7.

The Sullivan brothers managed to unbolt the main doors of the church and they threw them wide. Johnno and Piers, their friends from the rugby team, had picked up a comatose boy, but they hung back in the doorway.

They'd forgotten about the teachers.

The bigger of the two, Piers, looked back anxiously. 'They're still out there,' he said.

Jack strode over to where Piers had put down his weapon and snatched it up without stopping. He continued on outside. Bam followed, a grim look on his face. Mr Langston the history teacher was trying to get the gate open, his swollen, mushy fingers unable to get a proper grip. Next to him Miss Warlock and the other teacher were shaking and moaning.

Jack carried on walking. Nothing was going to stop him. He went right up to Mr Langston and swung the bit of iron hard at the side of his head. Langston went down.

Bam vaulted the wall, knocking Miss Warlock over, and then took a swing at the third teacher. The blow jarred his head to a weird angle, but he stayed on his feet. Jack climbed over the wall and came up on the teacher from behind. There was a nasty wet crack as Jack hammered his club into the back of his skull.

None of the other boys could watch as Jack and Bam finished off the three teachers. But they could hear it. It sounded like men at work mending a road.

At last Jack came back over to the chapel.

'Get them out of there,' he snapped, flinging the bloody iron bar aside.

Those who were strong enough began feverishly dragging boys out into the air, carrying them by their hands and feet. As soon as they dumped one on the grass they went back for another. As the limp figures drew clean air into their lungs they started to stir and wake up. Some just lay there groaning. Others sat against the gravestones of long-dead masters and churchmen, groggy, pale and confused. One boy tried to stand, then collapsed to his knees and was sick on to the ground.

Having made sure Malik was OK, Ed went back to find Matt, the boy who had led them all into the church. He discovered him curled up beneath the altar, one arm stretched out stiffly as if reaching for something. Clutched in his other hand was a sheaf of half-charred pages that had been torn from a book, a Bible by the look of it.

Ed slapped his face gently. Matt didn't respond, so he slipped his arms around his chest ready to lift him. As he did so Matt suddenly came awake. He gripped hold of Ed with claw-like hands and looked up into his eyes.

'I've seen him,' he said.

'It's all right, we've got you now,' said Ed.

'I've seen him.'

'Who have you seen, mate?'

'The Lamb. The Lamb is going to save us all.'

'That's good to know,' said Ed, humouring him while still trying to get him on to his feet.

'He came in a cloud of golden light, his shadow behind him. The Lamb. He's going to save us all. We have to prepare for his coming.'

Bam came over to help and they propped Matt up under each armpit and walked him outside, Matt babbling all the way, none of it making any sense.

They lowered him on to a bench in the graveyard and checked to make sure no more teachers had turned up.

It looked like the aftermath of a battle, or a gas attack. The boys from the church lay among the gravestones, puking and moaning, clutching their sides in agony. At least they seemed to be recovering, though.

The Sullivan brothers were the last out, carrying a skinny young lad between them. They gently put him down away from the others and Anthony approached Ed and Bam.

'I think you should come and look at this one,' he said. 'He won't wake up.'

The little boy's face was chalk white, his lips slightly blue. Ed listened to his chest and peeled back his eyelids, then tried mouth to mouth, but there was no response. He was dead.

'His name was Jacob.' Malik had revived enough to make his way over to where a group of boys were huddled with Ed round the dead kid.

'He wasn't well before,' Malik went on. 'He had asthma, and his inhaler had run out.'

'Poor little guy,' said Bam. 'What are we going to do with him?'

'We can't leave him out here. He'll be eaten,' said Anthony matter-of-factly.

'But if we take him inside he'll start to ... you know ... smell ...' said Damien Sullivan, looking at his brother.

'We're in a graveyard, aren't we?' said Jack. 'We'll bury him.'

'The Lamb has taken him.'

Everyone turned round. Matt was standing there, wrapped in a blanket, a strange drunken smile on his face.

'Taken him for his army,' Matt went on. 'Don't feel sad for him. The Lamb is going to save us all!'

8.

'It was cold in there at night. We couldn't get warm, so we broke up a couple of the pews and used the wood for a fire.' Ed's friend Malik was sitting on a bench drinking from a plastic bottle of water. His eyes were weepy and bloodshot and his hand was shaking. Ed was standing nearby, keeping watch for any teachers.

'I guess the smoke and fumes must have built up without us realizing,' Malik went on, his voice hoarse.

'You're lucky you're not all dead.' Ed relaxed and sat down next to Malik. 'Carbon monoxide will kill you.'

'I feel like death.' Malik offered Ed a sickly grin. 'I think my head's going to explode. And you want to watch out I might spew at any second. Just don't ask me to stand up for at least three days. I'm dizzy enough just sitting here.'

'You might have to stand, Malik.' Ed was still scanning the road. 'We're all right at the moment, but it's only a matter of time before more of the teachers work out where we are and come sniffing around.'

'I guess if it's a matter of life and death I'll make it inside.' Malik groaned, and he sank his head down between his knees, supported by his shaking hands. 'Do you know if carbon monoxide can give you any permanent damage?'

'No idea,' said Ed. 'Wiki's the one to ask.'

Malik made a face. 'I don't want, like, brain damage or something.'

Ed punched him lightly in the shoulder. 'Wouldn't notice the difference,' he said. 'But, seriously, what's happened to Matt? Talk about brain damage. He's still coming out with totally random stuff.'

Malik let out his breath slowly and noisily then laughed through his nose.

'I think he's found God,' he said.

'In a big way.' Ed laughed as well now. 'Was he a religious nut before?'

'Not that I know of,' said Malik. 'But stuck in there ...' He nodded back over his shoulder to the chapel. 'All we had to read was Bibles and prayer books. You know Archie Bishop?'

'Yeah.'

'Well, one night he said we should all pray.'

'He always was a bit like that,' Ed interrupted. 'His dad was a vicar or something, I think.'

'Well, I'm a Muslim, as you know,' said Malik. 'So I pray every day anyway, at least I'm supposed to. So there we all were inside. I prayed to my God and they prayed to theirs. Even those kids who didn't believe in anything much before got in on it. It sort of held us all together in a funny way. And Matt seemed to really get into it. Started reading out bits of the Bible from the, you know, like, the pulpit thing. I didn't understand most of it and I don't think he did either.'

'What's all this stuff about the Lamb?' Ed asked. 'Where did that come from?'

'Well, the thing was, as I say, it got really cold in there,' said Malik, 'and we'd started making these, like, fires, using anything we could find, pages from the prayer books and old Bibles and whatever to get it going. Then last night Matt, like, totally freaked out, said we shouldn't burn any more of the books, and he rescued a lot of pages from the burner we'd made, found us some charcoal instead. Bad idea. By the time we realized we were all being poisoned by the fumes it was too late we were all passing out.'

'Lucky we came over when we did.'

'Too right,' said Malik. 'I was heading into the light, halfway to paradise. When you woke me up I thought you were God!'

Ed laughed, then Malik went on more seriously. 'I reckon Matt's flipped,' he said. 'Can't blame him. It's been tough on all of us. Our food ran out three days ago, though we still had some water. I reckon we've all been seeing things, and Matt ... Well, Matt seems to think he's some kind of prophet or something now.'

'Let's hope he doesn't freak any of the other kids out,' said Ed.

'Too late for that,' said Malik, rubbing his temples. 'He's already got the younger kids following him around. We call them his acolytes. And Archie Bishop's become his, like, second in command.'

Ed hauled himself up off the bench. 'I'm going to go and see if he's all right.'

Matt was sitting by himself away from the other kids. He was a tall boy of Ed's age with very little flesh on his bones. He was all angles and lumps, knobbly knees and elbows, sharp shoulders, pointy chin and big nose. His usually very tidy hair was starting to grow wild. His skin looked grey. His eyes, sunk deep in purple sockets above high cheekbones, were bleary and unfocused.

Ed flopped down next to him.

'How you doing?'

'Better than ever.' Matt smiled that weird spooky smile of his again. Maybe he thought he looked angelic; to Ed he just looked creepy.

'That's good. Listen, the reason we came over to the chapel to find you is we don't think we can stay here any longer. We need to find somewhere where there's food and water and we, you know, we figured we should all stick together.'

'Yes,' said Matt, and his face broke into a huge radiant smile. 'You've seen it too?'

'Seen what?'

'The vision.'

Ed shook his head. 'I haven't seen any visions, Matt.'

Matt clutched Ed's arm, his fingers digging into the soft flesh. 'I saw it. I saw it really clearly.'

'Saw what?'

'A big church in London, bigger than any real church, as big as the whole city, with thousands and thousands of children inside it. Like an ants' nest. It was shining, the dome of the church was shining, and the Lamb was there. We have to be there to meet him.'

'Meet the Lamb?'

'Yes. He'll look after us, and watch over us, as long as we follow him and follow what he's shown me, in the vision ...'

'You had a vision of a lamb telling you to go to London?'

'Yes. It was so clear, and it's all written here.' Matt held up the torn and charred pages he'd been clutching when Ed had rescued him. Thrust them right into Ed's face. Ed tried to get up, but Matt still held on to him with his other hand.

'Listen,' he said, and began to read. 'The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign forever and ever. Don't you understand? He's left us a message, a new message. It was hidden in the pages of the old Bible, in the words, but this is a new message.'

Ed tried not to laugh. 'I don't get it,' he said, frowning at the grubby sheaf of papers. 'What sort of message?'

'I don't understand it all,' said Matt, and he finally let go of Ed so that he could sort through the pages. 'Not yet, but I'm working on it. I need to study the pages. Look, you see, the meaning has changed ... I need to get them in order. Some of the words have been burned away ...'

He waved a page at Ed.

'See this one here ... First begotten of the dead. Keeper of the keys of hell and death ... no, that's not the bit I meant, here, yes ... Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, "Go, pour out the seven bowls of God's wrath on the earth." The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the land, and ugly and painful sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshipped his image. Do you see? It's all in here. The disease, everything. It was all meant to be.' Matt squinted at the lines of print and read out another passage. 'Men gnawed their tongues in agony and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done.'

'Yeah, look, Matt, I don't really get all this stuff. I'm not even sure I know what repenting is.'

'The dead will rise again, Ed, but only the Lamb can save us.'

'So you're saying Jesus will look after us?'

'No ... Not Jesus, the Lamb.'

'I thought the Lamb was Jesus.'

'No ... The Lamb is something new, a new kind of prophet, or a new God.'

'You sound a bit confused about this, Matt.'

'No. I saw him. I saw him clearly.'

'Yeah? What did he look like, then, this Lamb?'

'He was one of us ... a boy, a child, even younger. With golden hair. A child who isn't a child. In the vision I saw, he was walking out of the darkness, and all around him was light, and in his shadow walked a demon.'