'Greg ...'
'Shut up! Sit down and shut up. I said I was going to get us all to Islington and I will. I'm taking Liam home.'
He aimed his shotgun at Jack, who backed into a seat, shaking worse than ever.
'That's better,' said Greg, showing both barrels to everyone on the bus. 'Now, all of you, stay where you are, sitting down. Don't talk to the driver when the bus is in motion, or the driver will shoot you. Got that?'
Greg returned to his seat and started the engine. A spray of rain rattled down the side of the coach, which rocked as a blast of wind rolled over it. Jack realized with dismay that Greg would virtually be driving blind.
As the coach eased forward Ed nipped up the aisle and tucked in next to Jack.
'He's lost it,' he said quietly.
'Big time.'
'What are we going to do?' Ed asked.
'Just sit tight and wait for our moment. He's not gonna get far like this.'
'He killed Liam?'
'Looks like it. And he'll probably kill the rest of us if we don't stop him somehow.'
Greg moved the bus up through the gears, so that they were soon thundering along through the cluttered streets of south London. Too fast. Greg was completely out of control.
There was a thump and a grinding crunch as they hit something on one side, but Greg just speeded up. Someone screamed, and Zohra started wailing. They were all being thrown about in their seats. Jack pressed his face to the side window and tried to get his bearings.
'Where's he taking us?' Ed asked. 'Can you tell?'
'Not sure. We're somewhere near London Bridge, I think. But I reckon we're heading south, away from the river. It's so hard to tell around here. None of the roads go in a straight line.'
There was another terrific bang and the coach lurched sideways across the road. Greg wrestled with the wheel.
'This is crazy,' Jack said, standing up and climbing over Ed.
'Jack, no ...'
Jack fought his way to the front, rocking from side to side, stumbling into the seats.
'Stop the bus!' he yelled. By way of a reply Greg flung an arm back and fired off a round from his gun. It went wild, peppering the ceiling with shot, but Jack threw himself to the ground and lay pressed against the carpeted floor.
'Sit down!' Greg yelled, still waving the gun around.
Jack stayed there, hoping that Greg might at least slow down. It was clear, though, that nothing short of a major accident was going to stop him.
Jack made a decision.
If the bus hit something head on, he'd be thrown forward head first along the aisle like a torpedo.
He started to crawl. Inch by inch along the floor. Hoping that Greg wouldn't notice him in the big convex mirror that gave the driver a view of the entire bus interior. He passed Liam's body, tried not to think about what Greg had done to him, carried on.
The bus went way too fast over an obstacle, a speed bump maybe, and Jack was flipped up into the air and landed with a thud. He heard something scraping all the way along the underside. Still he crept forward, his eyes fixed on the shotgun that Greg was waving blindly in the air.
Greg couldn't drive properly like this, and neither could he aim properly. Sooner rather than later either they were going to crash or Greg was going to loose off a shot that would hit one of the kids.
Jack had to keep going.
At last he reached the front. Greg was close enough to touch. Jack picked his moment and then forced himself up from the floor. He shunted Greg's gun arm out of the way and grabbed his wrist. There was a bang as Greg squeezed the trigger. Shot raked the windscreen and punched a hole in the door.
But that was it. The gun only held two shells at a time. If Greg wanted to shoot again, he would have to reload first and Jack wasn't going to give him the chance. He wrenched the weapon out of Greg's grasp and butted the stock into the side of his head. Green snot exploded from Greg's nose and he fell away from Jack as the coach slewed across the road, hurling Jack down the steps. For a few seconds the coach ploughed on, sideways, filling the street from pavement to pavement, its tyres screaming. Then there came a final almighty smash as it hit some parked cars and they at last stopped moving.
From his position sprawled in the stairwell Jack could see smoke and steam rising outside.
Ed unbuckled his belt, ran along the aisle and pulled Jack up out of the stairwell and on to his feet.
'Well done!' He grinned at his friend who looked shaken and a little disorientated.
But Greg wasn't finished. With a roar, he surged out of his seat and punched Ed out of the way with a meaty forearm, trying to get to Jack.
Jack aimed a wild kick at Greg; it got him in the knee. Greg yelled and swung back at him, a vicious right hook that, if it had connected, would have knocked Jack's head off. But Jack managed to duck and scurry away backwards up the aisle, dragging Ed with him.
Greg went into a low crouch, arms outstretched, his red eyes burning with hatred and rage. There was blood drooling from his mouth whether from Jack's blow to his head or from internal bleeding deeper in his guts, it was impossible to tell. He coughed, spraying blood and mucus over the kids at the front of the coach who were up out of their seats and retreating from him in a pack like startled ducklings.
Greg belched, causing a big brown bubble to form between his lips. It burst, filling the coach with a foul stench. He wiped his mouth and then spat a gobbet of rubbery mucus against a window, where it slowly crawled down like a fat yellow slug.
'If Liam ain't gonna live,' he slobbered, 'none of you deserve to live. NONE OF YOU. I'm gonna rip you to pieces.'
28.
Brooke was lying in a confusion of spilt and scattered boxes at the back of the bus, half buried beneath packets of crisps and biscuits. A can of beans had hit her in the back of the head and for a moment she wasn't sure where she was. Then Courtney pulled her out and she quickly caught up with what was going on. Greg was advancing down the aisle, forcing the panicked kids ahead of him. Brooke swore and looked round for some way to escape the chaos.
Fixed above the window was a sort of little metal hammer thing in a glass case.
'Look,' she said, twisting Courtney round. 'Let's smash the glass and get out of here.'
'Do it!' said Courtney.
Brooke jumped on the seat and used her elbow to break the thin glass covering the hammer and then fumbled to remove it from the clips that held it in place.
'Let go, you stupid thing.'
At last she got her fingers round it and tore it free.
'Hurry up!' Aleisha was watching Greg slowly make his way up the bus. Kids spilling from their seats and falling over each other to keep ahead of him.
Brooke swung the hammer.
Too weedy. It just bounced off.
Useless.
'Harder!' yelled Courtney. 'Do it harder.'
'I know!' Brooke snapped. 'Give me a chance.' She pulled her arm right back, bared her teeth and grunted like a tennis player as she swung again. This time there was a satisfying crack as the window turned into a thousand glittering diamonds. Another hit and the bits of shattered glass dropped out, clattering and tinkling.
Brooke bustled to the window then jumped back with a cry.
There were sickos outside.
About ten of them, crowding around the coach, mothers and fathers, a couple of teenagers, in a much worse state than Greg. One of them reached up towards the broken window and took hold of the sill. He was a mess. His cheeks had either been torn through, or had rotted away so that his lower jaw dangled down, no longer attached to the upper jaw. His head tilted back and his long pink tongue poked out like he was a living Pez dispenser.
'We're trapped,' Brooke yelled, swiping at the father's fingers with the hammer. The other two girls crowded round her to look outside. The sickos were getting excited. They started whining and battering the sides of the coach with their fists. BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG ...
Greg came on down the aisle, dribbling, coughing, belching, arms wide.
Matt was standing his ground in the aisle as the smaller kids surged past him. He was clutching a handful of the torn pages from his Bible.
'Greg! Stop!' he said, raising an open palm. 'It doesn't have to be like this. I can help you. The Lamb can cure you. He can make you better. The Lamb can '
Greg lashed out at him with a scything backhander. The slap took Matt full in the face and Greg's signet ring tore a bloody gash from his eyebrow up into his hairline. Matt went flying and fell down heavily between the seats.
Zohra, Froggie and Jibber-jabber used the distraction to run to the toilet. They wrenched the door open and darted inside, frantically scrabbling to lock the door behind them.
Greg snarled and punched his fist through the top of the door. It stuck there, halting him for a moment. He tugged and bellowed and shook like a dog arguing over a bone. Splintered chipboard and plastic tore at his forearm as he tried to pull it free. The cries of the little kids sounded small and distant inside the toilet.
Greg let out a string of obscenities and looked like he might wrench the whole door off its hinges.
'Out of the way! Coming through!' It was Bam, charging down the aisle, head lowered, shoulder braced, for all the world as if he was on the rugby pitch going into a tackle.
Greg looked round just as Bam barged into him and the two of them collapsed in a tangle.
'Get the gun!' Bam yelled, trying to keep Greg down. Bam was big and strong and heavy, but Greg was heavier and filled with a mad fury. He flailed and spat at Bam, who clung on to him.
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG ... The sickos outside continued their hammering on the side of the coach.
Jack vaulted over the writhing bodies in the aisle and sped to the front of the coach. He picked the gun up from where it was lying on the floor and looked around for some shells.
There was a messy driver's shelf full of tissues and old sweets and CD cases and maps. Jack tore into it, tossing stuff aside, his hands feeling slow and clumsy. It was hard to think straight with the screams of the kids, the banging from outside, the rain lashing the roof.
'Come on, come on ...'
There. He'd picked it up and tossed it aside before he realized what it was. A box of shotgun shells. He'd never loaded a gun before but had seen it done enough times in films and on the TV for him to have a pretty good idea what to do. You sort of bent the gun in half and shoved the cartridges in the back end of the barrels. He couldn't for the life of him work out how to break the gun, though.
He let loose a string of obscenities.
It must have a catch or a lock of some kind.
There was a shout and he looked round to see Greg forcing himself to his feet, throwing off Bam. He moved awkwardly. It looked like the arm that had been stuck in the toilet door was dislocated. He turned his whole upper body to his right, as if his head could no longer swivel on his neck.
Chris Marker was sitting there, frozen in the act of reading his book.
Two pairs of eyes locked.
Chris slowly stood up and backed away until he was flattened against the window, his book open in his hands.
Greg was breathing heavily, blinking, angry and bewildered. He glared at the book. Focusing all his hatred on it.
Chris calmly closed the covers and then in one swift movement smashed the book's spine into the bridge of Greg's nose like a brick, knocking the glass out of Liam's spectacles. Greg grunted and staggered back on stiff legs before collapsing on to the seats on the other side of the aisle.
'Come on,' Ed yelled, helping the little kids out of the toilet. 'Everyone off the bus.'
'No!' Brooke shouted. 'There's more of them out there.'
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG ...
Bam limped over to Jack and took the gun off him. He quickly found the release catch and thumbed it forward. He grinned at Jack and broke the gun over his knee before slotting two of the shells into the twin barrels.
He looked back at Ed, who was halfway down the coach.
'I'll clear the way outside. You bring Piers!' he shouted, shoving the rest of the shells into his pocket. He kicked the damaged door open.
'Stay with me!' he commanded, and stepped off.
There were two blasts.
'Quickly!' Jack jumped down after Bam, and the others followed, jostling each other to get off the coach before Greg recovered.
Ed put a hand on Kwanele's shoulder as he pushed past, wheeling his luggage. 'Help me,' he said.
'Me?'
'Yes, you! I can't carry Piers by myself.'
'He's bleeding. It'll ruin my suit.'
'Just shut up and help.'
They took one of Piers' arms each and pulled him up out of his seat. He felt like a dead weight. Kwanele cursed as his suitcase got entangled with the legs of one of the seats. Piers gasped and winced in pain, his eyes flickering open.
'It's all right,' said Ed. 'We're getting you off the bus, mate.'