She threw down the spear she had been carrying and sat on the ground, resting her head in her hands.

It was her fault. That was all she could think. It was all her fault.

When Arran was away she was supposed to be in charge. She couldn’t remember when it had been decided – Arran was the leader, she was second in command – it must have happened early on, when most of the kids had been too frightened and confused to do anything for themselves. Arran and Maxie had just got on with it, organizing everyone, keeping their spirits up. Arran was clever and likeable. Right from the start he’d kept his head and not panicked. He’d been captain of the football team at William Ellis School and nothing ever seemed to freak him out.

The two of them had worked together. A team. Maxie had always been good at getting other children to help out. There were better fighters than her, true, but they were happy for her to tell them what to do. They didn’t want the responsibility. And when Arran wasn’t there, she was the leader.

So, it was all her fault. Another kid gone. She shut down part of her mind. She didn’t want to think about what the grown-ups would do to Small Sam.

She started to cry. She didn’t care who saw it.

Callum looked at Josh. They both felt awkward. In the end it was Josh who squatted down next to her and put an arm round her shoulders.

‘It’s all right, Max,’ he said quietly. ‘We’ll be all right. Something’ll happen, someone will come. Something’s gonna change. When Arran and the others get back we’ll talk about it maybe, yeah? Make a plan?’

‘What’s the point?’ said Maxie.

‘When Arran gets back, yeah?’

Maxie looked up into Josh’s concerned, grubby face.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

‘Come on,’ said Callum. ‘Let’s try and find out how they got over the wall. Then we should get back inside.’

‘Yeah.’ Maxie jumped up. It was OK as long as you were doing something, as long as you didn’t stop and think.

She wished Arran were here, though. She always felt safer when he was around.

It was just… What was he going to think?

Another kid gone.

All her fault.

2

A burster was lying in the middle of the road. A father by the looks of it, though it was hard to tell. He had the familiar look of a vegetable, or a piece of fruit, left too long in the sun. The skin blackened, shrivelled and split, the overripe flesh inside squeezing out. His insides had turned to mush. This was what happened if any grown-up lived long enough to let the disease run its full course. They literally burst.

Arran prodded the body with his trainer. As he did so the skin popped, and a stream of pus oozed out followed by a bright pink blossom of soft fat.

Arran was leading the scavenger party. Tall, fair-haired and athletic. He had a knife in his belt and carried a pickaxe handle as a club.

‘Gross,’ sniggered the boy at his side, who had a shock of curly hair bleached almost white.

‘Come on. We don’t have time for this.’ Arran turned his back on the corpse and carried on up the Holloway Road. When the disaster first happened the kids had been appalled and fascinated by dead bodies. Now they were used to them. They hardly even noticed them. A burster, though, was still a little special.

The scavenger party took up their positions with Arran and trudged on. They hadn’t gone another hundred yards, however, before the bleach-haired boy, Deke, slowed down.

‘What’s that?’

They stopped and listened.

‘Dogs,’ said another boy and he moved to the front. He was shorter than Arran and not as strong. He had proved time and time again, though, that fighting was not all about strength. Arran was the leader, but Achilleus was the best fighter of them all, with a wiry build, dark eyes and olive skin. He spent most of his spare time shaving elaborate patterns into his short hair. He could be moody and sarcastic and quick to lose his temper, but nobody much minded because he’d saved them all many times with his combat skills. He moved fast, used his brain and was utterly ruthless in a fight.

They waited. They could hear the dogs long before they saw them. A cacophony of howling, yelping and barking. All jumbled together it sounded like a single mad beast.

Achilleus levelled his spear, pointing it towards the noise. It was made from a metal spike he’d found on a building site. It had a heavy lump at one end and he’d sharpened the other into a vicious point. It was perfect for keeping grownups at bay. He could stab with the front, and use the back end to batter them. It was definitely not for throwing. Too precious for that.

Arran took up a defensive position behind him, next to Freak and Deke. Freak and Deke were a team, best mates. Before the disaster they’d taken to the streets armed only with spray-cans. Their tag was ‘Freaky-Deaky’ and it could be seen all over Tufnell Park and Camden Town, sprayed on walls and shutters, stencilled on to the pavements, scratched on the glass in bus shelters. They knew all the back ways, all the alleys and short cuts. Freak, whose real name was David, had close-cropped hair and a thin, pinched face. He was always sniffing. Deke was the bigger of the two. He was good-looking and would have been popular with the girls if he hadn’t spent all his time with Freak. The two were inseparable, always finishing each other’s sentences and laughing at each other’s jokes. Freak carried an axe and Deke a sledgehammer. They were mainly for knocking down doors and opening windows, although, if needed, they could be used as weapons.

The last in the group was Ollie. Small and red-haired, the cleverest of them all. He had sharp eyes and could think quickly. He kept himself to himself and most of the time he kept quiet. But, when he did speak, people listened. Arran would often ask Ollie for advice, and it was never seen as a weakness. Ollie always knew the best thing to do.

As the barking of the dogs grew louder Ollie stepped back and to one side, keeping a clear line of sight. His weapon was a slingshot that he had taken from a sports shop. It was a powerful hunter’s model, with a pistol grip and a metal brace that fitted over his forearm. He drew the elastic back and tucked a heavy steel ball into the worn leather pouch.

Whenever the kids were out of camp they travelled in a group of at least four. One to look ahead and lead the way, two to check the sides, and one to watch their backs. But, as Freak and Deke always worked together, there were five of them today. They had learnt early on to move down the middle of the roads, rather than to stay out of sight among the buildings along the sides. Grown-ups could hide in the shadows and grab you from the darkness. They weren’t such a threat in the open, because on the whole they didn’t move fast enough. The biggest danger was if you got surrounded. In a mass the grown-ups were a real threat, bigger and heavier than the kids, and diseased. Grown-ups were rarely organized enough to plan any real strategy, though, and for the most part they came lumbering out in a pack from the side. Then the best thing to do was run.

Anything to avoid a fight.

Dogs were different, however. Unpredictable. Dangerous.

‘Are they coming our way?’ said Freak, scratching his stubbly head.

‘Think so,’ said Ollie, his slingshot creaking.

‘Let them,’ said Achilleus. ‘I’m ready.’

‘It gets more dangerous every time we come out,’ said Arran.

‘Tell me about it,’ said Deke, nervously twisting his sledgehammer in his hand.

Then the first of the dogs appeared, a skinny mongrel with one eye. It bowled out into the street, fell over, wriggled on the ground then lay on its back in surrender. A second dog was hard on its tail, a dirty Staffordshire terrier. It had evidently been chasing the mongrel, because it came at him with teeth bared and hackles raised.