I made a book trailer! Click here to watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4-72TLaRdE

(A/N: I realise these characters & settings may seem a bit random. In my re-edited version of part one, it will include a chapter or two that introduces this storyline. But I don't want to re-edit and post those now; I'm focusing on just getting a first draft together, so hopefully you can still enjoy!)

13. The Warehouse

‘Oi, who’s eaten all my pickled Onion Monster Munch again?’ Greer London asked angrily, half to himself, half to the bunch of lazy sods who were lounging around the canteen. He pulled open another cupboard, rooting through the shared loot, looking for any trace of the beloved purple packet. Real food was hard to come by now, especially in the city. Packets of noodles, chocolates and crisps were all they had to rely on after the last supermarket raid had gone south, leaving them with half of what they needed. It was rare that someone found their favourite snack and as an Enforcer, Greer had first dibs and snatched them right up. ‘I know for a fact I had at least three more packets of pickled onion flavoured Monster Much that I found, by myself, on the last vending machine run.’

Greer looked around at the group of boys. They were all stragglers from Group C, scruffy and unwashed. Most had their bare feet up on the tables, heads lolling backwards in boredom or buried in tattered comic books. One was eating hot dogs straight out of the jar, slurping juice all over himself and the floor. ‘Hello? Anyone want to own up to eating my food again? No?’

There was a grumble of grunts and groans in response. Greer slammed the cupboard shut and stormed out of the canteen, mumbling to himself under his breath. This new intake of Shadows was not up to scratch. Half of them were scrawny little waifs, the other half bumbling moronic meatheads. This was what happened when quantity was prioritised over quality – he had tried to tell that to Clem after she started setting quotas, but she just told him if he wasn’t up to scratch, he could step down from the role. Hell no. He stuck his hand in his pocket as he strolled down the metal walkway that ran around the top of the warehouse, his fingers gently brushing against a small, square photograph he kept on him at all times. It was there to remind him of why he had started all this.

There was a stairwell at the end of the walkway that led down to the main floor of the warehouse, which had become the training room. Greer peered down at it from several feet above. Two boys were wrestling with each other on a dirty gym mat in the middle of the hall, and a ring of other boys had formed around them, egging them on with claps and encouragement. Well, was it really wrestling if one person was just beating up the other one? One boy was much bigger than the other, and he recognised him straight away as Bronson, a sixteen-year-old who’d followed Group A back from an expedition a few weeks ago and practically bribed himself inside with the amount of energy drinks he’d managed to scavenge from around the town. Monster Energy was like crack to these kids. He had greasy black hair that was always plastered to his forehead with sweat, a chin full of pimples and a sparse, pathetic moustache that he refused to shave off. Bronson had a much smaller boy in a headlock with his left arm, and was punching him quite hard in the stomach with his right. Greer didn’t remember the smaller boy’s name, only that he’d arrived two nights ago and had been clutching a stuffed rabbit. Where the hell was Donnie? He should be down there with them; it was supposed to be a weapons training session. His eyes scanned the length of the warehouse like a hawk, searching for its prey, but turned up empty-beaked. 

‘Stop that!’ he shouted down with as much authority as he could muster behind his voice, and Bronson slowly released the kid, who dropped to the mat and curled up into a ball. He was probably crying, judging by the way his shoulders heaved up and down. For fuck’s sake. He couldn’t be bothered with this. It was why they should have put an age limit on who could join the Shadows. How were they ever going to train these sickly wimps and brutal bullies into the next troop of Shadows? ‘Bronson!’ he yelled. ‘That’s three points deducted from your tally!’

The boys in the group all laughed and jeered, slapping Bronson on the back and mocking Greer’s threat.

‘Three points, three points!’ They echoed like parrots, leaping around and crashing into each other. ‘Three points from Griffindoor! Three points to Hufflefuck! Three points to Hufflefuck!’

Greer shook his head and moved on in frustration, pushing back from the barrier and storming down the other end of the walkway to the office. His heavy boots landed with a series of hollow thuds across the metal, and when he got to the office door, he kicked it open. Inside, a high-backed leather chair faced the far wall, and Greer could just about see the back of a short, black bob poking over the top

‘This shit ain’t working,’ he said as he approached the large wooden desk that sat opposite the door. There were several neatly ordered piles of papers, a pink plastic cup holding an assortment of coloured Sharpies, a framed photograph of a tabby cat, and a battered walkie-talkie. He slammed his hands down, knocking the photo over. ‘Clem? Are you listening to me?’

Clem swivelled the chair around slowly, revealing her sly, pointed face, her neatly plucked brows arched into a disapproving look behind her rectangular glasses. She propped the photo back up and stroked the cat’s face, not looking at Greer directly before saying, sternly, ‘Haven’t I warned you about knocking?’

Greer huffed, turned around, went back outside the office, knocked loudly on the door four times, then let himself back in. ‘There, is that good enough for you?’

‘It will have to do,’ Clem said, pushing the frames of her glasses up her nose. ‘How can I help you today, Greer?’

He hated the way she spoke; all posh and proper. She wore a smart black blazer that had her school emblem sewn onto the top pocket and a white blouse, with a little metal badge pinned to the lapel that said PREFECT in all capitals. Oh, she was definitely the type of girl to have been a prefect, for sure. Though Greer couldn’t see her legs, he was sure she’d be wearing a pleated skirt and long, white stockings too.

‘Oh, I have a few points to raise,’ he said, raising his eyebrows at her. ‘Where to even start?’

‘Somewhere is usually a good place,’ Clem said, deadpan.

‘Okay, fine, I’ll jump right in!’ He laughed, thoroughly irritated by her tone. ‘The points system is not working. At all. The boys just don’t respect it. I don’t understand why we can’t just carry on as we did at the start, training them on the go, picking kids up along the way. This new lot – sorry to say but they’re dogshit!’ Greer ranted, pacing back and forth across the office. He approached the window and looked out over the greying horizon of Southampton, a city he once loved. ‘And these new missions mean that our best men are gone for days at a time. You sent Vorb, Paul and Lester out at the same time, so we have no one to keep order! And where the heck is Donnie? There’s a training session down there that’s turned into a fight club!’

‘Donnie has been reassigned,’ Clem said, tapping her fingers together menacingly. ‘So, what you’re saying is that you can’t keep your troop in order?’

‘No!’ he said, flouncing his arms. ‘I mean, yes! I mean, no. I don’t know. All these rules and regulations don’t stick. It’s the goddamn apocalypse, Clem, you can’t boss around the goddamn apocalypse!’

‘The rules will work. Cry was very adamant about it. You did well without our help, but if we want to get this city - and by extension, humanity - back to how it was, we are going to need law and order.’ Clem gave him a smile that didn’t reach her dark eyes. ‘And that starts with you. You’re not a Shadow anymore, you’re an enforcer. Remember that.’ 

‘But I don’t want to be an enforcer! I want to go out there and help reunite kids with their sisters and brothers and cousins and friends, like we’ve been doing since this crap started!’ He ran his hands through his curls in frustration. ‘Those weird kids, the ‘Exterminators’ or whatever they called themselves, they are what we should be. They don’t sit around and wait for orders. They just go out and do.’

‘And where did that get them, exactly?’ she asked with an air of dismissal. ‘One of them was kidnapped, leaving the others without their leader or a vehicle. Perhaps if they had been more organised they could have avoided such a…’ she moved her hand around, searching for the right word. ‘Calamity.’

Greer groaned. ‘It wasn’t their fault that chick went totally psycho! You should have seen her. She played us all like fools.’

‘You, perhaps. But not me.’

‘What?’ he shook his head, thinking how crazy Clem was. ‘You didn’t even– oh whatever, I just– I need to talk to Cry. Please, let me talk to him. It’s been a goddamn month and a half since you two took over and he’s still not stepped foot in this place!’

‘Cry is otherwise occupied. You know that,’ Clem said, smirking in a way that made Greer want to smack her. ‘What else did you want to talk about?’

‘Err,’ he nibbled at his thumb awkwardly, realising he had run out of points. ‘Someone ate my Monster Munch again.’

Clem sighed and opened up a drawer, rooting around in it. Greer thought for a magical moment she might be able to produce another bag of his favourite snack, but his joy was short-lived when she pulled out a stack of maps. ‘If you’re done complaining, I’ve got something I need you to do. Cry has pinpointed another location that might have more broadcasting equip-’

‘MAYDAY, MAYDAY!’ came a sudden crackle through the walkie-talkie. ‘We have a serious problem, I repeat, we have a serious problem.’

‘That’s Lester!’ Greer said in a panic, grabbing for the walkie-talkie, but Clem snatched it away before he could get his hand on it. 

‘Scout-One, this is Tabbycat. Report Location. Over,’ Clem said into the device in far too casual a tone.

Lester’s reply was instant. ‘City centre. North entrance of West Quay, over.’

‘Scout-One, report the problem, over.’

‘Our jeep–’ he started, but the walkie-talkie began to crackle. ‘The tyre– outside– too many– over!’

‘Scout-One, repeat the problem, over,’ Clem said again, but there was no response. ‘Scout-One-’

Greer reached over and pulled the device from her cold hands. ‘Lester, it’s Greer. What’s wrong?’

‘They’ve slashed the tyres, we can’t drive!’ came back a garbled reply. ‘Oh shit, oh shit!’

There was a series of loud bangs, and then static. 

Greer held down the button. ‘Lester? Lester?’ He looked up at Clem. ‘I gotta get over to him. Give me the keys to the other jeep.’

Clem fished in the drawer again and threw the keys over to him with a jingle. ‘Sounds like a good excuse for training up some of the new boys,’ she said. She opened up a folder and started scanning a list of names. 

‘No, it’ll take too long!’ Greer bounced up and down. ‘C’mon, lives are at stake here! Don’t make me take the newbies, just let me go save them!’

‘Take Bronson, Lewis, Rory and…’ she deliberated, taking too long. Her manicured finger danced across the page before she tore off the list and handed it to him. ‘And Jasper. Go on!’

Greer stormed out of the room, the page crumpled in his fist. He could just go, get in the jeep and drive off without any newbies. But it sounded like Lester and his crew were in a lot of danger, and they were the best of the best. They couldn’t die. He leant over the railing and barked out the four names. ‘Bronson! Lewis! Rory! Jasper! Get yourself to the garage, now!’

He watched as the four boys pulled away from the group. He knew Bronson, of course. Lewis was a stocky, taller kid with dark skin, and Rory was his best friend, a slightly shorter, skinnier kid who Greer remembered had been pretty good with a knife when they’d rescued him from up by the University. Jasper was the last one to get up. As he peeled himself away from the mat he was sitting on, Greer realised it was the little kid Bronson had been punching. He picked up his stuffed rabbit from the floor and hugged it to his chest as he followed behind the other boys. Clem had done this on purpose, the stupid bitch, he thought as he jogged down the steps and made his way to the carpark, lumbering me with the kid; if he dies, she’ll use it as an excuse to get rid of me. 

There was a door on the right side of the warehouse that led to a smaller space being used as a garage where the mechanics - kids reading manuals they found in the garages of real mechanics - were attempting to fix up some more jeeps for the Shadows to use. There were only two that were in good enough shape to use, and Lester’s crew had the other. 

Bronson was leaning against the hood of the jeep, waiting for Greer. ‘What we got?’

‘Group A is in trouble out by West Quay,’ he said, opening up the back of the jeep where there was an assortment of scavenged weapons. ‘Take your pick, quickly, then get in the jeep. We don’t have time.’

‘Can I drive?’ Lewis asked, grabbing the biggest knife.

‘No, you’re not qualified,’ Greer said, selecting his own weapon: a large tomahawk they’d found in the basement of a local doomsday prepper after killing his crawler self. Rory took a baseball someone had wrapped in barbed wire. ‘Jasper?’

Jasper sucked his thumb and looked at the weapons for a few seconds before selecting a small slingshot and a bag of rocks. 

‘Aw, hell no, don’t give Shortie a weapon!’ Bronson moaned, shoving Jasper aside as he climbed into the passenger seat of the jeep.

‘Why the hell are we taking Shortie anyway, man?’ Lewis asked as he climbed into the back. 

‘Bait,’ Rory said, leering over Jasper, making his hands into claws.

‘Get in,’ Greer said, pushing him away. He looked down at Jasper. He looked even younger than earlier, with wide, honest blue eyes and a crop of fluffy brown hair, reminding Greer of the teddy bear he had as a child. He wondered where that was, now. ‘How old are you?’

‘I’m nine and a half,’ Jasper replied. ‘My birthday is in three weeks and four days.’

‘You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,’ he said quickly, pointing over at the corner of the garage. ‘You could hide out there, wait for us to come back, and we won’t say anything to Clem.’

Jasper shook his head and gave Greer a confused look. ‘Why?’

‘Because…’ Greer searched for the right words. He was never that great with his sister’s kids, who were a similar age to Jasper. Never knew what to say, though he himself had not long been a kid. ‘Because you’re small?’

‘Just ‘cause I’m small doesn’t mean I can’t fight!’ Jasper said, climbing into the car. He had to wriggle over Rory to get to the middle seat. Greer had a horrible feeling that this kid was just going to slow him down. 

He climbed into the front seat and whispered to Bronson, ‘We park up somewhere and leave the kid in the car, yeah?’

Bronson nodded. Greer could see a pimple leaking yellow pus on his upper lip. ‘Good call. Shortie, you can be our lookout.’

Greer put the keys in the ignition, twisted them, and revved up the jeep. It was still new to him. Lester had taught him to drive only two months ago. The first time he got behind the wheel, he crashed into a wall and was lucky to have survived. He was also lucky because he’d taken out five crawlers during the crash and hadn’t noticed until afterwards. He pulled out the walkie-talkie that was kept in the car and spoke into it with one hand whilst he pulled out of the garage.

‘Lester, it’s Greer. We’re on our way, over,’ he said, pulling up outside beside the gate that they’d constructed last month. Two boys, Henry and Mikey, manned the gate most of the day and night. They slid the metal sheets open just enough for him to drive through, then quickly shut it behind him. ‘You there, Lester? Over.’

There was a sudden crackle. ‘We’re just about holding up. Hurry. We got a man down. Over.’

Greer punched the steering wheel as he swerved round the body of an invader. ‘Shit. Who? Over.’

‘Paul, over. He– the window–’ Lester began to break up again. Greer sped around the corner. He knew the city like the back of his hand. West Quay was three miles away, right by the hospital. If he went straight over the roundabout and down the street by the cinema, he could cut across the green playing field and get to West Quay in under five minutes. Lester came back through, loud and clear. ‘They’re gonna get in!’

‘Hang in there!’ he said, and tossed the walkie-talkie back to Jasper. ‘Kid, you keep me updated, okay?’

With his foot down on the pedal, Greer flew around the corner to the roundabout. They’d managed to clear quite a lot of the cars from the road in previous expeditions, but there were still some he had to swerve around, feeling like he was playing GTA. The buildings in Southampton had always been dreary and grey, but since the invasion they seemed more so. He sped past smashed windows, artless graffiti, bins shredded open, their contents strewn across the streets. What had once been his home city was now home to no one except rats and crawlers. He went straight over the roundabout, keeping an eye out for any crawlers that might run into the road. They seemed to be getting sparser, sticking more in groups and heading underground, or to the countryside. That was what Cry had said on the CryCast, anyway. 

Past the cinema now, he took a sharp right and launched the jeep onto the pavement, narrowly missing a park bench as he took the shortcut across the playing fields. ‘Anything, kid?’ he shouted back, looking in the rearview mirror. 

Jasper held down the button. ‘Are you guys okay?’

There was a gentle hum of static, but no answer.

‘Try again,’ Greer said, skidding on the grass. 

‘Hello, anybody there?’ Jasper asked, but again, there was no reply.

Greer turned the jeep left, then slammed on the brakes. Bronson flew forward, knocking his knees into the dashboard and bracing himself with his arms. He hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt. Idiot.

‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ Greer breathed, leaning forward on the wheel and peering at the sight before them. ‘So that’s where all the fuckers are.’

There must have been three or four dozen crawlers, maybe even more; he couldn’t tell. They were moving too fast to count. They swarmed around Lester’s jeep. Three were on the roof, ripping at the sunroof with their claws, and at least ten surrounded the doors, trying to smash at the windows. On the bonnet of the jeep stood a particularly large crawler, not as skinny as the others. In fact, its stomach seemed to be bulging out at uneven angles, the skin around it pulled tight. It was like it had eaten something all in one go without much ripping or chewing. Greer had killed hundreds of these fuckers, but had never seen one look like that. He turned and grabbed the walkie-talkie from Jasper and tried it once again.

‘Lester, man, let me know you’re alive!’

‘It–’ crackled a warped response. ‘Paul!’

‘What about Paul?’

‘It ate Paul!’ 

The response was loud and clear for the first time. Greer felt sick. ‘What the fuck happened?’

‘They swarmed us. They slashed the fucking tyres. Paul tried to get out the sunroof to clear the area with his knife, but there was just too many of them. We tried to pull him back in, we tried to save him, man!’ came Lester’s sobs. 

Greer pressed the walkie close to his lips. ‘We’ll get you out of there, okay? You have my word. Sit tight.’

He looked sideways to Bronson, who had an excited look in his eyes like he was staring up at a cinema screen during an action movie, then backwards to the others. Lewis and Rory looked a little more worried, but also angrier, like they couldn’t wait to get out there and get revenge on the creature. It was Jasper who worried him most. He was apt to slow them down, or get himself killed. Greer would never forgive himself if he let that happen. 

‘You okay, little man?’ he asked.

Jasper nodded. His tiny hands were curled around the slingshot, knuckles smooth and white under his skin. His rabbit was tucked between his knees, and Greer noticed for the first time that it only had one eye.