Meadowside (8 page)

Several people rushed forward and shouted questions at once as the Prime Minister retreated back into Number 10. The police officers moved in front of the door and pointed their rifles menacingly. The video cut back to the news room studio.

“The Prime Minister there, outlining steps the government will be taking to deal with this developing situation,” the newsreader said. “We’ll now go back to Tom Staples for the latest on the riot in Shefferham.”

“What the fuck?” Mike said. “He didn’t say anything about people being killed and eaten.”

“That’s because he’s a fucking brainless public school toff,” someone said. “He hasn’t got a fucking clue what’s going on, and never will.” Kylie startled and spun around. A large crowd had gathered silently behind them, and stood gaping at the television screen. “Fuck knows why people keep voting for useless cunts like that.”

The speaker was an old man, who leaned on a blood-stained walking stick. He stood at the front of the crowd, and wore a red, short-sleeved, check-patterned shirt with splashes of blood down it. Blood also spotted his faded denim jeans, which were turned up three inches at the bottom to reveal a pair of large red boots. A pair of red braces hung down from his waist. Other than his wrinkled old face he looked a bit like one of the skinhead characters from the movie playing in the cinema. He even had similar tattoos on his neck and arms – ACAB and SKINS written on either side of his neck, and bulldogs, skulls and union jacks on his arms.

“Fucking anarchists my arse,” the old man continued. “Those cunts out there aren’t no fucking crusty anarchists, and they sure as fuck aren’t going to just stand around singing protest songs while the coppers crack their fucking heads open.”

Kylie had never heard an old man swear like that, and couldn’t help smiling. The old man caught her eye and grinned back, displaying crooked yellow teeth.

“All right, darling?” he said, then pointed at Britney. “What’s up with your mate there?”

“Um…” Kylie said, her smile fading. She looked at Britney.

“Some fucker bit her,” Tom said.

Several people in the crowd gasped and backed away. The old man nodded grimly. “A few tried it with me too,” he said, “but they picked the wrong cunt to mess with that time.”

“Do you know what’s going on?” Tom asked.

The old man shrugged. “No more than you do. Someone said they were zombies, but I reckon that’s just a load of bollocks. There’s no such fucking thing as zombies. More likely it’s the fucking government testing some new weapon on us.”

“Why would they do that?” Kylie asked.

“Why wouldn’t they? They’re all a bunch of corrupt bastards, and they’ve always had it in for Yorkshire. I wouldn’t put anything past them. One thing’s certain though, we’re on our own here. No fucker’s coming to help us.”

“So what do we do?” Tom asked.

The old man smiled. “Well the way I see it, we’ve got two choices. We can either stand around like this and wait for some fucker to eat us, or we can go out there and kill the bastards before they get the chance.”

“What?” Kylie said, wide-eyed. “You can’t kill people, that’s murder.”

The old man laughed and shook his head. “And what they’re doing isn’t? Wake the fuck up, missy, we’ve got no fucking choice.”

“But –”

“No, the guy’s right, Kylie,” Tom said. “We’ve got no choice, it’s us or them. Besides, it would be self defence, and that’s allowed by law. I read about it on the internet once, if someone breaks into your house you’re allowed to kill them. It’d be the same thing here.”

“And you could do that, could you? Kill someone, I mean?”

Tom shrugged. “If I had to.”

“And what about you, Mike?”

Mike frowned. “I reckon we should find somewhere to hide until the coppers get here. Lock ourselves away until it’s all over. If we go out killing people we’d be no better than they are, and if we’re out here when the coppers come we’d just get arrested along with the whackos.”

The old man snorted and shook his head. But before he could say anything further, Britney gave out a rasping moan. All eyes turned toward her as she struggled out of the wheelchair.

9

“Ow, me head’s fucking banging,” Britney said, rubbing the back of her head. She looked around, a confused look on her yellow face. “Where the fuck are we, and why is everyone looking at me like that?”

“Oh god,” Kylie said, rushing up to Britney. She threw her arms around her and hugged her tight. “We thought you were going to die.”

“What are you going on about, Kylie?” Britney asked.

Kylie broke the embrace and held Britney at arm’s length. She peered into her eyes. “Don’t you remember what happened?”

Britney frowned and shook her head. Then startled and craned her neck to look down at her injured arm. She spun around, breaking contact with Kylie. “Oh fuck, that mad woman with the baby! Where is she?”

“Don’t worry,” Mike said, “she’s long gone. But she isn’t the only one like that.”

“What?” Britney asked, her head snapping to face Mike.

Mike quickly filled her in on everything that had happened since Britney’s attack. Her eyes were wide in shock as she took it all in, looking from Mike to the television screen and back again.

“Fucking … hell,” she said, and slumped back down into the wheelchair. “So what do we do now then?”

“We get out there and fucking kill the bastards,” the old man said. “If it’s right about all the doors being locked, then there’s just the ones inside we need to deal with. Should be a piece of piss if we all work together.”

Mike wheeled on the old man. “No we don’t, we find somewhere safe to hide until the police get here.” There were a few murmurs of agreement from the crowd.

The old man laughed. “Yeah, right. Like that’s going to fucking happen. Look at that–” he pointed at the television, showing the scene from Shefferham town centre. “You see any fucking coppers there? The fucking government probably shipped them all out as soon as it started, so they can protect them down in that fucking London of theirs. No fucker’s coming to save us, we need to save ourselves.”

“And just how do you propose we do that?” a young woman asked.

The old man turned and looked the woman up and down. He shrugged. “We all get tooled up, then smash their fucking heads in.” He raised his blood-stained walking stick. “I’ve already done a few of the cunts myself, so it’s not exactly fucking hard. If we all pull together we’ll get it done in no time.”

“My god, you’re actually serious about this, aren’t you?” The woman’s face paled. “You can’t just take the law into your own–” her voice trailed off when a female metallic voice came over the shopping centre’s intercom.

“Attention. This is … um … this is the police. The situation is under control. Please make your way to the second floor immediately. Do not approach any strangers, and do not stop to retrieve any belongings. Once there, make your way quickly but calmly to The House of Fun children’s play area situated near the south exit and await further instructions. I repeat. This is the police. The situation is under control …”

“You see?” the woman said when the message started repeating. “The police are here already.”

“Under control my fucking arse,” the old man said with a scowl.

“Oh, come on! Why would they say it if it wasn’t true?”

“Fucking coppers lie all the time, it’s part of their job description. You hear any shooting?”

“No, why?” the woman asked.

“Well there you are then. If they’re not shooting them fucking cunts out there they haven’t got them under control, have they? Stands to fucking reason, it’s not like they’re going to give themselves up peacefully, is it?”

“They could be using tasers?” Kylie said.

The old man looked at her and frowned. Kylie got the impression he hadn’t thought of that. “Yeah well,” he said, “fuck the coppers and fuck what they say. I’ll take my own chances, thanks. The rest of you can do whatever the fuck you want.”

He turned to leave. Several people followed him, talking loudly about what they could use as weapons. Tom was about to join them when Kylie held him back.

“Wait, we should at least go and see what the police have got to say. It can’t do any harm, can it? Where was it they said, The House of Fun? Does anyone know where that is?”

“I do,” Mike said. His face reddened when Tom looked at him quizzically. He shrugged. “I take my kid brother there sometimes, don’t I?”

People started to drift away. Tom stared at the television news. A huge mob of crazies surrounded a corner shop, all banging furiously on its doors and windows. “You’re wrong, you know. We need to keep moving, not lock ourselves away. We’ve done okay so far, haven’t we?”

“You call this doing okay?” Mike asked, pointing at Britney. “We’ve just been lucky, that’s all.”

Outside on the balcony, someone screamed. Tom ran for the exit while Mike helped Britney out of the wheelchair. Kylie hurried to catch Tom up. He leaned over the balcony, looking down at a huge, snarling crowd of crazies surrounding the foot of a nearby escalator. They climbed over each other in a pile of flailing arms and legs to create a swaying tower of flesh several feet high. Those on top clawed their way over and fell, spilling onto the escalator to join the crazies who were already tumbling around there. They crawled over them, taking their place at the head of the queue half way up the steps, where their motion was halted by the downward movement of the escalator beneath them.

“Oh shit,” Kylie said. “They’re coming up.”

Tom nodded, still staring at the crazies on the escalator. “Doesn’t look like we’ll have long either. We should get out of here while we can.”

“Let’s go and find those coppers,” Kylie said, “and tell them what’s happening. They’ll know what to do.”

10

It took Kylie and the others almost twenty minutes to reach the play area at the opposite side of the sprawling shopping centre. Brightly coloured clown faces smiled down from its boarded over shop front. Above the door, which was painted to look like a cave entrance, was the phrase Welcome to The House of Fun.

A large crowd had gathered outside, with more people standing just inside the doorway. Others were arriving all the time from both directions. They looked bewildered and terrified by what they had witnessed, but were quiet and subdued, as if they had already given up any hope of survival. Some had minor injuries, bruises and scratches or grazed knees from where they had stumbled and fallen. Others were more badly injured, with gaping bite wounds and displaying the same yellow skin-tone as Britney. Kylie looked at each of them in turn, but saw nobody who looked like a police officer. Nobody who seemed to know what they were doing.

An overweight woman in her mid-thirties sat slumped against the balcony nearby. She sobbed to herself, clutching tattered strips of clothing over her breasts. Her face was deathly pale, her eyes red and puffy from crying. Nobody took any notice of her. People either shuffled around her or stepped over her, as if she wasn’t there.

“So where’s all the coppers then?” Tom asked.

Kylie frowned. “I don’t know. They must be inside or something?”

Tom grunted and led them closer to the entrance door, pushing his way through the crowd milling around outside. Kylie peered through the doorway and saw dozens of yellow-skinned people lying on soft foam play equipment. A young woman with a small first aid box attended them, applying bandages to their wounds. She had angry red scratches on one side of her face, which had scabbed over. Mounted on one wall, a large flat-screen TV silently showed Postman Pat making a delivery to Mrs Goggins.

“Where’s the police?” Kylie asked.

The young woman glanced at her and looked away, continued wrapping a bandage around a man’s arm. “That would be me,” she said quietly.

“You don’t look like no copper,” Tom said. “Where’s the rest of them?”

“I’m off duty. Reinforcements will be here soon, but until then it’s just me.”

Tom sucked through his teeth. Kylie’s heart sank. She had been hoping their ordeal was over, that they’d be rescued. But it looked like they were no better off than they had been before.

“Fuck this,” Tom said, turning away. “That old geezer was right, we’re on our own here.”

“No, wait,” the police woman said. “We need to stick together. We’re perfectly safe up here, we just need to wait for help to arrive.”

Tom turned back to the woman and shook his head, frowning. “Not for much longer we’re not. There’s loads of them making their way up the escalator right now, we’ve seen them.”

Several people in the crowd gasped and looked around fearfully. The police woman looked at Tom, wide-eyed.

“Where?” she asked.

“Near the fountain,” Kylie said.

The police woman joined her hands over her mouth as if she were praying, and sighed into them. “Okay, thanks for telling me.” She brushed past Kylie and stepped out onto the balcony. “Okay, listen up everyone,” she shouted, “I need you all to move inside. It will be a bit cramped, so move as far to the back wall as you can. Anyone who is injured, wait by the mats at the front for treatment. The rest of you, find space where you can.”