rules didn’t work. Where the grown-ups behaved
differently. That’s what Ed had said. They were unpredictable. Strange things
happened. That’s why it was so dangerous.

That was why it was no-go.

Why-why-why had he listened to Tish? Why?
This was horrible. He’d been so safe in the Tower he’d forgotten just how
scary it was out on the streets. He’d blanked it out of his mind. Those awful days
getting from Holloway to the Tower. Wetting his pants, blubbing with fear, frozen into a
terrified little ball of nerves. Part of him wanted to do that now. Lie down, curl up
and wait for it all to be over.

But a bigger part of him made Sam run.

It was dark in the alley, the high walls
seeming to lean inwards. There were old tailor’s shops and black and gold painted
pubs on either side, so different from the modern buildings on the main road. This was a
part of historical London, like something out of a Dickens film on TV.

Except Dickens films didn’t have
cannibal grown-ups chasing kids.

As he ran, Sam could hear the tapping sound
echoing all around him. It seemed much nearer, coming from right next to
him … up above … inside his head … 

He could see nothing, though. Nothing.

Just run
.

They came to a junction, but the road to the
left was blocked with another barricade.

‘Keep going!’ Tish shouted.

Keep going where?
Sam thought. They
should be heading back to the Tower. Not trying to press on deeper into the zone. Well,
it was up to the grown-ups now, wasn’t it? It all depended on which way they
chased the three kids.

There was a large red-brick church ahead of
them, with another passageway running off to the left.

Sam called out to Tish.

‘Do you know where we are?’

‘Go left.’

They ran down the back of the church and
came out into a small square. There was a single twisted tree and the statue of a man
who looked a little like a pirate.

The clicking was even louder than ever here
and Sam gradually became aware that the dark places, the doorways, the corners and
steps, even a couple of parked cars, were filled with grown-ups. They were sitting
squashed together in groups and they all had something in their hands –
bottles, cobblestones, bricks, bones, bits of metal – and were banging them together,
like ghostly buskers.

For the moment, though, they weren’t
attacking.

‘What do we do?’ Sam asked.

Behind them their pursuers were coming up
the passageway.

‘We’re so close,’ said
Tish.

‘Close to what?’ said Sam.
‘Don’t be stupid, we’re not close to anywhere.’

‘I’m not stupid,’ Tish
hissed. ‘Don’t call me stupid.’

‘You brought us here, didn’t
you?’ said Sam, careful not to raise his voice. ‘Right into the middle
of … grown-ups.’

‘This is Nibelheim,’ said The
Kid.

‘Maybe if we just keep going they
won’t chase us,’ said Tish, ignoring The Kid.

‘What are they doing?’ Sam
asked.

‘How am I supposed to know?’
said Tish. ‘Stop asking me questions.’

‘Them’s dwarves, hammering out
their gold,’ said The Kid and again the others ignored him.

They started walking slowly, slowly, not
wanting to disturb the grown-ups, heading for the north side of the square where it was
open on to the main road. Expecting every step of the way one of the grown-ups to jump
up and come after them.

For a few seconds it looked like they were
going to make it. The grown-ups just stared at them with dull, lifeless eyes, tapping
out their rhythm. There was a powerful, evil stench hanging in the air, trapped by the
buildings. Sam tried not to look too closely at the mothers and fathers, at their
pockmarked skin, their boils and swellings, the rotting patches in their flesh. The
green flowerings of mould.

While the sound of their tapping drilled into
his skull.

‘Different drummers,’ whispered
The Kid.

Sam shushed him.

‘We need to go into Alberich’s
cave.’

‘
Shut
up
 … ’

And then there was a movement. A bloated
mother squirmed out of a car and started to limp towards them. It acted like a signal.
Everywhere now grown-ups were stopping their tapping and standing up, advancing towards
the three children.

Sam spun round and quickly saw that the
exit from the little square was blocked. And the grown-ups were closing in.

‘I’m telling you,
Siegfried,’ said The Kid, no longer bothering to whisper, his voice harsh and
urgent. ‘We need to go into Alberich’s cave.’

Sam swore at him. ‘We don’t have
time for this!’ he snapped.

‘Listen to me, bonehead. I know this
place,’ The Kid kept on. ‘I been here before. That statue there,
that’s old Alberich. And that tree is the white ash, the great white hope. And
down under its roots is Alberich’s cave.’

‘What are you talking about?’
Sam’s voice was jittery and hoarse with panic. He glanced at the statue.
‘That’s not Alberich. It’s someone called John Smith.’

‘Trust me,’ said The Kid.
‘I’m the tunnel king, remember? Monsewer Rat. There’s a way out of
this mess.’

‘Are you saying there’s a tunnel
entrance near here?’

‘Yes, dumb-bell, what did you
think?’

The Kid darted off and the other two kept
close behind. More and more grown-ups were coming alive, pressing in from all sides.

‘We’re gonna have to cut the
cake!’ The Kid yelled, and
raised his sword above his head,
charging at a knot of grown-ups, his dress flapping. He slashed the sword wildly in the
air and the grown-ups fell away. Sam was right behind him, swinging his own sword and
screeching a wordless war-cry.

They battered a path to the side of the
square, and there, close to the wall of the church, was a large iron manhole cover. The
Kid slid his sword into its scabbard and dropped to his knees. Humming manically to
himself, he slipped a metal tool out of his jacket pocket and stuck it into one of the
handles on the cover and began hauling it up. Tish squatted down to help him shift it
sideways, while Sam kept the grown-ups back, thrashing his sword in the air and
screaming.

Once the cover was off The Kid wriggled down
into the dark hole beneath. Tish came next and finally Sam. He turned his back on the
grown-ups, made his sword secure and hurled himself into the opening in such a mad rush
that he bruised himself all down one side and took the skin off his shins.

There was a ladder fixed to the wall below.
Sam just managed to get hold of it and descended into the darkness. There was no time to
replace the manhole cover. Above him three grown-ups peered through the opening,
dribbling saliva that fell past him and spattered on the floor a couple of metres
below.

One of the grown-ups started to crawl head
first through the square hole, blocking out the light.

‘Look out!’ Sam yelled as
suddenly a heavy shape fell past him. He heard a wet slap as it landed.

‘Stupid bastard,’ he said with
some relish. ‘Stupid grown-up bastard.’

A torch beam came on and played up the wall,
guiding Sam down the last few steps. Tish and The Kid both had torches out. The Kid
shone his on the grown-up that had done the nosedive. It was a young father, still
alive, but with a broken back. It flopped about, hissing. Tish kicked it in the head and
it stopped moving.

‘Follow me,’ said The Kid,
trotting off along a low tunnel, his head bowed. There were damp brick walls with
ancient cabling running along them. Dirty warning signs. Puddles on the ground.

‘Where are we?’ said Sam.
‘Where does this tunnel go?’

‘They all link up,’ said The
Kid. ‘The tubes, the dirt-pipe sewers, the gas and ’lectrics and waterworks
and wormholes. Don’t ask The Kid what’s what, is all just tunnels to him.
Tunnels and caves. I gave them all a name so’s I could member ’em. This
place is Alberich’s cave, the place of dwarves. Thought I recognized that
tap-tapping. Heard it before when I was sploring once.’