‘While I was at the museum,’ said Ollie, walking over to Seamus, ‘I talked to some of the kids there. They told me about a guy called Greg. He picked some of them up in a coach way back when it was all starting to go crazy. He claimed not to be infected. Claimed he’d beaten the disease. They believed him. But he hadn’t. He’d just slowed it down. That’s all they can do. Seamus must have found a way to slow it.

‘But I was listening to what he was saying and I realized it was all about him. None of that stuff in there made any sense. Them being in that cage, the way the door opened, the business with the keys. It was all too much like a video game. You know – solve the puzzles to get out of the room. It was designed by kids. That’s what it felt like to me. The message on the door, the warning, all designed like a game. And Seamus – he was part of the game, part of the puzzle we were supposed to solve. He didn’t write those warnings, they were really old, they’d been there for ages, but Seamus can’t have been in that cage too long. And then the candles as we came through, and the music. It was Duke Ellington. My big brother was a jazz fan. Monsters don’t light candles and play jazz. And those three …’ Ollie pointed at the dead fathers. ‘They didn’t say a word the whole time. Why so quiet? Because they couldn’t speak. That’s why. They were too far gone … No. You can’t beat the disease.’

‘You don’t know that for sure, Ollie,’ said Blue. ‘You’ve got no proof. And now they’re dead and we’re still clueless about the monsters.’

‘You want proof? All right. I’ll give you proof!’

Chapter 57

57

Ollie knelt down by Seamus’s body, put his hand to the collar of his shirt.

‘I saw him, when we went in there; the first thing he did was do up his top button. Why?’

‘I haven’t got a freaking clue. Maybe he was cold.’

‘Only one reason you’d do a thing like that.’ Ollie yanked the front of the shirt down and the buttons popped off and clattered on to the floor. There was a circle of lumps around Seamus’s neck, sores and boils. A couple of them had burst and were oozing pus.

Blue swore.

‘You still didn’t know for sure, though, Ollie. When you topped him.’

Ollie shrugged. Wouldn’t catch Blue’s eye.