'Like hell you are.'
'Don't try and stop me.'
'There's a pile of bodies back there with bloody great holes in them.'
'So?'
'Was that you?'
'Yes.'
'And what threat did they pose to you? You shot them when we'd already left. They were irrelevant.'
'They were scumbags who had it coming.'
'So you're judge, jury and executioner now?'
'When needs must.'
There was a long silence. 'You're not going after her and that's final.'
I burst out laughing and turned to face him, bringing my gun up until it was pointing right between his eyes.
'Really, Dad? You think you can ground me? What am I, twelve?'
He looked at me with such sadness in his eyes that for a moment I felt a stirring of… panic? Conscience? I ignored it.
'No, you're eighteen. But you're out of control. Your judgment is shot and you're a danger to yourself and to the people around you. I am your commanding officer and you will do as I say.'
'Like fuck I…'
His eyes gave no warning, and he moved so fast and with such control that I was disarmed and lying face down on the concrete with his knee in my back before I knew what was happening.
'If I let you run around with a gun, how many more people will die? How long 'til you decide that Tariq's broken one of your rules and has to be taken out? Or me?'
'Not that long at this rate,' I said. It was supposed to be a joke, but nobody was laughing.
'If she's harmed in any way, because you stopped me going after her' I said coldly, 'I will kill you.'
He considered me for a moment and then turned away.
'The awful thing is,' he said softly, 'I believe you.'
I got to my feet and held out my hand for my gun. He considered me for a moment then handed it back. I shoved it in my waistband and then walked back towards the school.
'You'd better come up with one hell of a rescue plan, Dad,' I said over my shoulder as I walked away.
Chapter Seven
It's cold outside, and there's no heating in the lorry, but the huddle of children produces a foul selling warmth that at least stops us getting hypothermia. There's no light either. Or seats. Five winters without maintenance have reduced Britain's roads to a long trail of endless potholes through which we splash and spring. So we bounce along in the dark, getting bruised and beaten as we crash into each other, or momentarily lift off then slam to the floor on our bony, undernourished arses.
None of the snatchers got into the back with us, so we're unguarded. But the heavy doors are securely locked from the outside, and even if we could get them open, we're hardly going to jump from a moving vehicle, are we?
I expected a flood of eager questions once the doors closed and we were momentarily unwatched, but these children have been broken. They sit silent and scared, clutching their blankets around their shoulders as if they were some kind of armour. One small boy keeps being shoved against me by the movement of the lorry. I try to talk to him, but he ignores me. Eventually I put my arm around his shoulder and cuddle him in close. At least that way, I reason, we won't bang into each other so much. But his response to my attempt at comforting him is to bite my forearm, hard. I yell and snatch it back. Little beast.
'Hello?' I hear a faint shout from deeper in the bowels of the lorry. 'Hello, is that the woman who came to rescue us?' It's a girl.
'Yes,' I shout back. 'My name's Jane. What's yours?'
There's no reply, but a few moments later I hear vague sounds of commotion and I realise someone is fighting their way through the crowd to get to me.
'Hello? Where are you?' she says again.
'Here,' I reply, and I steer her towards me in the darkness until I feel small hands grabbing at my coat. I grasp her hands tightly. I fight down my fears and put on an upbeat facade.
'And what might your name be, young lady?' I say cheerily.
'Jenni,' she says, and thrusts a gun into my hands. 'They didn't think to search us.'
For a moment I'm too surprised to speak, and then I remember Tariq giving her the weapon back in the school hall.
'Oh Jenni,' I say eventually. 'You are my kind of girl!'
'Where are they taking us?' she asks. I can hear her trying to be brave.
'I don't know, sweetheart. I don't know anything.' But that's a lie. I know Spider. I know what he's capable of.
I shove the gun into my trousers and pull my jacket down over it. They searched me back at the school; they've no reason to do so again.
'Where are you from, Jenni?' I ask.
There's a long silence, and I wonder if she heard me, then she says: 'Ipswich.'
'And how old are you?'
'Thirteen.'
'So you were eight when…'
'Everyone died.'
'And how have you lived since then? I mean, who's been looking after you?'
'Mike,' she says, as if this explains everything. 'But he's dead now.' Her matter of factness stops me cold. I don't ask any more questions. She lets me put my arm around her though, and she nestles into my chest. She soon she falls asleep. I feel the slow rise and fall of her breathing as we rattle and bounce in the darkness. Eventually I rest my head on hers and I slip into a half-sleep. I have no idea how much times passes until the explosion.
In the enclosed space, the bang is deafening. It comes from the front, from the cab, and the lorry lurches violently to the left. We're flung into each other like some mad rugby scrum and there are cries and screams as the lorry tilts past the tipping point and slams down on its side. The doors at the back buckle and a chink of light breaks in. The lorry is still moving forward, crippled now, and we're bounced and jostled. Loud screams from the bottom of the human pile as children are crushed. The lorry jacknifes on its side and the cargo container sweeps in a wide arc then smashes into something solid. We come to a sudden halt and are all flung against the wall, compressed in an awful smashing of limbs. The doors crash open and children spill out of the container, tumbling helplessly onto tarmac.
There's a moment of stillness as our ears ring and we get our balance, re-orientating ourselves. Then the screaming starts again and there are children yelling for air, and for people to get off them, or just crying in pain as the inevitable broken bones grind against each other.
I've ended up at the top of the pile, so I scramble towards the doors as delicately as I can, but it's impossible. The mass of children heaves and shifts beneath me and I'm thrown off balance, unable to escape.
I hear the crack of small arms fire over the din. I can't locate where it's coming from, but it redoubles my determination and I ruthlessly scramble back to the top of the pile and out the doors, literally sliding out across the backs of children. I draw my gun as I do so. To my surprise I manage a relatively graceful landing as kids rain down around me, blinking in the sudden, bright afternoon light.
The gunfire is coming from my left. I spin and see the snatchers who've survived the crash, huddled behind the open cab door, firing up at concrete embankment. We're on an A road, in the suburbs of London, at a guess. Beckenham, perhaps? I glance around the container and see that the first lorry is still upright, parked a few hundred metres down the road. It is coming under heavy attack, many rocks and a few bullets pinging off its bonnet and
