Scott Andrews - Children's Crusade

He's basically a vampire.

And Britain is his blood bank.

"Attacking that convoy had seemed like such a good idea at the time," said Caroline, shaking her head in frustration. "This is like herding cats."

The army that she'd accumulated during the previous year were pretty well drilled. They followed orders and knew when to shut up. The hundred or so kids that they'd released from the convoy, on the other hand, were a gaggle of confused, impulsive, homesick brats with snotty noses and bad attitudes. Trying to smuggle them out of the city without drawing attention would have been hard enough, but doing so while they fought, cried, wandered off or kept nipping into abandoned buildings in search of a bed, was driving her nuts. She had to keep reminding herself not to be to angry. They were hungry and tired, and it was a freezing cold night.

While she mostly managed to keep a lid on her anger, her fear was growing unchecked. They needed to get a move on. It would be dawn in an hour and they weren't far enough away from their old nest yet. The trail would be fresh and easy to follow. The churchies had jeeps and helicopters. It had taken Caroline six hours to move the kids about a mile north; it would take their pursuers two minutes to cover the same distance.

"Luke," she called. The gangly teenage boy who served as her lieutenant was at her side in an instant. He was a year older than her but he was puppy dog loyal and hard as nails. "I want you to take Andrew, Melissa and Lizzie, and scout ahead. Find us somewhere to hole up. Somewhere defensible, okay?"

He nodded, gathered up the other three kids and ran to the end of the road, scanning for activity, then ducking out of sight. They were travelling parallel to the main road out of Hammersmith, using the residential side roads as cover. The idea had been to go north 'til they crossed the M25, then swing west and circle round until they were above Kent before heading south to the school. At this rate, she realised, it would be a death march. She was rapidly coming to the conclusion that they would have to find somewhere safe to stay out of sight while a couple of them made the journey. That way the school could send a lorry to collect the kids. That is, if the school was still there. Caroline was sure that Matron had given up their Hammersmith base, what if she had given up the school too? She dismissed the thought, not because she didn't think it likely, but because there was nothing she could do about it. If the school was gone, she decided, they'd just have to go to ground in the countryside. There'd be plenty of places to disappear.

Those kids who'd been with her for a while were trying to keep the new arrivals quiet as they neared the street corner. Caroline was in front, gun at the ready, when she heard a single shot echo back to her from the road ahead. She spun around waving frantically, indicating for the kids to scatter. Her 'soldiers' immediately began shushing the kids and herding them into the abandoned houses. In one minute the street was empty, the fear of imminent discovery managing what she'd been trying for hours to achieve — keeping the little brats quiet so she could think. She could see the pale faces of her guys at the doorways of the houses they'd taken shelter in, standing guard, waiting for her to make a move.

She gripped the gun tightly and ran to the pavement, pressing herself into the shadows and creeping forward so she could peer round the corner into the next road.

Her heart sank as she saw a pair of dual-cab pickups on the road, their roof-mounted spotlights picking out her four friends, who were down on their knees with their hands behind their backs. Each vehicle carried a team of four heavily armed men, three of whom were advancing with their guns trained on the captives. The road was wide and open, and the cars and kids were in the middle of a huge junction, providing almost no cover. She couldn't get close to them without being seen by the two men who were standing in the open backs of the vehicles, scanning the area for possible attack.

They were too far away for her to hear what the men said when they reached the four kneeling children, but she could tell they were shouting. Andrew was typically defiant and shouted back, which earned him a gun butt in the face and then, once he'd fallen over, a hard kick to the solar plexus.

Caroline clenched the gun tighter, so wanting to blow that fucker's head off but seeing no way to do so without leading them right to the children she was trying to protect. She was about to turn away when first one lookout then the other went rigid and dropped like stones off the sides of the vehicles on to the road. Caroline hadn't heard any shots. What the fuck had just happened?

The men interrogating her friends didn't seem to know either. At first they just looked confused. One of them walked to the nearest car to see what was going on. Just as he rounded the cab he dropped too, silent and instant. Caroline realised they were under attack, but she still had no idea by whom, or how. She was still too far away to approach unseen, even with this distraction. If she made a play, there was still a better than average chance that she'd be cut down. She bit her lip and, fighting down her instinctive desire to wade into the fight, waited to see how this would play out.

The engines of the vehicles revved as the two drivers indicated their desire to leave. The two men still in the open hesitated, unsure, and then ran — one to each cab. Neither of them made it. This time, as the second one fell, Caroline caught a glimpse of something sticking out of his chest. She couldn't be sure at this distance and in this light, but she thought maybe it was an arrow.

The drivers didn't wait another second. They screamed away at speed, racing to escape this silent attacker. One of them made it, but the other began swerving wildly from left to right before smashing straight through the frontage of an old pub, erupting into flames. The archer must have managed to shoot the driver through his windscreen while he was moving. Shit, this guy was good.

The other pickup squealed around a corner and vanished into the night as Caroline broke cover and ran to see how her four friends were doing. Andrew was sitting up, his face a mess of tears and snot. The other three were getting to their feet, mouths open. Caroline went and inspected one of the dead churchies. Sure enough when she rolled him over there was a thin wooden arrow buried deep in his chest. It had been painted black.

"That's mine," said a deep voice behind her and she spun, instinctively raising her weapon as she did so.

Since there were no streetlights, there were few shadows for the archer to step out of. He just sort of materialised out of the darkness. Dressed head to toe in dark green, he held a wooden bow in his right hand. A quiver of arrows stuck up over his left shoulder.

"The beauty of arrows, you see, is that they're recyclable. Shoot a bullet or a cartridge, like the one that shotgun of yours fires, and it's gone forever. But an arrow…" He stepped past her, reached down and yanked the wooden shaft from the dead man's chest. It came out with a soft squelch. "That can be used again."

"Who are you?" asked Melissa, who was now standing behind Caroline.

"My name's Ferguson," said the archer in a thick Irish accent as he wiped his arrow clean on the dead man's jacket. He stood up and slotted it back into his quiver, ready for another day. "I'm a Ranger." He seemed surprised that this pronouncement was greeted with silence. "From Nottingham," he added. And then: "I'm with Hood."

He stared at their blank faces, waiting for the spark of recognition. Nothing.

"I can see we need a better publicist," he said, smiling.

"Thank you," said Andrew, now on his feet.