School's Out Read online

  David was smiling indulgently at the pair of us. He couldn't hear what Mac was hissing in my ear, but he was allowing his favourite acolyte a little fun.

  "And what's this lesson supposed to teach me?" I asked.

  "That you aren't capable of doing what needs to be done," replied Mac. "If you kill Heathcote and join us, then I won't be able to touch you. You'll be protected as one of the brethren. Then you can plot and scheme to your heart's content. Try and bring him down the way you did me. You may even pull it off. God knows you're a devious little fuck. There's a chance that you might be able to save the school. And Matron, and the girls. But only if you stay alive. And you only stay alive if you kill Heathcote. Sacrifice him to save the others, or sacrifice yourself to save your conscience. Your choice."

  He pressed a hunting knife into my hand.

  "You've cheated your way into leadership without ever having to make the tough choices. This is what leadership is, Lee: the willingness to send men to their deaths when necessary, the ability to kill without compunction or hesitation when you need to. Show me what you're made of."

  He stepped back, his hand resting on the butt of his holstered pistol.

  The knife felt heavy as lead in my hand. I stared at Heathcote's wide, terrified eyes as he shook his head imperceptibly, in denial of what was happening. I looked around me, at a sea of blood-smeared faces, expectant and excited. And David, amused but curious at my hesitation.

  "Come, come young man," he said briskly. "If you wish to join us you know what you must do. Bleed the cattle. Earn your salvation. Make yourself safe."

  I thought of the two men at the pillbox who I had spared. If I'd killed them and taken care of the river defences, we'd have been able to evacuate the school unseen by the forces at the gate.

  I thought of the officers I had released. If I hadn't let them go then Ben Woodhams, that young woman, Russell and Jones would all still be alive.

  I thought of Mac. If I'd killed him before he'd seized power then Matron would have been spared her ordeal, and countless lives would have been saved.

  If I had done what was necessary, so many people need not have died.

  Every time I'd spared a life I'd made things worse. Mac was right. And Heathcote was a dead man anyway.

  So I stepped forward, bent over the quivering boy, leant into him, whispered 'I'm so sorry' into his ear, and slit his throat open. All the while, looking straight into Mac's face. Even half ravaged as it was, his look of triumph was unmistakeable. It was the most terrible thing I have ever seen.

  He mimed applause as the crowd began shouting hallelujahs.

  As I stood up I saw Matron standing in the crowd. She was crying. Her tears ran red as they streamed down her cheeks. It was only then that I realised I was crying too.

  The two men held Heathcote as he writhed and kicked his way to death, collecting the blood that flowed from his throat in an ordinary breakfast bowl. When his feeble struggles finally ceased, and the bowl was brimming with fresh blood, David stepped forward, lifted the bowl and brought it to me. He raised it to my lips. My nostrils filled with the metallic tang of slaughter.

  "Drink of the blood of the lamb, and be transformed to your very soul," he said.

  He didn't realise that I was transformed already.

  I took two short, deep breaths, and leaned forward to take a sip.

  As I did so I gripped the knife tightly, and brought it up as hard as I could into David's chest, aiming for his heart.

  The blade bounced off the bullet proof vest that David was wearing beneath his jacket, and fell to the grass.

  And all hell broke loose.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I didn't expect to survive. If it had been a straight choice - kill Heathcote or die - I like to think I would have chosen death.

  Thing is, I had a knife, but David was ten feet away. If I moved towards him I'd be shot down before I got halfway. The only way to kill him was to get him to come to me. And the only way to do that was to kill Heathcote and continue with the ritual. I knew, when I slit that poor boy's throat, that his death was buying me the chance to kill David. That was the deal. I also expected to be shot in the head a second after the knife slid into the bastard's heart. I was fine with that.

  But he didn't die. Nor did I. And so I have to live with the knowledge that I killed a friend in cold blood. The other nightmares keep me awake, but Heatcote's hopeless pleadings whisper in my ears every waking second.

  "Oops," said David, grinning. Then he kneed me in the balls. I doubled over and he brought his knee up again, into my face, smashing my nose and sending me reeling backwards. I stumbled and fell to the ground. A huge cry went up from the crowd, and they fell upon me. Everything was a blur of kicks and punches, shouts and screams. Boots slammed into every inch of my body, I managed to raise my arms to try and protect my head, but it was of little use.

  I heard a dreadful crack as my left arm snapped in two. I screamed in agony, and my head began to swim. It felt like I'd come adrift from the ground, weightless. I was starting to pass out.

  Then the shooting started. The beating stopped almost instantly and I heard the screams of bloodlust change to cries of fear. I heard feet running left and right, the loud, insistent stutter of machine gun fire, and shouted orders from Mac and David. I lay there, unable to move. Every part of my body hurt, and my arm was agony. My head felt twice its normal size. I tried to calm my breathing. Couldn't lie here in the open like this. Then I felt hands reaching underneath my arms and lifting me. I opened my eyes but all I could see was swirls of colour; nothing made sense. I'd taken so many blows to the head it felt like my brain was bouncing back and forth inside my skull. Whoever was helping me managed to get me upright and I took a few shuffling steps.

  "Down!" Matron.

  She pushed me forwards and I sprawled back onto the grass. I landed on my broken arm and passed out.

  When I came round I was moving again, staggering forward with Matron holding me up. I could hear the sounds of battle but I couldn't tell where they were coming from. Were we in the thick of the fighting or had we left it behind? Then I felt canvas on my face as we pushed through the flap into the tent. My vision started to clear slightly, and I could make out vague shapes and colours.

  "Sit here," she said as she lowered me onto a chair.

  My vision and hearing continued to improve. There was a hell of a battle going on outside. Matron came running up with a medical kit.

  "You're holding your arm, is it broken?" She was breathless, and kept glancing over her shoulder at the tent door.

  "Think so."

  "This is going to hurt," she warned, and then she took hold of the arm and wiggled it a bit, trying to find the break and set the bone.

  I passed out again.

  When my senses returned my arm was in a sling, bound tight across my chest. I looked up and saw Matron struggling with an attacker. My vision was still blurred, and I couldn't make out the details, but I could see she was being overpowered. I looked around for a weapon and saw the med kit case lying at my feet. I leant down and picked it up with my good right arm. I tried to stand but my legs were like jelly. I managed to rise off the chair and then I toppled sideways and crashed to the ground. Luckily I fell onto my good arm this time.

  Deep breaths. Focus. Things to do.

  This time I managed to get upright and I lurched towards the struggling couple. I brought the corner of the med kit case down as hard as I could on the head of the man who had his hands around Matron's throat. He grunted and slumped to the ground. Hang on, he wasn't a Blood Hunter. Fuck.

  Matron greedily sucked in some air with a hoarse yelp.

  "Thank you," she gasped.

  "We need to get out of here," I said. "Our guys are going to think you're the enemy, and any Blood Hunters who see you helping me will cut you down. You need to go."

  "I know. Need to find the girls. One last thing, though."

  She grabbed the med kit, opened it,
pulled out a syringe and bottle. She filled the syringe and jabbed it into my good arm before I had a chance to ask what she was doing.

  "What the fuck is that?" I asked.

  "Home brew," she said. "Should help you stay on your feet for a bit. Take this." She pressed a machine gun into my good hand. Then she leaned forward and kissed me hard on the lips. "Good luck!" And she was gone, machine gun held ready, out the rear tent flap.

  The spot where she'd injected me felt red hot. The heat spread out from my arm, creeping through my veins until my entire body felt like it was full of lava.

  It felt fantastic!

  A stream of bullets ripped through the tent fabric right in front of me, cutting a horizontal line. I dived for cover. The bullets stopped for an instant, hitting something between shooter and tent, and then continued. A body slammed into the canvas, and slid down to the grass. Then a Blood Hunter backed into the tent, firing wildly. Once inside he turned and made to run for the other exit, but he saw me. He screamed furiously and raised his gun. I was quicker. Two bullets to the chest took care of him.

  The man lying beside me groaned and rubbed his head, coming around. I vaguely recognised him as one of the men from Hildenborough.

  "Wake up," I yelled at him. He looked up at me, shaking his head to clear his vision.

  "You all right?" he asked.

  "Will be. You?" He nodded.

  We got to our feet.

  "Come on then," I said. And we ran out of the tent into the battle.

  I'd never seen anything like it. It was a free for all. Everywhere I looked there were people fighting hand-to-hand; everywhere the glint of sunlight on machete blades, the smell of blood and cordite. People were being stabbed and shot, strangled and beaten. It was a mêlée and it was impossible to get a sense of who was winning. The force we had brought from Hildenborough was only forty strong, so they were hopelessly outnumbered.

  I raised my gun and took a few potshots, killing two Blood Hunters outright and wounding at least one more. I was shooting one-handed, from the hip, with my other arm useless on my chest, but I was still shooting better than I'd ever done before. All my senses felt crystal clear. Whatever it was Matron had injected me with, it made me feel invincible.

  The guy next to me staggered backwards as his head exploded in two, cleaved by a machete. I spun, firing, and the stream of bullets ripped into a Blood Hunter who jerked backwards and collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. Suddenly I was in the thick of the fighting.

  People crashed into me, locked in life and death struggles. Bullets whistled past my head. One Blood Hunter came for me, machete raised. I tried to bring my gun to bear, but it was grabbed by another Blood Hunter. I wrestled for control of the weapon, saw the raised machete out of the corner of my eye and let go of the gun. The Blood Hunter who'd grabbed it fell backwards with a shout of surprise and let off a burst of bullets, which cut down the one with the blade. As he fell I grabbed the blade and whipped around, throwing it as accurately as I could. It found its mark in the chest of the man who'd shot its owner. I grabbed my gun back from the lifeless hands of the Blood Hunter and tried to get some sense of what was going on around me. I couldn't see any boys. Where the hell was Norton?

  Through the mass of fighting I caught a glimpse of the sandbagged machine gun nest at the gate. Inside, a Blood Hunter was firing the GPMG down the drive towards the school. A group of Blood Hunters were kneeling next to him, firing back into the mêlée, picking off Hildenborough fighters. If nothing changed it was only a matter of time before the Blood Hunters got the upper hand. We had to shut that gun down, allow Norton to bring re-enforcements. Someone crashed into me from behind, knocking me to my knees. I turned to find a young blood-daubed woman staring at me, a neat hole above her left eye. She fell sideways revealing Rowles, smoking pistol in one hand, machete dripping blood in the other.

  "Orders, sir?" he shouted above the din.

  "We need to..." He raised his gun and I ducked. A bullet whipped over my head and I heard a strangled cry. I looked up at him again.

  Definitely the scariest ten year-old I've ever met. I was glad he was on my side.

  "GPMG!" I shouted, pointing towards the gate. He leant down and helped me to my feet. I was only halfway up when I had to shoot through his legs, kneecapping a woman who was coming at him with a machete. He turned and finished her off with a single shot.

  Once I was upright I took the lead. We shoved our way through the fight, firing and hacking our way to the edge of the scrum. Then we skirted around the outside, collecting two Hildenborough men on the way. We found a clear space near the wall, and Rowles said "Let me, sir." He raised his gun and took careful aim.

  As he took shots at the men behind the sandbags we stood guard around him, picking off any Blood Hunters we could get a clear shot at. The man next to me took a bullet to the thigh and then, as he bent down to put pressure on the wound, another round took him in the top of the head. He collapsed in a heap, instantly dead.

  Rowles took a step forward each time he fired and the remaining man and I paced him, keeping him covered. He'd picked two of them off before they worked out who was shooting at them. By that point we were within a couple of metres of the sandbags. Edward's gun clicked empty and he tossed it aside without a second's hesitation. I dropped to my knees and sprayed the sandbags with bullets as he ran towards them, machete raised, shouting some sort of battle cry. My bullets took one Blood Hunter across the chest and he fell backwards out of sight. The other fired wildly at Rowles but somehow the bullets kept missing, and soon the shooter was missing his left arm.

  I heard a fleshy impact above me and the head of the man who'd been fighting beside me dropped at my feet. I dived forward and spun so I landed on my back, firing as I did so. But the gun didn't fire. Empty.

  I rolled sideways to avoid the blade that curved down towards my head. In doing so I rolled over my broken arm. Didn't hurt a bit. The blade slammed into the grass next to my ear. I reached across with my good arm, grabbing the Blood Hunter's wrist, but it was drenched in fresh blood from the battle, and my hand slid off as he pulled the blade free of the ground. He raised the machete again as I lay there on the ground, nowhere to go. Then a blur above my head as someone literally dived over the top of me, their shoulder hitting the Blood Hunter in the stomach and taking him down. Haycox.

  Even over the din of battle I heard the dreadful crunch as they hit the ground. Haycox sprang backwards, his opponent's neck snapped. He turned and reached down to offer me a hand up. But before I could take it his head snapped sideways as it shattered in a spray of blood and brain matter. Bullet to the head. He fell, stone dead. I scrambled backwards and tried to get to my feet. I was spending far too much of this fight flat on my bloody back. I saw two Blood Hunters come running towards me, lowering their guns as they came. Then they lurched backwards as an arc of heavy GPMG rounds picked them up and flung them, lifeless, to the grass. I looked across at the sandbags and there was Rowles, God love him, unleashing the GPMG at any Blood Hunter foolish enough to offer him a target.

  I got to my feet and ran, crouching as I weaved through the fight, to the sandbags. I dived over them, landing smack on the fresh corpse of one of Rowles' victims. I pulled his gun free and took my place at Rowles' side, sheltering behind the wall of sandbags, picking off Blood Hunters.

  A quick glance to my right revealed a stream of armed boys, running down the drive towards us; Norton and re-enforcements. But looking at the scene in front of me I realised that it was already too late. The Blood Hunters were overwhelming the opposition. We were losing.

  The heavy machine gun next to me chattered once more and then fell silent.

  "All gone," said Rowles simply. "What now?"

  "Back to Castle. Run!"

  As Rowles legged it down the drive, waving for Norton and his troops to fall back, I stood and yelled into the mêlée as loud as I could: "Retreat! Back to the school! Retreat!"

  Bullets from a host of Bl
ood Hunters smacked into the sandbags, and I dived for cover again. This time I crawled across corpses and flung myself behind the school wall, out of the line of fire. Then I got up and ran for Castle as fast as I possibly could.

  I could hear the sounds of pursuit behind me, cries and crashes and weapon fire. Running is bloody difficult with only one arm; you get unbalanced and wobble all over the place. I got halfway to the school, with bullets whistling past me all the way, and then my torso somehow outpaced my legs. I ploughed, head-first, into the grass. I tried to roll with it, and get back up on my feet, but my useless arm threw me again and I ended up in a heap.

  I regained my feet and chanced a look behind me. Twenty or so Hildenborough men, Green, and a few of his surviving actors, were racing towards me, a horde of screaming Blood Hunters in their wake. Mac was leading the pursuit. He was bellowing encouragement to his cohorts, waving a bloodied machete above his head.

  As the human tide caught up with me I turned and was swept along with them. Ahead of us I could see Norton lining the boys up into ranks. They shouldered arms and took careful aim right at us. What the bloody hell was he doing?

  When we were within ten metres of him he shouted: "Get down!"

  We didn't need telling twice. All of us dived to the ground. There was the most tremendous noise as all the boys fired at once, sending a wall of lead into the massed Blood Hunters.

  "Positions!" yelled Norton.

  We scrambled to our feet and ran forward. Then Norton shouted: "Down!" We dived again. A second volley thundered over our heads.

  "Inside!"

  We leapt up and piled in through the large double doors. As I stood at the doorway, herding people inside, I could see the results of Norton's volleys. They had wiped out the first rank of approaching Blood Hunters, maybe thirty or more, who lay twitching and groaning on the blood-soaked grass. Once those behind them had realised no third volley was likely, they'd kept running, trampling their dead and wounded underfoot in their eagerness to slice us open. They were nearly upon us. I couldn't see Mac. Had he fallen?