a little number!” she cried, checking the playing card on his coat as she skipped towards him. “You’re only a three! I’m a six. I’m better than you.”
The boy looked around nervously. Where were her parents? But then families weren’t the same any more. They wouldn’t worry or even care if she was missing all day long, especially if it fitted the character she was playing from the book.
“Read to me!” she demanded.
“I have to be somewhere,” Reggie muttered, continuing along the path.
“Read to me!” she commanded again in a louder voice. “You’re just a three. I have to get back to the castle, but I don’t know the big words. Read to me now!”
“I don’t have my book with me,” Reggie explained hurriedly.
The girl stared at him in surprise. She had a pale, pretty face and her mousey hair was plaited into a stubby rope. Her grey eyes were glassy but questioning and her lips and chin were stained with the livid juices of fruits like those he had just passed.
“Everybody has a book,” she told him. “Mine is over there. I get it. You read it me.”
She was about to return to where she had left her copy of that horrible book, but Reggie called her back.
“Let me go get mine,” he said quickly. “It’s at home. I forgot to bring it with me. I’m on my way there now.”
The girl put her head on one side and looked at him quizzically. Something about the boy was wrong. There were no stains around his mouth and the dark centres of his eyes were too small. She started to back away. Then her young features scrunched up and she screamed at the top of her voice.
“ABRANT!” she shrieked, pointing accusing fingers and shaking her head violently. “ABRANT!”
Reggie reached out and tried to shush her, but she jumped clear – still screaming.
“ABRANT!”
Reggie looked back fearfully. The group of readers were rising to their feet. One of them was checking an iPad. The boy knew the online list of UK aberrants was being consulted. It was updated daily so his picture was sure to be there. His mother had probably provided his last school photograph. Yes, he saw the man with the iPad look up sharply. He had to get away, fast.
The readers began running towards him. The dog walker came hurrying back along the path and, with the girl’s shrill screams in his ears, Reggie legged it.
The street where Aunt Jen lived wasn’t far from the park. He had spent the past few days making his way here. It had been slow going, trying to keep out of sight, but he had been pleased and surprised by his own resourcefulness. It had brought him so close. But why hadn’t she shown up?
Reggie ran until the people in the park had been left behind and he was sure no one else was following. Slowing down, he caught his breath. He walked for another half a mile, but felt sick from hunger and leaned against a garden fence as he looked around cautiously.
This was a pleasant, leafy suburb. The housing estates were agreeable groupings of detached homes, each one different to its neighbour, with well-tended front lawns and faux leaded windows. His aunt’s house was close, just two streets away. Reggie knew it was stupid to go there, but he had to find out what had happened. Besides, where else could he go now?
Setting off again, he noticed how eerily quiet it was here. No sound of traffic. No music or noise coming from the houses, not a single person in sight. It was all so still and deserted that when a magpie came swooping down from a tree and landed on a lawn nearby, it startled him so much he jumped sideways into the road.
Reggie began to wonder if these streets had been evacuated due to an emergency, perhaps a gas leak or something? That would explain the forsaken emptiness of the place. It might also explain Aunt Jen’s silence, if she had been forced to leave the house suddenly and in the rush had left her mobile behind…
“That must be it,” he told himself. “She’s had to clear out with everyone else. So why am I still going to the house? Why don’t I turn round and get out of here as well? It might be dangerous. It might be poisonous – or explode.”
He frowned and turned the corner into the street where his aunt lived. “But then everywhere’s dangerous now,” he told himself grimly.
His aunt’s house was almost in view. Reggie gripped the straps of his rucksack and continued, taking short, sampling sniffs of the air as he went. He couldn’t smell gas, just the faint reek of that horrible plant. People were growing it in their gardens now.
The boy’s imagination began inventing other explanations for these empty streets.
“Radiation,” he suggested fancifully. “A dirty bomb has gone off and this whole area is contaminated. Or… a chemical spill in the water supply? Subsidence? A big hole might’ve opened up in one of the roads and the houses aren’t safe. Plague! All these houses are filled with dead bodies; it kills instantly and turns you green – with huge spots full of pus. A lion might’ve escaped from a zoo, though there isn’t one anywhere near here…”
Reggie grimaced. He knew that whatever had happened was bound to be because of that book. He almost wished there had been a chemical spill or radioactive fallout – or even a crazed killer with an axe. At least they were things he could understand.
There were no garden fences or hedges in this street. The lawns sloped gently up from the pavement and paths edged with solar-powered lamps led to the front doors. Soon the boy was standing outside number 24. It was large, detached and half-heartedly half-timbered. The lamp post outside was hung with long coloured streamers like a maypole. He saw that the driveway was empty. Then he stared at the front door. It was ajar.
Had they abandoned the place in such a hurry that they hadn’t bothered to close it? Was someone in there?
Reggie looked left and right, up and down the street. There was still no sign of another human being anywhere around. Should he chance going inside? He had come this far – besides, there would be food in the kitchen and he was starving.
The boy sprinted across the lawn and pushed the door wide open. The hallway was neat and tidy. There was no sign of any hasty evacuation. He stepped inside and his heart beat faster. Moving warily through the hall, he peered into the living room. Everything looked normal: sofa, plasma TV, cork coasters on the coffee table, family photos on the wall. A framed print hanging above the fireplace caught his attention. That was new. The print was of a white castle, the one featured in that book.
The boy shuddered and looked away in disgust. He quickly made his way to the kitchen where he tore into a bag of bread and stuffed a soft white slice into his mouth. Then he pulled open the fridge and gave a grunt of satisfaction as he gazed on the illuminated contents. Grabbing ham and cheese, he threw them into two more slices and ate them so fast he almost choked. Then he found a can of Coke and guzzled half of it down in one swig. He checked the fridge again. There were some sausage rolls. He wolfed one down and shoved two more in his pocket.
Chewing greedily, he knew he should take as much as he could fit in his rucksack. Removing it from his back, he set to work. There were some things though that he didn’t dare touch: yoghurt, juice cartons and a fruit pie. The packaging bore the logo of that book and contained the pulp and juice from the foul-smelling plant.
Once that was done, Reggie turned his attention to the cupboards. Fresh stuff wouldn’t last long. He should take some tins as well. Two lots of beans, an oxtail soup, macaroni cheese, they were all his bag could take.
“Tin-opener,” he told himself sharply. He yanked open a drawer and began searching through the cutlery. A knife and spoon went clattering on to the tiled floor and the unearthly silence was broken.
Reggie froze. Why hadn’t he been more careful?
“Who’s there?” a voice called suddenly.
The boy turned.
“Who is it?”