So, it was all her fault. Another kid gone. She shut down part of her mind. She didn’t want to think about what the grown-ups would do to Small Sam.

She started to cry. She didn’t care who saw it. Callum looked at Josh. They both felt awkward. In the end it was Josh who squatted down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders.

“It’s all right, Max,” he said quietly. “We’ll be all right. Something’ll happen, someone will come. Something’s gonna change. When Arran and the others get back we’ll talk about it maybe, yeah? Make a plan?”

“What’s the point?” said Maxie.

“When Arran gets back, yeah?”

Maxie looked up into Josh’s concerned, grubby face. “Sorry,” she said.

“Come on,” said Callum. “Let’s try and find out how they got over the wall. Then we should get back inside.”

“Yeah.” Maxie jumped up. It was okay as long as you were doing something, as long as you didn’t stop and think.

She wished Arran were here, though. She always felt safer when he was around.

It was just . . . What was he going to think?

Another kid gone.

All her fault.

A burster was lying in the middle of the road. A father by the looks of it, though it was hard to tell. He had the familiar look of a vegetable, or a piece of fruit, left too long in the sun. The skin blackened, shriveled and split, the overripe flesh inside squeezing out. His insides had turned to mush. This was what happened if any grown-up lived long enough to let the disease run its full course. They literally burst.

Arran prodded the body with his sneaker. As he did so, the skin popped, and a stream of pus oozed out, followed by a bright pink blossom of soft fat.

Arran was leading the scavenger party. Tall, fair-haired, and athletic, he had a knife in his belt and carried a pickax handle as a club.

“Gross,” sniggered the boy at his side, who had a shock of curly hair bleached almost white.

“Come on. We don’t have time for this.” Arran turned his back on the corpse and continued up Holloway Road. When the disaster first happened the kids had been appalled and fascinated by dead bodies. Now they were used to them. They hardly even noticed them. A burster, though, was still a little special.

The scavenger party took up their positions with Arran and trudged on. They hadn’t gone another hundred yards, however, before the bleach-haired boy, Deke, slowed down.

“What’s that?”

They stopped and listened.

“Dogs,” said another boy, and he moved to the front. He was shorter than Arran and not as strong. He had proved time and time again, though, that fighting was not all about strength. Arran was the leader, but Achilleus was the best fighter of them all, with a wiry build, dark eyes, and olive skin. He spent most of his spare time shaving elaborate patterns into his short hair. He could be moody and sarcastic and quick to lose his temper, but nobody much minded because he’d saved them all many times with his combat skills. He moved fast, used his brain, and was utterly ruthless in a fight.