ZOM-B 11 by Darren Shan

when I finish. ‘The fool,’ he snaps. ‘He deserved what he got, siding with a monster like that. We didn’t know about the children when we signed up to work for the Board. But to understand what Dan-Dan was truly like, and to go back for more . . .’ He spits
with disgust. Then his expression softens. ‘Still, we were a team for a long time. I hoped he’d fare better than that.’
    ‘At least it was quick,’ I note.
    ‘Yeah,’ Barnes says glumly. ‘We should all be so lucky.’
    He sips his beer and I give him a few moments of silent reflection. Then I clear my throat as tactfully as I can. ‘What about your son?’
    ‘Stuart,’ Barnes says softly, staring at the label on the bottle.
    ‘Did you find him?’
    Barnes doesn’t answer. His son was the reason he caught me and handed me over to the Board. They’d granted the boy sanctuary on a zombie-free island which their people were managing.
The child was safe as long as his father cooperated with Bazini and his cronies. But then Barnes betrayed them and led the Angels to my rescue.
    Barnes finishes the beer and gets another. I say nothing, determined not to ask any more questions, not wanting to upset him. But after a while he looks up and volunteers the information.
    ‘It took me longer to get to the island than I imagined. A lot of roads to the coast were blocked. I had to work my way around them. I ran into scores of zombies. But I got there in
the end. I kept going. For Stuart.’
    The ex-soldier’s fingers tighten on the bottle and I know what’s coming next.
    ‘Bazini or one of his team had radioed ahead. Told the people on the island what I’d done, and issued new instructions. I found Stuart’s remains. They left him hanging over the
harbour. He was still there when I reached the island. Well, whatever the crows hadn’t bothered with.’
    Barnes falls silent again, his gaze distant, a world of pain in his expression.
    ‘Did you kill them?’ I ask softly.
    He shakes his head slowly. ‘I don’t blame them. They were following orders. I knew what the rules were when I signed up to the deal. I broke them, so it was my fault, nobody else’s. There are always consequences when you agree a deal with evil men. After what I did on the
Belfast
. . .’ Barnes sighs. ‘Anyway, I cut down what was left of Stuart, buried him, then got the hell out of there, unseen and unheard.’
    ‘Do you regret it?’ I ask quietly. ‘Telling Dr Oystein about me. Leading him to the
Belfast
. Breaking your contract with the Board. Would you do it differently if you
could go back in time?’
    Barnes grunts. ‘No. If you’re a damn fool once, you’ll be a damn fool twice. What they were doing on the
Belfast
was wrong. I’d always known they were a crooked
bunch, but I was able to turn a blind eye to their shortcomings — I’m no saint myself, so I didn’t feel any right to take the moral high ground. But when I realised the full
extent of their vileness, of what Daniel Wood was doing to those children . . .
    ‘There are some things in this life that you can’t stand for,’ he says, which is similar to what I’d been telling myself earlier in the day. ‘I loved Stuart more
than anything else in this world, but sometimes you have to make a sacrifice for the greater good. I’m not sure if Stuart would have understood that. It wasn’t really something I understood myself until I saw those children on the
Belfast
. I wish I could have one last conversation with my boy, to explain.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I croak.
    Barnes sniffs, waves my apology away, then has another gulp of his beer and tries to forget the awful loss that his decency has cost him.

EIGHTEEN
    It wouldn’t have surprised me if Barnes had carried on drinking, to wash away the memories and sleep the dreamless sleep of a drunkard. But he stops after the second bottle. I assume that
he wants to be alert if we have to move out in a hurry.
    ‘You hungry?’ Barnes asks, pulling some