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Back The Enemy Save as PDF
Chapters (69)
  1. Table of Contents
  2. 1
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There was even a sound, a rushing, swirling noise like water. He’d heard it before today. It wasn’t water. It was the sound of massed grown-ups. Breathing, sighing, hissing, their feet scuffing on the asphalt. But where was it coming from?

He looked around.

There. In the direction of Holloway, up the road that led past the front of Sainsbury’s. A great mob of grown-ups was moving toward him. Even from this distance he could smell them.

He would have to go faster.

Which way to go, though? Which route would the other kids have taken?

There were so many choices here. And now there were more grown-ups coming along the other roads. Maybe they were trying to see what was going on? The only clear route was the one heading back the way he had come, toward Kentish Town and the fire, which he could see now was spreading. The whole of the sky in that direction was hazy with a purple-gray smudge.

Come on. Which way was the center of London? The road signs were too confusing. They pointed to places whose names he didn’t know.

The most obvious route was down the high street. It was the widest road. There were a few grown-ups wandering about on it, but if he went fast enough he could get around them. He shunted the bike forward, put his full weight on one pedal, then the other, and soon his feet were a blur as the pedals spun around and the chain rattled over the sprockets. He passed a knot of grown-ups, who made a feeble lunge at him, but as he glanced back at them, his front wheel hit a hole in the road. The whole bike jarred. He lost control and flew over the handlebars, landing in a painful heap on the asphalt. For a few seconds he was too stunned to move. His pants were ripped and his elbows and knees were bleeding. Then he sensed someone coming near and shook himself awake. He looked up just as a skinny young mother with no hair and dribble streaming down her chin made a grab for him. He rolled away from her groping hands and kicked out. He got her in the knee and she went down face-first.

Sam was up. He looked at his bike. The front wheel was bent out of shape and the tire had burst. All that work. Wasted. He would have to walk now. He might never be able to catch up with the others.

Actually, he would have to run. There were more grown-ups closing in on him.