'Is that what you wanted to talk to us about?' said Justin.
'Well, the main thing is ...' Ed paused, not sure if he should carry on.
'What?'
'OK. But you've got to promise not to tell anyone else.'
'Fine.'
'Next week's my birthday,' said Ed. 'I'm going to be fifteen. What I'm asking is am I going to get sick like Frederique?'
The other three just sat there staring at him. Ed pressed on.
'I mean what happens to us as we get older? Are we all going to become sickos?'
Still the others just sat there in silence.
'Come on,' said Ed. 'Say something.'
'We don't know, Ed,' said Justin. 'How can we know?'
'You must have some ideas.'
'Well ...' Justin bit his lip. 'OK. If I had to say either way, I'd say it doesn't look too bad for you.'
'Why?'
'You have to look at the evidence,' said Wiki.
'Yeah, yeah, what evidence?'
'We've been talking about this in the Brains Trust,' said Justin. 'Sometimes when you talk about something it makes it less frightening. So we've been talking about why the sickos want to eat children.'
'Yeah, I can see how that might make Froggie a little less frightened,' said Ed sarcastically.
'It does, actually,' said Justin. 'If you can understand something, you can control it. Now, there's obviously something different between us and the sickos.'
'Yeah, just a bit,' said Jibber-jabber. 'They're nuts!'
'And we've thought about it in a Darwinian way,' Justin went on, ignoring Jibber-jabber.
'Get to the point,' said Ed. 'We haven't got long. What's a Darwinian way?'
'Survival of the fittest. Genetics, mating rituals, alpha males, queen bees, ant colonies, all the sort of stuff you get in a David Attenborough series.'
'What's that got to do with me being fifteen?'
'We're animals just the same as any other,' said Justin. 'And everything we do is to survive. Sickos as well.'
'Put it like this,' said Wiki. 'Whatever the sickos do it's not random. So we have to assume that the sickos eat us in order to survive.'
'Oh, bloody hell, we know that!' Ed tried not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the conversation. Wiki and Justin being so serious and wannabe scientific. 'They need to eat something, so they try to eat us.'
'But why us?' said Justin. 'Why, out of all the available food sources, do the sickos choose us first? I mean, from what we can gather, if there's no children around they'll eat other things to survive rats and cats and dead pigeons any food they can find. Crisps even, I suppose, if they could get the packs open. But given the choice they'd rather eat children. Even though we fight back. Even though we kill them. Offer them a nice steak and chips and they're not interested, they'll try to bite your hand off and eat that instead.'
'Yeah, OK. I get that.'
'Well,' said Justin, twining his fingers together like some crusty old school teacher. He was really enjoying this. 'In the wild, animals know what to eat and what not to eat. There's no food labelling, no sell-by dates, no nutritional advice or cookery programmes for them. They even eat some things as a sort of medicine.'
'You see my dog?' said Jibber-jabber. 'He used to eat grass to make himself sick, he'd chew away at it then cough it up, he used to look quite funny, but it was still disgusting.'
'Exactly,' said Justin. 'A lot of animals do things like that. They don't know why they do it, but they do. They have an impulse. Their bodies seem to know what they need even if their brains don't.'
'Are you saying that the sickos need to eat us, somehow?' Ed asked, getting interested now. 'To survive?'
'That would seem to be the most obvious answer,' said Justin. 'Let's look at the facts.' He counted on his fingers. 'One as soon as anyone gets the disease, what's the first thing they do?'
'They attack.'
'Right. Two why didn't Greg get ill as quickly as most other adults?'
'I don't know. Why? I've no idea.'
'Come on what was he eating? That smoked meat.'
'Oh, yeah. And you reckon that was human meat?'
'Not just any human meat. Child meat.'
'OK. I get you, I think.' Ed smiled. 'Yeah. You're saying that if they eat us it helps to keep the sickness away? Is that it?'
'Maybe.' Justin stood up and started to walk up and down. 'Look at the most successful sickos. They're not so diseased, are they? So they can catch us kids easier. But maybe it's a chicken and egg thing? Maybe the two things are connected? The more kids they eat, the less sick they get, and the less sick they get the more kids they eat.'
'You're saying we're like a sort of medicine for them?'
'In a way, yes.'
'Bloody hell.' Ed rubbed his temples and slowly shook his head, trying to take this in.
'We think there's something in us that adults need to eat in order to stay alive,' said Wiki. 'That means that the reason we didn't get the sickness is that we're different to them. Biologically different somehow. Everybody born less than fifteen years ago has something inside them that prevents them from getting the disease.'
'What is it?'
'We've got no idea,' said Justin. 'But the sickos can sense it. Not consciously. I don't know, they can smell it, maybe. Remember what happened to Frederique when she was attacked at the lorry? The sickos weren't interested in her. They left her alone and went after the other kids. And that explains why they don't eat each other, well, not unless they're absolutely desperate. Their primary impulse is to attack and kill and eat children, because we are the only thing keeping them alive. Why do some die of the disease and some live? They live because they eat children. And the more they eat the longer they live.'
'That's not a very nice thought.'
'Yes, but like I said, all knowledge is power,' said Justin. 'The more we can understand them the more we can defend against them.'
'And what about sunlight, then?'
'What do you mean?'
'Why does sunlight make them worse?'
'Does it?' Justin was frowning. This was new information for him.
'Oh, come on, Justin,' said Ed, pathetically pleased that he knew something that Justin didn't. 'You must have seen it. When you put a dead sicko into the sun '
'They turn into popcorn,' Jibber-jabber interrupted. 'Like exploding caterpillars.'
'Yes,' said Justin. 'Go on.'
'They prefer to stay in the dark,' said Ed. 'Not come out in the daylight. And Frederique, she was all right in the dark, but went berserk in the daylight. When I spoke to her, she kept saying the sunlight hurt her.'
'Maybe there's something in the electromagnetic radiation from the sun,' said Wiki. 'Maybe the ultraviolet, or something. The sun's rays could accelerate the disease. There are people who are allergic to sunlight. They have to stay in the dark or their skin blisters. It's called polymorphous light eruption.'
'There's obviously a lot we still have to learn about the disease,' said Justin, sitting back down.
'Maybe you should catch some sickos and do experiments on them,' said Ed.
'Yes,' said Justin. 'It'd be dangerous, but if we really want to understand what's going on then we should.'
'Justin, I was joking!' said Ed. 'You can't start doing human experiments.'
'They're no longer human, Ed. We're the only humans left.'
'If you say so.' Ed sighed and started drumming his fingers on the table. 'But you haven't really answered my original question. Am I still going to be human after my birthday?'
'You say Frederique tried to attack you.'
'She looked at me like I was lunch,' said Ed. 'Came at me with her mouth wide open.'
'Then you must have inside you whatever prevents the disease.'
'Yeah, but will it still be there when I get older?'
'Logically I would say yes.' Justin smiled at Ed. 'You're probably all right.'
'Probably?'
'It's very hard to say anything definite in science,' said Justin. 'Probably's the best we can offer.'
'It's better than nothing.' Ed smiled back at Justin. 'Thank God for the nerds of this world.'
'But at the first sign of a cough or a cold,' Justin added, 'or a fever, or a rash, or spots of any kind, you get well away from me, OK? And stay away!'
Before Ed could reply there was a flash and a thud. The whole building shook and several windows cracked.
'What the hell was that?' said Jibber-jabber, jumping up.
'An explosion of some sort, I reckon,' said Justin. He pointed towards the broken windows. 'Coming from that direction.'
'The gasholders,' said Ed. 'I'll bet it was the gasholders. That decides it. We're getting out of here now.'
68.
'Looks like we ain't going nowhere. I guess we gonna stay loyal to the general.' DogNut made a gun of his fingers and fired two imaginary shots into the air. 'Brap-brap!'
'You're staying?'
'Yup.'
Ed shook his head. 'You're crazy.'
'You know it, bruv!'
There was still a steady flow of bedraggled-looking kids tramping past the park, staring sullenly over at the museum. Ed and DogNut were standing at the back of the lorry. Justin had parked it on the grass to the side of the museum, ready to get away. The fire was obviously getting nearer. The sky was now filled with sparks and billowing smoke that burned their throats. The wind was so hot it was like opening an oven door.
Ed threw up his hands in despair. 'This whole place is gonna go up,' he said, raising his voice to be heard over the noise of the fire.
DogNut shrugged. 'I dunno, bruv. Is all we got. We leave here, where we gonna go? What we gonna do? Maybe we need to make a stand. Get me?'
'You can't make a stand against fire.'
'Jordan Hordern can. He's one tough brother. Big boy on road.'
'All right. Suit yourself. But we're pulling out.' Ed slapped him on the shoulder and walked towards the driver's cab. 'Good luck!'
'Wait a minute!' DogNut called him back. 'The general gave me some gear for you. Thought you might find it useful.' DogNut waved to a boy inside the museum and he came out of the side entrance wheeling a trolley piled high with weapons. Ed saw rifles, swords, axes, clubs, bayonets ... A proper arsenal.
He felt like weeping.
'Jordan Hordern's gone soft,' he said, picking out a rifle with a fixed bayonet. 'He's not as tough as he makes out, is he?'
'Don't worry,' said DogNut with a twisted grin. 'He ain't jazz. He kept all the best stuff for his-self.'
'What about David?'
DogNut sucked his teeth. 'He got his guns.'