ONE
IT WAS DARK outside the small private hospital, the streetlights out and the houses across the road shut up tight. Only the faintest glowing lines around some windows indicated that there were probably people inside, and that the city still had power. There were other lights in the sky, but these were the navigation lights of helicopters, tiny pinprick red dots circling high above. Occasionally a searchlight flickered down from one of the helicopters, closely followed by the harsh clatter of machine-gun fire.
Inside the hospital, a flash of light suddenly lit up the empty swimming pool, accompanied by a thunderclap that rattled every window and drowned the distant sounds of the choppers and gunfire. As the light from the flash slowly faded, a slow, regular drumbeat echoed through the halls.
In the front office, a tired woman clad in a crumpled blue hospital uniform looked away from the videoscreen that was carrying the latest very bad news and jumped up to flick on the corridor lights. Then she grabbed her mop and bucket and ran. The thunderclap and drumming announced the arrival of Dr Friday, and Dr Friday always wanted the floors cleaned ahead of her, so she could see her reflection in the glossy surface of the freshly washed linoleum.
The cleaner ran through the wards, turning on lights as she passed. Just before the pool room, she glanced at her watch. It was 11:15 on Friday night. Dr Friday had never come so late before, but her servants sometimes did. In any case, the cleaner was not allowed to leave until the day was completely done. Not that there was anywhere to go, with the new quarantine in force and helicopters shooting anyone who ventured out onto the streets. The news was now also full of talk of a ‘last-resort solution’ to the ‘plague nexus’ that existed in the city.
Outside the pool room, the cleaner stopped to take a deep breath. Then she bent her head, dipped her mop, and pushed it and the bucket through the doors, reaching up to flick the light switch without looking, as she had done so many times, on so many Fridays past. She had learned long ago not to look up, because then she might meet Friday’s gaze, or be dazzled by her mirror.
But it wasn’t Friday or her minions who were emerging from the dark portal in the empty swimming pool and climbing up the ramp.
The cleaner stared at their bare feet and the blue hospital nightgowns. She dropped her mop, looked up, and screamed.
‘They’re coming back! But they never come back!’
The sleepers that she had seen enter the pool only that morning, led by Dr Friday herself, were shambling their way up, arms outstretched in front of them in the classic pose of sleepwalkers seen so often in films and television.
But this time Dr Friday wasn’t there, and neither were any of her ridiculously tall and good-looking assistants.
Then the cleaner saw the girl, the one who had been awake that morning. She was shepherding the very first sleeper, a woman at the head of the line, steering her to the centre of the ramp. The sleepers weren’t as obedient as they had been going out, or as deeply asleep.
‘Hi!’ called the girl. ‘Remember me?’
The cleaner nodded dumbly.
‘My name’s Leaf. What’s yours?’
‘Vess,’ whispered the cleaner.
‘Give us a hand, then, Vess! We’ve got to get everyone into bed, at least for tonight.’
‘What . . . what about Dr Friday?’
‘She’s gone,’ said Leaf. ‘Defeated by Arthur!’
She gestured behind her, and the cleaner saw a handsome young boy of a similar age to Leaf. His skin was almost glowing with good health, his hair was shiny, and his teeth were very white. But that was not the most striking thing about him. He held a light in his hand, a brilliant star that the cleaner recognised as Friday’s mirror.
‘Sir!’ said the cleaner, and she went down on one knee and bent her head. Leaf frowned and looked back at Arthur, and in that moment saw him anew.
‘What?’ asked Arthur. ‘Hey, keep them walking or we’ll get a pile-up back here.’
‘Sorry,’ said Leaf. She hastily pulled the leading sleeper – her own aunt Mango – out of the line and held on to her arm. ‘It’s . . . well, I just realised you look . . . you don’t look the same as you used to.’
Arthur looked down at himself and then up again, his face showing puzzlement.
‘You used to be a bit shorter than me,’ said Leaf. ‘You’ve grown at least three or four inches and got . . . um . . . better looking.’
‘Have I?’ muttered Arthur. Only a few weeks ago he would have been delighted to hear he was getting taller. Now it sent an unpleasant shiver through him. He glanced at the crocodile ring on his finger, the one that indicated just how far his blood and bone had been contaminated by sorcery. But before he could gauge how much of the ring had turned from silver to gold, he forced himself to look away. He didn’t want to confirm right then and there if his transformation into a Denizen had gone beyond the point of no return. In his heart, he knew the answer without even looking at the ring.