“Brutes?” Keith shouts from the van, derailing my train of thought.
“Doubt it,” Paul answers quickly. “Why would they be here? More to the point, why would anyone still be here?”
“Unchanged hideout?” I suggest. “Think someone gate-crashed an evacuation?”
I crouch down to look closer at some of the nearest corpses. It’s impossible to be sure because of the extreme level of mutilation and deterioration, but all the dead faces I see here seem to be Unchanged.
I push open the gate, and we start walking down toward the entrance to the school, leaving Carol and Keith guarding the van. The ground’s much clearer here. In fact, it looks pretty much like it used to when we used to walk the kids down to class. Paul nudges me. I look up and see a sudden flash of frantic movement up ahead as a small figure darts along the side of the building, then jumps down off a low brick wall and disappears inside. I sprint down the path after it and shove the still swinging door open. I push my way inside, then stop suddenly, recoiling at the obnoxious stench that immediately hits me. I can smell human waste, rotting food, and other even worse odors.
I kick my way through the rubbish covering the floor of the small reception area. Directly in front of me is the door to the main assembly hall. To my left are what used to be the staff rooms and offices, and to my right a short flight of steps and a corridor that leads down to the classrooms. My eyes are slowly adjusting to the lack of light in here. What used to always be a bright place full of noise, energy, and life is now just as dark and dead as everywhere else, and it’s a stark contrast to what I remember. There’s a display on the wall with photographs of the teachers and kids, and I force myself not to look for Ellis’s, Edward’s, and Lizzie’s faces.
“There,” Paul whispers, pointing down toward the classrooms. There’s another shadowy blur of fleeting movement as something dashes from one room to another. I race down toward a classroom and push the door open, but I’m immediately sent flying back as something hurls itself at me with unexpected force and lightning speed. I slide across the floor on my backside and struggle to fight off a fast-moving attacker that grabs hold of my neck and starts to squeeze. Can’t tell if it’s claws or teeth I feel digging into my flesh. I try to lift my knife and fight, but before I can even raise my arm another one of them dives on top of me and bites my hand until I drop the weapon. I feel the sharp pinprick of another blade being forced up under my chin, almost breaking skin, then feel more small but savage hands grabbing both of my feet and my other arm and holding me down and then… and then they stop. One by one, Paul pulls them off me. My heart pounding, I scramble back across the floor, stopping only when I reach the wall and can’t go any farther back. I pick myself up and see there’s a crowd of seven children of various sizes and ages standing in front of me. They stare back, immediately losing interest when they realize we’re all on the same side. They slowly scatter and trudge back into the classroom. Paul and I follow them at a cautious distance.
“None of these your daughter?”
“Can’t see her,” I answer, still panting after the attack. I look around the room into a succession of pallid faces. Some of the children crawl away under desks, leaving only the biggest kids out in the open. They look like they’ve been here for some time, living in what used to be their classroom. Tables and chairs have been shoved to the sides of the room, the wood-tiled floor now covered in litter and discarded clothing. Random scraps of material have been used as bedding, and in the far corner wisps of smoke climb up from the ashes of a fire built from torn-up textbooks. The room is in a horrendous condition. It smells like a toilet and feels like a slum, but if I look past the dirt, the bruises, the blood, and the other stains and marks on the faces of these kids, they look completely fresh and alive. Their eyes are bright and full of life.
There’s a boy who looks about the same age as my son Edward, squatting on top of what used to be the teacher’s desk. If he came to this school they’d probably have been classmates, but I don’t recognize him. He’s digging into the wood with the tip of a fearsome-looking knife. I automatically go to tell him not to, but I stop myself-it doesn’t matter, and he’s not going to listen to me anyway. It’s already clear that these kids do what they like, when they like. That’s probably how they’ve managed to survive.
“I’m looking for my daughter.”
He shrugs but doesn’t say anything.
“Are there any other children here?”
Still no answer.
“This is a waste of time,” Paul whispers. “We should just get these kids into the van and get out of here.”
I’m not going anywhere until I’ve had some answers.
“Are there any adults here?”
The big kid sitting on the desk finally looks up. “There was.”
“But not now?”
He shakes his head.
“So what happened to them?” Paul asks.
“They went.”
“You didn’t go?”
“No point.”
“What about the war? The fighting?”
“What war?”
His answer surprises me. I take a step forward and accidentally kick an outstretched leg, which is immediately pulled back out of sight. I crouch down and see a small girl curled up under a desk on a bed of soiled cushions and pillows. She doesn’t react, but she watches me. She remains perfectly still, her eyes following my every move. These children, I think to myself, must have a strangely blinkered view of what’s left of the world. Like all kids, they’re only interested in themselves. I know they’d kill any Unchanged stupid enough to get too close, but do they feel the same compulsion to go outside and hunt them down as the rest of us do? As long as they’re warm and relatively comfortable and they’ve got a decent supply of food, what more could they want? They’re nesting here.
“I’m going to check the rest of the place out,” I tell Paul, eager to keep looking for Ellis. I leave the classroom and work my way back toward the main entrance, checking the other rooms as I pass them. They’re all empty.
“There’s no one else here,” a quiet voice says when I reach the top of the stairs. I turn around quickly, but I can’t see anyone. A little girl cautiously steps out of the shadows and looks up at me with huge, saucer-shaped eyes. I try to estimate her age, but it’s difficult. She appears completely innocent but at the same time strangely switched-on and knowing. She’s a pitiful sight-desperately thin, pale white skin, dirty and bedraggled with long, knotted hair. She’s wearing pajamas and has bare, muddy feet. Her clothing is bloodstained, and instinctively I’m about to ask her if she’s hurt herself. But then I realize the blood is more than likely from someone else, someone she more than likely killed. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. We both stand there awkwardly, staring at each other in silence, until something I see just over her shoulder catches my eye. It’s a line of metal coat hooks, hung on a long wooden rail about a yard and a half off the ground. The name on the peg directly behind her is Edward McCoyne. The girl suddenly becomes invisible as I reach out and lift a small cloth bag off my son’s peg.
“That’s just old stuff,” she says. “My bag’s down there. Want to see it?”