ZOM-B 11 by Darren Shan

mates. I told them my dad had said that the number of victims had been vastly exaggerated, that certain groups wanted to
make it seem worse than it was, in order to squeeze extra sympathy out of people worldwide. According to him, only a few hundred thousand Jews had been killed, and in concentration camps, not death
camps.
    Vinyl stood up at that point and snarled at me. He said he had a simple policy when it came to Holocaust deniers. As soon as they started spouting crap, no matter how reasonable it might sound,
he walked away, because some things were never worth listening to. And off he stormed. The rest of the gang followed him or went home, heads low and unusually silent, leaving me to glower at the pavement by myself.
    I felt very small that day, angry at Vinyl for humiliating me, but also angry at myself for being willing to believe my dad’s distortions of the truth. I knew Vinyl was right, and I
know he’d act the same way today if he was still here. He’s not, but I can at least do his memory justice. It’s not much of a comfort, but I’m sure my old friend would be
proud of me if he could see the way I cut Dr Oystein off before he could start spinning his seductive lies.
    Yeah — but he’d have been prouder if I’d rammed the steel-tipped end of one of Timothy’s paintbrushes through the old goat’s skull!
    I allow myself a wry chuckle at the thought of bringing Dr Oystein down with such an unlikely weapon. Then I hear the sound of footsteps and I fall silent and listen.
    The runners aren’t making a lot of noise, but in a city of the dead it’s just about impossible to mask the echoes of dozens of feet slapping on the pavement. There are lots of people tearing after me, and I’m certain they’re Angels.
    Master Zhang will be furious when he finds out how his students reacted. They should have come in smaller gangs and padded softly, sacrificing speed for stealth. I wouldn’t want to be in
their shoes when they report back to him. Unless of course they capture me. Nobody will care then.
    I’m surrounded by houses. Many of their doors are ajar, either left that way by their owners when they fled, or forced open by zombies. I slip into one of the deserted shells, not touching
the door, and position myself in the shadows of a room with a window overlooking the street.
    The Angels come tearing past. They’re in a pack, hunting like dogs. No sign of Dr Oystein, which makes me suspect he’s led another group in a different direction. I figure they
probably split into four teams, maybe more. They’ll want to cover the main routes out, north, south, east and west.
    If I’m right about that, their apparent clumsiness begins to make sense. As bright as I feel, it’s only relative to how poorly I felt before. I’m nowhere near as strong or fast as the other Angels. I only have a few
minutes’ head start on them, so they know I can’t have gone far.
    My colleagues aren’t racing after me in a disorganised rush, as I first assumed. They’re running to get ahead of me. When they’re sure they’ve outpaced me,
they’ll stop, break into smaller groups and track back, examining every street and alley, every building and house.
    There won’t be enough of them to cast an impenetrable net across the area, but it will be hard to slip through. Clever sods. Strangely, I’m proud of them, pleased to see they
haven’t lost their heads when the heat is on, even though I’m the scared rabbit that they’re hunting.
    I’ve got two choices. I can find somewhere to hide and hope they don’t root me out. Or I can try to sneak through the closing web of Angels undetected.
    In a city like London, there are more hiding places than a person could count. There’s no way the Angels can check everywhere. It wouldn’t be a sign of cowardice if I laid low, just a mark of common sense.
    But then I’d be like Anne Frank and others who hid during the Second World War. It worked for some of them and they