The Sacrifice by Charlie Higson
‘Hello? Johnny? Jaz? Hello … Is there anyone here with me? Anyone? Anyone … ’
He had to get out.
Christ. What if they’d already started to eat him? He couldn’t feel his legs. Could they have chewed away at them?
He growled in fear and fury and frustration.
Too many questions.
Too many unknowns.
One thing was clear, though. And it was a big positive. Whatever had happened, he was still alive. And he was going to get out of this somehow.
He heard the scuff of footsteps.
Froze.
Someone was moving around out there.
More than one person by the sound of it.
They’d come for him.
He closed his eyes and opened his mouth and howled …
33
‘We found seven more Nephilim this morning. God knows how they’re getting through. We’ve repaired any damage to the Wall we could find, but there were no obvious weak points. Without knowing exactly where they got over we don’t have a clue where to start fixing things up. It’s too big a job to reinforce the whole Wall. It took us nearly a year to build it. We need more soldiers out on the streets, regular patrols.’
‘The Lamb will look after us, Nathan.’
Archie noticed Nathan give a little look that Matt missed. Nathan sighed. ‘But he’ll take any help he can get from us, yeah? You should see it out there, Matt; it’s like Glastonbury for the diseased. There’s more Nephilim rocking up every day and they’re massing on the other side of the Wall like flies around poop. I never seen anything like it, man. It’s getting bare crowded. Is like they’re after something.’
Nathan was Matt’s main man at the cathedral when it came to security. In charge of all their soldiers. He was tall and well built, had been a keen footballer before the collapse, had dreamt of getting a try-out for one of the London clubs. Archie liked him. He didn’t take any crap from anyone and he didn’t dish any out.
Nathan, Archie and Matt were plodding up the endless spiral staircase inside the south wall of St Paul’s. Their feet clattered on the wooden steps that were fixed on top of the stone ones underneath.
‘How many Nephilim did you say you found on this side of the Wall this morning?’ Matt asked, slightly out of breath.
‘Seven.’ Nathan was glugging from a can of Coke and wasn’t finding the climb any sweat. Archie was too knackered to even speak. Sports had never been his thing and since arriving at the cathedral he hardly took any exercise any more. He stayed indoors, eating unhealthy food.
‘Were they all together?’ Matt asked.
‘Nah, one group of two, one group of five.’
‘Were they any trouble to get rid of?’
‘Not really. There was enough of us to sort them out. We wasted them and dumped their bodies from off of the Wobbly Bridge. Big splash. Bye-bye, Neph’.’
Matt stopped and turned to Nathan as they reached one of the small landings.
‘Then what’s the problem?’ he asked. ‘You can deal with the few that get through, can’t you?’
‘Yeah, but there’s more and more of them out there, man. You need to look for yourself.’
‘Well, that’s what I’m doing, aren’t I? I’m not hacking all the way up here for my health, Nathan.’
‘Won’t do you no harm,’ Nathan joked.
Matt tutted and carried on up the stairs. Archie filled his aching lungs and followed.
Eventually they came to the Whispering Gallery. Archie had never liked it up here. From the gallery you could look right down inside the dome to the floor, miles below. You felt like you were hanging in this vast, open, empty space. Archie was scared of heights and had a crazy urge to throw himself off.
When they’d first arrived, the kids had all come up here. You could whisper into the wall and someone on the other side of the dome could hear you perfectly clearly. The kids had spent ages whispering rude words and giggling. Now they hardly came up any more.
Archie tried not to think about that sickening view down to the black and white tiled floor and was relieved that they weren’t stopping there this time. They were heading up to the Golden Gallery, at the top of the dome, with its 360-degree views of the outside world.
It meant more stairs, however, and Archie was already out of breath, his heart hammering at his ribs and his legs burning. Nathan and Matt had gone on ahead. He could hear their voices echoing down the stairs. He struggled on behind, swearing quietly to himself. There were benches for resting every twenty steps or so and Archie had to use every one. The smoke wafting up from below didn’t help. It got everywhere and as he passed through a thick haze of it, trapped in the stairwell, he started to cough and choke. It was a relief to get out into the fresh air when he reached the Stone Gallery that ran round the bottom of the dome. Archie preferred it out here to the Whispering Gallery. The cathedral felt more solid and secure. Somehow, looking straight down inside the building was worse than looking out at the view across London.
He had a faint hope that they might stop here, but the high stone balustrade made it hard to see clearly and the extra height from the Golden Gallery gave a better view.
Besides, Matt would want to go right to the top. It was easier to play God from up there. Lord Matt almighty looking out across his kingdom.
Archie sighed as he saw Matt and Nathan slip inside the small doorway that led to the next lot of stairs.
This was the worst part.
The dome had an outer shell and an inner shell, and between them was a narrow space. Cast-iron spiral stairs had been built inside this space and Archie would have to climb them to get to the top.
He hated those iron stairs. Not only were there hundreds of them, but you could also see down through the holes in them.
He was nauseous and sweating and shaking by the time he got to the Golden Gallery, and as he ducked his head to get through the doorway to the outside world, he gulped in lungfuls of cold air.
He concentrated on the spectacular view until he had calmed down, then edged his way round the narrow gallery until he was next to Matt and Nathan who were leaning on the rusted iron railing, pointing downwards.
In the early morning light Archie could clearly see the Wall, the series of barricades that they’d laboriously built over the last year, blocking off every street around the cathedral and creating a safe area on the inside.
He could also clearly see a great crowd of grown-ups – Nephilim as Matt had named them, after some giants in the Bible. It looked like every sicko in London was heading this way. They were pressed up against the barricades.
And he could hear them, tap-tap-tapping.
Dumb clucks.
Matt had started the Great Song soon after they’d arrived, trying to keep it going all day and night. In those days the grown-ups could come right up to the cathedral walls at night. And they clustered there, copying the kids inside. It had spread like a craze among them. As if music still lived on in some deep animal part of their brains.
Archie was amazed that all these new arrivals had joined in so quickly. They were making quite a racket down there. You couldn’t hear them from inside the cathedral, but, when the wind was in the right direction, the sound rose up here loud and clear.
‘What do they want?’ Archie asked, not really expecting an answer.
‘It’s the Lamb,’ said Matt.
‘What?’
‘The Lamb. They know he’s here. They’ve come for him. They want to destroy him.’
‘So you’ll admit it’s a full-on army then?’ said Nathan.
‘They are the Emim, the Awwim,’ said Matt. ‘The Terrors, the Rephaim or Dead Ones, the Gibborim, the Devastators.’
‘They’re a bunch of sick bunnies is what they are,’ said Nathan.
‘They are the Nephilim,’ Matt went on. ‘The fallen ones, the cursed ones. And this is their city, Kiriath-arba.’
Nathan sighed. Archie could tell he was trying to stay patient. Nathan was more in
terested in practical things, didn’t have much to do with the religious side of life in the cathedral.
‘They’re something we need to maybe worry about, though, yeah?’ he said.
‘No,’ said Matt. ‘I don’t worry about anything. We have the Lamb. Our faith is strong. We will win this.’
‘How exactly?’ said Nathan, almost losing it. ‘I mean, seriously, Matt. What are we going to literally do? How does it work? Is he going to lead us, the Lamb? Are we going to go out there and fight them Nephs? Is he going to shoot laser beams from his fingers or will the clouds open up in the sky and a big, like, ray of light come down and turn them into dust? I mean, literally, Matt, are they all supposed to just drop down dead or something? Tell me how it works.’
‘It will be shown to us.’
Archie bit his lip and turned away so that there was no danger of Matt seeing his expression. Sometimes he wanted to hit Matt. He could be really annoying. He’d known him since he was eight. They’d been together seven years, first at Rowhurst junior school and then at big school. To say that Matt had changed would be something of an understatement.
Archie’s father had been a vicar, but Matt had never been religious, until he’d seen the light in a big way a year ago. Archie remembered sheltering from the sickos in the school chapel. They’d been burning wood and bibles and anything they could get their hands on to keep warm and the fumes had built up until they’d all nearly died from carbon-monoxide poisoning. When Matt came round, he’d changed. A strange religious mania had come over him and he was now absolutely sure that he was right and everyone else was wrong. He knew some hidden truth.
Archie often wondered how much of it all he really believed. If he confronted Matt he knew what the answer would be …
All of it. Every single word.
But he changed those words, didn’t he? Nearly every day. To suit himself. To fit the situation. The truth was slippery.
Matt was completely crazy. Archie was a hundred per cent sure of that. But maybe in a crazy world you needed a crazy person to lead you.
And so far they’d done pretty well, hadn’t they? Whenever Matt had said that the Lamb would look after them, it had come true. Like a series of miracles. Unbelievable really, if you thought about it.
They’d survived the boat wreck in the Thames. They’d found their way here. They’d beaten off the Nephilim. Built the Wall. They’d found the food supply that kept them all alive. They’d found Wormwood. They’d even found the Lamb and the Goat.
Just like Matt had said they would.
Maybe, when it came down to it, Matt was the sane one and the rest of them were crazy.
A hundred per cent crazy.
‘When we sacrifice the Goat, all will be clear,’ Matt said. ‘We’ll know what we have to do. Today we’ll take him to Wormwood. And we’ll see what’s what. So let’s get on with it.’
34
Sam felt like he was going mad. The chickens running around everywhere, the smoke, the noise, the messed-up kids. He’d hardly slept at all, and whenever he had managed to doze off, his dreams had been filled with horrors. He’d lost count of the times he’d woken up in the night, anxious and shaking, drenched in sweat. It didn’t help that he was under guard. There were always two older kids watching over him, working in shifts, sitting there silently, forcing themselves not to look directly at him.
His bed was a camping mattress rolled out on the hard floor. All the other kids appeared to sleep in the main body of the cathedral, except for Matt and his closest circle, who had some rooms in another part of the building somewhere.
Sam sat up and looked around, making doubly sure that this wasn’t just another nightmare. His head throbbed; the cuts and bruises he’d got yesterday were very painful, particularly his shins where he’d bashed them climbing into the tunnel. The smoke that filled the cathedral had made his throat raw and he still felt jittery from all the rich food he’d eaten last night and all the Coke he’d drunk.
A few kids were still churning out a drone from the choir stalls. They’d kept it up all night just as Matt had warned. It was the thing Sam found hardest to deal with. He’d been on holiday with his family to Spain once. They’d stayed in a nice hotel, with a pool and waterslides, but their rooms had been directly over the hotel disco and all night the thump, thump, thump had come up through the floor, mixed in with people laughing and cheering and shouting. Sam had found it impossible to sleep and his dad had been driven nuts. Sam had never seen him like that before, stamping about in his room in the middle of the night, screaming at them all to shut up.
Sam yawned and rubbed his face. His eyes felt all itchy and gritty; they hurt if he moved them too much. Above him the early morning light made a milky white glow in the smoke-filled dome. Two pigeons flapped about up there. He coughed. Spat on to the floor. Then a big fat tear ran down his nose and splatted next to the pathetic little blob of phlegm. This was all so unfair. He wasn’t supposed to be here. The grown-ups were the ones you had to worry about, not other children. How could the kids here pretend they were good, claim they were helping him, claim they worshipped him even, when they treated him and The Kid like this?
They’d put The Kid in a cage last night. That wasn’t right. They shouldn’t do that to someone. After they’d caught him they’d dragged him down the aisle to where the cage stood waiting. He’d gone quietly, realistic about his chances of being able to fight so many people. Sam had gone berserk, though, spitting, cursing, yelling, screaming and kicking the bigger kids who held him back. In the end he’d exhausted himself and they’d let him go. He’d sat in a side chapel and cried and cried until they put him to bed.
The cage sat in the middle of the cathedral, under the dome, where they’d dragged it last night. It was metal, looked a bit fake, like it had been made for a film or a play, or the old London Dungeon. Maybe that’s where they’d got it from – they certainly hadn’t made it themselves. But the lock on its door worked all right; that wasn’t just for show.
Sam looked over to his friend. The Kid was sitting up straight with his legs crossed, unmoving, his dark eyes glinting in the milky light.
Sam went to get up. One of the boys who was guarding him spoke.
‘Stay there, please.’
‘Can’t I at least go and talk to my friend?’
‘Matt said you weren’t to go anywhere.’
‘I’m not going anywhere. I’ll only be over there.’
‘I don’t know. I was told to keep you here.’
Sam swore at the boy, who kept his head bowed and his eyes on the floor.
‘What’s going on?’ Tish came over with another girl. They looked bleary-eyed. Sam wondered if anyone ever got any sleep around here with that racket going on all night. Maybe Matt wanted it that way, wanted to keep everyone half crazed, unable to think straight, like zombies. Sam had seen a programme about brainwashing once, how the American army tortured people by not letting them get any sleep – and playing loud heavy metal music at them. It broke their minds eventually.
‘Are you all right?’ Tish asked with a soppy smile, as if she was talking to a baby. At least she looked at him, though.
‘What do you think?’ said Sam. ‘Of course I’m not all right. Please, can’t I just go and talk to The Kid? I feel sorry for him, all by himself over there.’
Tish bit her lip as she thought this over. The scab on her forehead looked black. At least half the other children here had similar wounds.
They freaked Sam out.
‘If you want me to go along with things,’ he said, ‘then you’ll have to let me do what I want.’
Tish looked around the cathedral. There was no sign of Matt or Archie Bishop or any of the acolytes.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘If it’ll cheer you up. But just for a minute and then will you behave, yeah? Cooperate?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Come on then.’ Tish smiled again. ‘To be fair, I can’t see what harm it can do.’
&nbs
p; She took Sam over to the cage. The other girl and the two guards came with them. Sam felt a bit self-conscious, but when he got there, all he could think about was how miserable The Kid must be. He laced his fingers through the bars of the cage and tried not to start crying again. That wouldn’t help his friend any.
‘I’m sorry about this,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know. It’s not my fault. I’m not what they think I am. I’m sorry we ended up here.’
The Kid said nothing. Didn’t move or speak, just stared into infinity. Sam felt awful. The Kid must be blaming him for everything. Sam would’ve done the same in his position. He turned angrily on Tish.
‘How can you say he’s bad?’ he said, trying not to shout. ‘How can you say he’s this goat you all keep talking about? Some evil thing? He’s not evil. He’s a boy like me. He’s my friend.’
‘He’s deceived you.’
‘I don’t even know what that means.’
‘He’s pretending to be your friend when really he’s the Goat.’
‘That’s mental. He’s not a goat. How could he be a goat?’
‘It’s not literal,’ said Tish, looking slightly confused herself. ‘To be fair, I don’t think he’s, like, I mean, he’s not literally a goat. I don’t really understand it. It’s all symbols, hidden meanings, words inside words. You’d need to be in the inner circle to understand it. I don’t understand half the stuff. Matt and Archie and the acolytes, they have meetings and study groups and Matt tells them the words and they write them down. The religious books get longer every day and sometimes they change, like when Matt tells us he’s heard the words wrong or misunderstood something, then he changes things. Writes new rules. That’s what the smoke’s for, to give us all fresh visions.’
‘Since when did smoke ever make anything more clearer?’ said Sam. ‘That’s just stupid. Like everything here.’
‘Matt can explain it better.’
‘But I mean, wouldn’t I know about it?’ said Sam. ‘Just a little bit? If I really was the lamb, wouldn’t I have some idea? It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘You are the Lamb.’
He had to get out.
Christ. What if they’d already started to eat him? He couldn’t feel his legs. Could they have chewed away at them?
He growled in fear and fury and frustration.
Too many questions.
Too many unknowns.
One thing was clear, though. And it was a big positive. Whatever had happened, he was still alive. And he was going to get out of this somehow.
He heard the scuff of footsteps.
Froze.
Someone was moving around out there.
More than one person by the sound of it.
They’d come for him.
He closed his eyes and opened his mouth and howled …
33
‘We found seven more Nephilim this morning. God knows how they’re getting through. We’ve repaired any damage to the Wall we could find, but there were no obvious weak points. Without knowing exactly where they got over we don’t have a clue where to start fixing things up. It’s too big a job to reinforce the whole Wall. It took us nearly a year to build it. We need more soldiers out on the streets, regular patrols.’
‘The Lamb will look after us, Nathan.’
Archie noticed Nathan give a little look that Matt missed. Nathan sighed. ‘But he’ll take any help he can get from us, yeah? You should see it out there, Matt; it’s like Glastonbury for the diseased. There’s more Nephilim rocking up every day and they’re massing on the other side of the Wall like flies around poop. I never seen anything like it, man. It’s getting bare crowded. Is like they’re after something.’
Nathan was Matt’s main man at the cathedral when it came to security. In charge of all their soldiers. He was tall and well built, had been a keen footballer before the collapse, had dreamt of getting a try-out for one of the London clubs. Archie liked him. He didn’t take any crap from anyone and he didn’t dish any out.
Nathan, Archie and Matt were plodding up the endless spiral staircase inside the south wall of St Paul’s. Their feet clattered on the wooden steps that were fixed on top of the stone ones underneath.
‘How many Nephilim did you say you found on this side of the Wall this morning?’ Matt asked, slightly out of breath.
‘Seven.’ Nathan was glugging from a can of Coke and wasn’t finding the climb any sweat. Archie was too knackered to even speak. Sports had never been his thing and since arriving at the cathedral he hardly took any exercise any more. He stayed indoors, eating unhealthy food.
‘Were they all together?’ Matt asked.
‘Nah, one group of two, one group of five.’
‘Were they any trouble to get rid of?’
‘Not really. There was enough of us to sort them out. We wasted them and dumped their bodies from off of the Wobbly Bridge. Big splash. Bye-bye, Neph’.’
Matt stopped and turned to Nathan as they reached one of the small landings.
‘Then what’s the problem?’ he asked. ‘You can deal with the few that get through, can’t you?’
‘Yeah, but there’s more and more of them out there, man. You need to look for yourself.’
‘Well, that’s what I’m doing, aren’t I? I’m not hacking all the way up here for my health, Nathan.’
‘Won’t do you no harm,’ Nathan joked.
Matt tutted and carried on up the stairs. Archie filled his aching lungs and followed.
Eventually they came to the Whispering Gallery. Archie had never liked it up here. From the gallery you could look right down inside the dome to the floor, miles below. You felt like you were hanging in this vast, open, empty space. Archie was scared of heights and had a crazy urge to throw himself off.
When they’d first arrived, the kids had all come up here. You could whisper into the wall and someone on the other side of the dome could hear you perfectly clearly. The kids had spent ages whispering rude words and giggling. Now they hardly came up any more.
Archie tried not to think about that sickening view down to the black and white tiled floor and was relieved that they weren’t stopping there this time. They were heading up to the Golden Gallery, at the top of the dome, with its 360-degree views of the outside world.
It meant more stairs, however, and Archie was already out of breath, his heart hammering at his ribs and his legs burning. Nathan and Matt had gone on ahead. He could hear their voices echoing down the stairs. He struggled on behind, swearing quietly to himself. There were benches for resting every twenty steps or so and Archie had to use every one. The smoke wafting up from below didn’t help. It got everywhere and as he passed through a thick haze of it, trapped in the stairwell, he started to cough and choke. It was a relief to get out into the fresh air when he reached the Stone Gallery that ran round the bottom of the dome. Archie preferred it out here to the Whispering Gallery. The cathedral felt more solid and secure. Somehow, looking straight down inside the building was worse than looking out at the view across London.
He had a faint hope that they might stop here, but the high stone balustrade made it hard to see clearly and the extra height from the Golden Gallery gave a better view.
Besides, Matt would want to go right to the top. It was easier to play God from up there. Lord Matt almighty looking out across his kingdom.
Archie sighed as he saw Matt and Nathan slip inside the small doorway that led to the next lot of stairs.
This was the worst part.
The dome had an outer shell and an inner shell, and between them was a narrow space. Cast-iron spiral stairs had been built inside this space and Archie would have to climb them to get to the top.
He hated those iron stairs. Not only were there hundreds of them, but you could also see down through the holes in them.
He was nauseous and sweating and shaking by the time he got to the Golden Gallery, and as he ducked his head to get through the doorway to the outside world, he gulped in lungfuls of cold air.
He concentrated on the spectacular view until he had calmed down, then edged his way round the narrow gallery until he was next to Matt and Nathan who were leaning on the rusted iron railing, pointing downwards.
In the early morning light Archie could clearly see the Wall, the series of barricades that they’d laboriously built over the last year, blocking off every street around the cathedral and creating a safe area on the inside.
He could also clearly see a great crowd of grown-ups – Nephilim as Matt had named them, after some giants in the Bible. It looked like every sicko in London was heading this way. They were pressed up against the barricades.
And he could hear them, tap-tap-tapping.
Dumb clucks.
Matt had started the Great Song soon after they’d arrived, trying to keep it going all day and night. In those days the grown-ups could come right up to the cathedral walls at night. And they clustered there, copying the kids inside. It had spread like a craze among them. As if music still lived on in some deep animal part of their brains.
Archie was amazed that all these new arrivals had joined in so quickly. They were making quite a racket down there. You couldn’t hear them from inside the cathedral, but, when the wind was in the right direction, the sound rose up here loud and clear.
‘What do they want?’ Archie asked, not really expecting an answer.
‘It’s the Lamb,’ said Matt.
‘What?’
‘The Lamb. They know he’s here. They’ve come for him. They want to destroy him.’
‘So you’ll admit it’s a full-on army then?’ said Nathan.
‘They are the Emim, the Awwim,’ said Matt. ‘The Terrors, the Rephaim or Dead Ones, the Gibborim, the Devastators.’
‘They’re a bunch of sick bunnies is what they are,’ said Nathan.
‘They are the Nephilim,’ Matt went on. ‘The fallen ones, the cursed ones. And this is their city, Kiriath-arba.’
Nathan sighed. Archie could tell he was trying to stay patient. Nathan was more in
‘They’re something we need to maybe worry about, though, yeah?’ he said.
‘No,’ said Matt. ‘I don’t worry about anything. We have the Lamb. Our faith is strong. We will win this.’
‘How exactly?’ said Nathan, almost losing it. ‘I mean, seriously, Matt. What are we going to literally do? How does it work? Is he going to lead us, the Lamb? Are we going to go out there and fight them Nephs? Is he going to shoot laser beams from his fingers or will the clouds open up in the sky and a big, like, ray of light come down and turn them into dust? I mean, literally, Matt, are they all supposed to just drop down dead or something? Tell me how it works.’
‘It will be shown to us.’
Archie bit his lip and turned away so that there was no danger of Matt seeing his expression. Sometimes he wanted to hit Matt. He could be really annoying. He’d known him since he was eight. They’d been together seven years, first at Rowhurst junior school and then at big school. To say that Matt had changed would be something of an understatement.
Archie’s father had been a vicar, but Matt had never been religious, until he’d seen the light in a big way a year ago. Archie remembered sheltering from the sickos in the school chapel. They’d been burning wood and bibles and anything they could get their hands on to keep warm and the fumes had built up until they’d all nearly died from carbon-monoxide poisoning. When Matt came round, he’d changed. A strange religious mania had come over him and he was now absolutely sure that he was right and everyone else was wrong. He knew some hidden truth.
Archie often wondered how much of it all he really believed. If he confronted Matt he knew what the answer would be …
All of it. Every single word.
But he changed those words, didn’t he? Nearly every day. To suit himself. To fit the situation. The truth was slippery.
Matt was completely crazy. Archie was a hundred per cent sure of that. But maybe in a crazy world you needed a crazy person to lead you.
And so far they’d done pretty well, hadn’t they? Whenever Matt had said that the Lamb would look after them, it had come true. Like a series of miracles. Unbelievable really, if you thought about it.
They’d survived the boat wreck in the Thames. They’d found their way here. They’d beaten off the Nephilim. Built the Wall. They’d found the food supply that kept them all alive. They’d found Wormwood. They’d even found the Lamb and the Goat.
Just like Matt had said they would.
Maybe, when it came down to it, Matt was the sane one and the rest of them were crazy.
A hundred per cent crazy.
‘When we sacrifice the Goat, all will be clear,’ Matt said. ‘We’ll know what we have to do. Today we’ll take him to Wormwood. And we’ll see what’s what. So let’s get on with it.’
34
Sam felt like he was going mad. The chickens running around everywhere, the smoke, the noise, the messed-up kids. He’d hardly slept at all, and whenever he had managed to doze off, his dreams had been filled with horrors. He’d lost count of the times he’d woken up in the night, anxious and shaking, drenched in sweat. It didn’t help that he was under guard. There were always two older kids watching over him, working in shifts, sitting there silently, forcing themselves not to look directly at him.
His bed was a camping mattress rolled out on the hard floor. All the other kids appeared to sleep in the main body of the cathedral, except for Matt and his closest circle, who had some rooms in another part of the building somewhere.
Sam sat up and looked around, making doubly sure that this wasn’t just another nightmare. His head throbbed; the cuts and bruises he’d got yesterday were very painful, particularly his shins where he’d bashed them climbing into the tunnel. The smoke that filled the cathedral had made his throat raw and he still felt jittery from all the rich food he’d eaten last night and all the Coke he’d drunk.
A few kids were still churning out a drone from the choir stalls. They’d kept it up all night just as Matt had warned. It was the thing Sam found hardest to deal with. He’d been on holiday with his family to Spain once. They’d stayed in a nice hotel, with a pool and waterslides, but their rooms had been directly over the hotel disco and all night the thump, thump, thump had come up through the floor, mixed in with people laughing and cheering and shouting. Sam had found it impossible to sleep and his dad had been driven nuts. Sam had never seen him like that before, stamping about in his room in the middle of the night, screaming at them all to shut up.
Sam yawned and rubbed his face. His eyes felt all itchy and gritty; they hurt if he moved them too much. Above him the early morning light made a milky white glow in the smoke-filled dome. Two pigeons flapped about up there. He coughed. Spat on to the floor. Then a big fat tear ran down his nose and splatted next to the pathetic little blob of phlegm. This was all so unfair. He wasn’t supposed to be here. The grown-ups were the ones you had to worry about, not other children. How could the kids here pretend they were good, claim they were helping him, claim they worshipped him even, when they treated him and The Kid like this?
They’d put The Kid in a cage last night. That wasn’t right. They shouldn’t do that to someone. After they’d caught him they’d dragged him down the aisle to where the cage stood waiting. He’d gone quietly, realistic about his chances of being able to fight so many people. Sam had gone berserk, though, spitting, cursing, yelling, screaming and kicking the bigger kids who held him back. In the end he’d exhausted himself and they’d let him go. He’d sat in a side chapel and cried and cried until they put him to bed.
The cage sat in the middle of the cathedral, under the dome, where they’d dragged it last night. It was metal, looked a bit fake, like it had been made for a film or a play, or the old London Dungeon. Maybe that’s where they’d got it from – they certainly hadn’t made it themselves. But the lock on its door worked all right; that wasn’t just for show.
Sam looked over to his friend. The Kid was sitting up straight with his legs crossed, unmoving, his dark eyes glinting in the milky light.
Sam went to get up. One of the boys who was guarding him spoke.
‘Stay there, please.’
‘Can’t I at least go and talk to my friend?’
‘Matt said you weren’t to go anywhere.’
‘I’m not going anywhere. I’ll only be over there.’
‘I don’t know. I was told to keep you here.’
Sam swore at the boy, who kept his head bowed and his eyes on the floor.
‘What’s going on?’ Tish came over with another girl. They looked bleary-eyed. Sam wondered if anyone ever got any sleep around here with that racket going on all night. Maybe Matt wanted it that way, wanted to keep everyone half crazed, unable to think straight, like zombies. Sam had seen a programme about brainwashing once, how the American army tortured people by not letting them get any sleep – and playing loud heavy metal music at them. It broke their minds eventually.
‘Are you all right?’ Tish asked with a soppy smile, as if she was talking to a baby. At least she looked at him, though.
‘What do you think?’ said Sam. ‘Of course I’m not all right. Please, can’t I just go and talk to The Kid? I feel sorry for him, all by himself over there.’
Tish bit her lip as she thought this over. The scab on her forehead looked black. At least half the other children here had similar wounds.
They freaked Sam out.
‘If you want me to go along with things,’ he said, ‘then you’ll have to let me do what I want.’
Tish looked around the cathedral. There was no sign of Matt or Archie Bishop or any of the acolytes.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘If it’ll cheer you up. But just for a minute and then will you behave, yeah? Cooperate?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Come on then.’ Tish smiled again. ‘To be fair, I can’t see what harm it can do.’
&nbs
‘I’m sorry about this,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know. It’s not my fault. I’m not what they think I am. I’m sorry we ended up here.’
The Kid said nothing. Didn’t move or speak, just stared into infinity. Sam felt awful. The Kid must be blaming him for everything. Sam would’ve done the same in his position. He turned angrily on Tish.
‘How can you say he’s bad?’ he said, trying not to shout. ‘How can you say he’s this goat you all keep talking about? Some evil thing? He’s not evil. He’s a boy like me. He’s my friend.’
‘He’s deceived you.’
‘I don’t even know what that means.’
‘He’s pretending to be your friend when really he’s the Goat.’
‘That’s mental. He’s not a goat. How could he be a goat?’
‘It’s not literal,’ said Tish, looking slightly confused herself. ‘To be fair, I don’t think he’s, like, I mean, he’s not literally a goat. I don’t really understand it. It’s all symbols, hidden meanings, words inside words. You’d need to be in the inner circle to understand it. I don’t understand half the stuff. Matt and Archie and the acolytes, they have meetings and study groups and Matt tells them the words and they write them down. The religious books get longer every day and sometimes they change, like when Matt tells us he’s heard the words wrong or misunderstood something, then he changes things. Writes new rules. That’s what the smoke’s for, to give us all fresh visions.’
‘Since when did smoke ever make anything more clearer?’ said Sam. ‘That’s just stupid. Like everything here.’
‘Matt can explain it better.’
‘But I mean, wouldn’t I know about it?’ said Sam. ‘Just a little bit? If I really was the lamb, wouldn’t I have some idea? It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘You are the Lamb.’