The rifle kicked hard into my shoulder and the explosion deafened me. But the horse went down, clean shot, straight to the head. It was the first time I had ever shot a moving target. The first time I'd ever shot anything alive.
I lay there for a moment, shocked by what I'd done. I could see Mac looking up at my window in surprise.
My hands were shaking.
I wasn't really a killer.
Not yet.
I walked back down the stairs, unsteady on my feet, wobbly with adrenaline comedown. The entrance hall was in commotion. Matron had already gone; run straight through the crowd on the way to the San, and Norton had taken control of the situation.
'Heathcote, take some boys and get these fucking horses out of sight,' he was saying. 'Williams you take care of the bodies. The last thing we need is their friends finding their corpses on our front door.'
The two farmboys gathered groups of older boys and hurried outside to begin cleaning up.
I stood there, letting the noise and confusion wash over me. It took me a moment before I realised that Norton was talking to me.
'Lee. Lee!'
I shook my head to clear away the fog. 'Yeah?'
He put his hand on my arm, concerned. 'You okay?'
'Yeah.' I nodded. 'Yeah, I think so, yeah.'
'Good. Come on, let's get the other wounded boy inside.'
'Yeah, sure.'
Outside the sky was clear blue, the air crisp and fresh. The gravel crunched underneath my feet as we ran to the fallen boy and the old man who was tending him. All my senses seemed heightened. I could hear my heart pounding, see far off details with crystal clarity. I could smell the blood.
We ran past the dead horse, next to which stood three boys debating the best way to move the great beast. I slowed and stopped. I stepped around the animal and knelt down beside it, reaching out to touch its still warm neck. Its eyes stared, mad and sightless, and its mouth lay open, tongue lolling out, teeth bared in fright. There was a neat hole above its left eye, from which black and grey matter oozed onto the drive.
I felt its fading body heat and tears welled up in my eyes. My stomach felt hollow, my head felt tight, and all I wanted to do was curl up in a dark hole and cry. It was the first real emotion I had felt since my mother died.
I forced the feelings down. Time for that later; things to do now. I muttered 'sorry,' and then rose and ran after Norton, wiping my eyes as I did so.
As I approached the looters I was shocked to recognise the man. It was Mr Hammond, our art master. I knew the boy too, by sight. He was a third-former, I think, but his name escaped me. Hammond was an old man, seventy-five and long overdue for retirement, but he looked about ninety now. His face was pale and unshaven, his cheeks hollow and shadowed. His clothes, so familiar from countless art classes, were ragged and torn. He had a deep gash across his forehead that streamed blood down one side of his face.
He didn't look like he'd endured the easiest apocalypse.
Williams lifted the dead woman and pushed past me as I approached. Norton was helping Hammond to his feet, Mac was lifting the wounded boy. Bates was standing there too, staring at the pool of blood on the ground, eyes glazed, expression blank. When I reached him he didn't look up.
'Sir,' I said. No response. 'Sir.'
Bates snapped out of his reverie and looked up at me.
'Hmmm?'
'Your rifle, sir,' I said, and handed it to him. He looked down at it in horror, as if I'd just offered him a severed human head. Then he reached out and took it.
'Thank you,' he murmured.
Norton and Hammond moved off back towards the school, and Mac handed the boy, bleeding but breathing, to a couple of fifth-formers who carried him away.
So there we were; me, Bates and Mac, stood around two pools of blood, all unsure exactly what to say to each other. It was only now that I noticed that Mac had dried blood smeared across his combat jacket. I studied him closely. I had just killed a horse and I was a wreck; he'd just gunned down two people and he didn't seem in the least bit concerned. I may not have been a killer, but he was. And something about his reaction, or lack of it, told me this was not the first time he'd taken a life.
'What happened to you?' I asked. 'Where are the others?'
Bates looked at Mac and seemed to regain his senses. Mac was watching him carefully, and his cool appraising stare made me feel deeply uneasy.
'Yes, Mac,' said Bates. 'You left with McCulloch and Fleming. Where are they?'
He would have answered but he was suddenly surrounded by a crowd of sixth form boys, eager to congratulate him. Wolf-Barry slapped his back and punched the air, Patel kept saying that it was 'so cool', Zayn just looked awed.
Great, he'd got a new fan club.
We gathered that evening in the main common room after a subdued dinner of curried horse. I didn't eat.
Bates was first to speak.
'You're all aware of the incident that occurred this afternoon. Matron is even now working to save the lives of the two boys who were shot. These boys are Grant of 2B and Preston of 4C.'
One boy in the second row gave an audible gasp at this news. A classmate, probably.
Bates seemed more sure of himself in this safe, controlled environment. All trace of his earlier loss of composure was gone. He stood erect, in full uniform, with his arms behind his back, like a regimental Sergeant- Major.
'I'm going to hand over to Mr Hammond at this stage, who will tell you what happened. Dennis…'
He gestured to his colleague to take over, and resumed his seat. Hammond stood and surveyed the room, scanning our faces, mentally noting which of us he knew, seeing who had survived and who, by omission, had not.
'Boys, it's good to be back. It's good to see so many of you again. It gives me hope that…' He trailed off, momentarily overcome.
'Preston and Grant lived near me in Sevenoaks, and they both arrived at my house together a few days ago. It was my suggestion that we return here. If we'd stayed where we were, maybe… Anyway, we ran out of petrol just as we entered Hildenborough. But it's only an hour's walk to the school so we weren't worried. Grant was hungry so we stopped at a newsagent's and rummaged around for something to eat. The place had been pretty thoroughly cleaned out, but we found chocolate bars underneath an overturned cupboard. We considered ourselves lucky, and set off again. But within minutes there was a hue and cry. The shout 'looter' went up and we saw a man running towards us, so we just ran for our lives.
'Preston knows the area very well and thanks to him we were able to elude our pursuers, although we never seemed able to completely shake them off. They finally caught up with us at the gate and you know the rest.
'If it hadn't been for Matron and MacKillick here…' Again he trailed off into silence.
You would have expected Hammond to have been grateful to the man who had saved his life, but the look he flashed Mac was one of distaste and suspicion.
Bates stood again, thanked Hammond, and handed the floor to Mac with an alarming degree of deference. Norton and I exchange worried glances. Mac had cleaned up and changed his uniform, but he still sported combats and camouflage.
'Thank you, sir' he said, with perhaps the tiniest hint of sarcasm. 'I'll be brief. Fleming, McCulloch and me left this morning to scavenge in Hildenborough. As you know the shops have all been cleaned out, so we had to go house to house. Not the prettiest work. Those houses that haven't already been got at have normally still got occupants. You need a strong stomach.'
What a smug, self-satisfied, aren't-I-hard sod he was.
'We found one house full of stuff we could use and we started carrying it out to the minibus. I was inside
