Boyband of the Apocalypse Read online

  FOR MY LITTLE SISTER LOUISE – TN

  FOR MY BIG SISTER HELEN – DO’C

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The Encore: Three Months Later

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Copyright

  The world was about to end.

  Four demonic figures slipped silently through the crowd. I blinked and three were gone, lost in the darkness, but I could still see one heading my way. Then I realized that the trap was already set – the others had split off to surround me. There was nowhere to run. I was like a wounded gazelle, cut off from the herd. Except the creatures stalking me were not lions or cheetahs. They were not of this world. They were teenage girls.

  “Sam!” said Veronica, a tall, flat-nosed girl with long blond hair, appearing in front of me, blocking my path. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “I’m just—” I began.

  “Big fan are you, Sam?” interrupted Vicky, to my left. Vicky was identical to Veronica.

  “Me? No way!” I said. I tried to laugh, to make a point of how ridiculous her suggestion was but it came out as a sort of belch instead.

  “You don’t have to pretend with us, Sam,” said Violet, to my right, who was identical to Vicky. “It’s great that you came.”

  “And soooo brave,” said Valerie, from behind me. If you guessed that Valerie was identical to Violet, you’d be wrong. Valerie, like Vicky, was actually the spitting image of Veronica.

  Obviously I’m kidding – they all looked like each other. Sometimes I just like to tell jokes when I sense that I’m in mortal danger. I think it’s some kind of defence mechanism. Though obviously a rubbish one. A sword or something would be much more useful.

  Identical quadruplets are pretty rare as it happens. You’re more likely to be struck by lightning than to ever meet any. And in the case of the Heatherstones, you’d actually prefer that. Normally all four dressed the same and the only way to tell them apart was by the gold name necklaces they wore. Over the years, though, I had developed a pretty reliable instinct for knowing who was who without any need of jewellery-based assistance. Another mostly useless defence mechanism. To my surprise, today they were actually dressed differently, each wearing a black T-shirt with the word APOCALIPS emblazoned upon it but with the face of a different teenage boy beneath.

  “None of the other boys from school would be seen dead at a boyband concert,” said Veronica. “They all think Apocalips is just for girls.”

  “Which is totally unfair,” said Vicky. “I don’t see why boys can’t enjoy them. They are a boyband after all.”

  “Totally,” agreed Violet. “So what other girl things do you like, Sam?”

  The quads burst into laughter. I would have preferred them to burst into flames. I knew I had to set the record straight quickly or I might as well not bother turning up for school on Monday. As if it weren’t bad enough having them sitting right behind me in class the whole time.

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” I said hastily. “I’m here with my sister and her friend Amy. My parents asked me to take them.”

  The Heatherstones looked at each other and erupted again. “Lexi’s here?” said Valerie, wiping away a tear. “Oh, Sam. Come on now, even you can come up with a better excuse than that. As if Lexi would ever come to something like this.”

  I knew what they meant. A boyband concert was not somewhere you’d ever expect to find my little sister. But she was here all right.

  “It’s true,” I said. “Her friend Amy loves Apocalips but her parents wouldn’t let her go by herself. She begged Lexi to come with her and my parents asked me to take them.”

  The Heatherstones had stopped laughing and were shifting restlessly, looking over their shoulders. The thought of Lexi being nearby had clearly put them on edge, as it should.

  “Well, I don’t see them,” said Violet. “Are you sure you didn’t leave them at home?”

  “Yeah, he was too excited to see his idols,” laughed Vicky. She pointed at the face on her T-shirt. “I bet he’s a total Warren fan.”

  “Nah, I’d say he likes Pete,” said Valerie, glancing down at her T-shirt.

  “Looks more like a Donnie guy to me,” chipped in Veronica.

  “Oh, now I’d have said Frankie,” said Violet.

  The four girls looked at each other. “Steve!” they said.

  “That’s it, he’s definitely a Steve,” said Vicky.

  I wasn’t really sure what a Steve was but I was desperate to get them off my back. “Lexi’s just gone to the toilet,” I explained. “She’ll be back any minute. Honestly, I hate Apocalips. They’re rubbish.”

  OK, so that probably wasn’t a very smart thing to say. The four of them glared at me and started closing in again. No one was laughing any more.

  “What did you just say?” said Violet coldly.

  “Rubbish…” said Valerie as if she was turning the word over in her mouth. “He called them rubbish.”

  “Apocalips is the greatest band of all time,” said Vicky.

  “I think our friend Sam needs to be taught a lesson in musical appreciation,” said Veronica.

  I had only agreed to bring Lexi and her friend to watch the most popular boyband in the history of the universe because Mum and Dad had promised to buy me a new phone. I had known it was going to be dangerous. If word got out at school it would be first-degree humiliation – worse than getting caught eating your own bogies or getting kissed by your mum in public. But I really wanted that phone, so I had prepared myself for possible social destruction. I hadn’t prepared myself for actual destruction.

  “Step away from my brother.”

  Instinctively, the Heatherstones took a step backwards as a grumpy-looking ten-year-old girl pushed her way through the crowd. My sister’s best friend Amy shuffled up nervously behind her. To the untrained eye, Lexi, with her brown pigtails and her tiny stature, looked like the most innocent child you could ever meet. But that was a bit like mistaking a rattlesnake for a skipping rope.

  Lexi glared at the Heatherstones and they glared right back. But then doubt seemed to creep into the quadruplets’ faces, their eyes darting between one another.

  I should probably explain some things about my sister. I mean, she’s great and everything – I love her to pieces. In fact I doubt most thirteen-year-old boys get along with their ten-year-old sister like I do. But Lexi has … issues. Anger-management issues. Her fuse is so short it’s practically nonexistent. She’s always getting herself into fights with other girls. And boys. Anyone really. It’s not that she’s a bad person. The opposite in fact. Most of the fights she gets into only happen because she’s sticking up for someone else. She’s saved my skin on more occasions than I can count.


  And about those fights – the thing is, she always, always wins.

  The stand-off continued for a few more moments until darkness engulfed us completely. Seconds later the arena erupted with thousands of girls screaming their heads off.

  The place lit up in a blaze of multi-coloured explosions and then there they were. The five members of Apocalips singing and dancing and jumping about to a song I’d heard a zillion times yet for the life of me couldn’t remember the name of.

  The Heatherstones thankfully had taken the opportunity to disappear, no doubt busy shoving their way through the crowd to get to the front. We were a long way from the stage, close to the back of the arena, in fact, so my first thought was that the more space between us and them, the better. But as the full horror of the world’s number-one boyband began to play out in front of me, I began to wonder if death at the hands of the Heatherstones would have been better.

  Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby

  Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby

  Yeah, baby, baby, baby

  Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby

  Baaaaaaaaaaaby

  Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby

  Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby

  Yeah, baby, baby, baby

  Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby

  Baaaaaaaaaaaby

  Baaaaaaaaaaaby

  Oh yeah, I do know this song. It think it’s called ‘Baby’.

  “How do they remember all the words?” Lexi shouted in my ear, as if reading my mind.

  As the song finished, giant green neon lights lit up behind the group spelling out the name WARREN. A muscular boy with a granite chin and a reddish-brown quiff – a sort of handsome troll in a waistcoat – took centre stage.

  “Who do you think that is?” I asked Lexi.

  Lexi laughed. “I think he’s called Warren.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Was it the giant neon lettering that gave him away?”

  “Just a little,” said Lexi.

  A thin boy sporting a ponytail and wearing skinny jeans coupled with a way-too-small T-shirt replaced Warren, blowing kisses to the crowd as the lights quickly rearranged themselves to spell out FRANKIE.

  “Do you think that’s Frankie?” I asked.

  “Hard to say,” said Lexi.

  A scruffy-looking character with a lot of hair called PETE was up next. He had on a pair of ripped jeans and a tank top that looked badly in need of a wash. Actually, so did he.

  Then came a particularly grim-looking boy called DONNIE. His hair was short and neat, black with a dyed-green fringe and his face was pale and angular. He wore a black shirt, a black suit jacket, black leather trousers and black shoes. His look was black basically.

  Last up was STEVE, the most clean-cut of them all with a sweeping blond hairdo and perfect smile, wearing a light-blue shirt and tie, casual trousers, a pair of flip-flops and one of those pork-pie hats. He bounced around the stage like a puppy on a bouncy castle. It was obvious from his enthusiasm that Steve was the lead singer of the band. That and the fact that he was in the middle. Even I know that the best singer always gets to go in the middle. It’s Boyband 101.

  I could see Lexi rolling her eyes at the whole thing. It was obvious she wanted to be here even less than I did. Her friend Amy, on the other hand, was beside herself in floods of tears. Of joy, I presumed.

  “Just so you know,” I said, leaning in so Lexi could hear me. “I had that all under control back there.”

  She didn’t look convinced. “Oh, really? Because you reminded me of the animals on those nature shows that Dad likes.”

  “The lions?” I asked hopefully.

  “No, the other ones,” said Lexi. “The ones just minding their own business.”

  “Oh,” I said, disappointed she had made the gazelle connection, too. “It never ends well for them, does it?”

  “Nope,” she said.

  I looked up at the stage as Apocalips broke into their next number. I couldn’t believe I’d have to endure two hours of this. And then have the Heatherstones tell everyone I actually enjoyed it.

  But the more I watched, the more I grudgingly had to admit that even though it wasn’t my thing, the five of them were obviously talented. The lead singer, Steve, in particular had a pretty phenomenal voice.

  The others weren’t really in his league as singers, yet there was something about the four that drew you in somehow. Call it stage presence or charisma or the X factor or whatever, but there was something almost hypnotic about them, like you couldn’t look away…

  Someone tugged on my sleeve, breaking the spell.

  “You know you don’t have to stick around, right?” Lexi said.

  “But I promised Mum and Dad…”

  “You promised that you’d bring us here and bring us home. Nobody said you had to actually witness this horror show.”

  With the bouncy one now taking the stage for what appeared to be a solo performance, I wasn’t going to need a lot of convincing. “I suppose I could go and get something to eat. If you’re sure you’ll be OK,” I added, prompting my sister to roll her eyes.

  I left Lexi and Amy to it, after agreeing to meet up at the end of the concert by the box office. Unsurprisingly, the queues for the food stand were non-existent, so I bought an overpriced hamburger, some overpriced fries and an overpriced cola. I had just sat down and torn off the burger wrapper when a chill went up my spine and I felt a deep, yet familiar, sense of impending doom wash over me. I looked up. Four very mean, very angry and very identical faces were looking down on me.

  “What are you doing out here?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be in there where the noise is? Music! I meant music.”

  The four girls exchanged glances.

  “Yes, we should be…” said Valerie, through gritted teeth.

  “But those stupid security guards thought otherwise,” put in Vicky.

  “Just because we were trying to get to the front,” added Veronica.

  “It’s ridiculous,” said Violet. “They can’t prove that those girls didn’t knock themselves out.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Vicky. “Anyway, we’re not allowed back in. And we’re all very, very upset about that. So I guess we’re going to have to find something to take out our frustrations on.”

  My hands were trembling so much that my burger fell to the ground with a splat. “I-i-is there even the slightest chance that won’t involve me?” I stuttered.

  The Heatherstones shook their heads.

  All things considered, it could have been much worse. Sure, I was now locked inside a pitch-black storeroom but on the plus side, I could no longer hear the music.

  In the end the Heatherstones had decided to refocus their efforts on finding a way back into the concert and not murder me just yet. Instead they locked me inside the first room they could find. Unfortunately they hadn’t really been clear whether this was my entire punishment, or just the starter to the main course of torment. Either way, escaping seemed like a sensible idea.

  I decided to ring Lexi for help. Then I remembered I don’t own a phone. And neither does she. That’s what got me into this mess in the first place. I had been begging my parents for one for what felt like forever. When they offered me the Lexi deal, I had jumped at it. “All I have to do now is not end up stuck inside this room for the rest of my life,” I said into the darkness.

  After some fumbling, I managed to find the light switch. I could see now that the room was empty except for some shelves, a couple of tins of paint and a mop bucket. I tried to think about the situation rationally. That’s what my best friend Milo would do. Milo was smart. He’d be able to look at the problem logically, like Sherlock Holmes or someone clever like that, and figure out an ingenious escape plan.

  Let’s see then: An empty room, no way out. A single light bulb, blinking dimly. The walls: cinderblocks. The floor: concrete. The door: steel and impenetrable. The shelves: wooden. The paint: brown. The bucket: missing a mop.

  It all fell into place. I knew e
xactly what to do.

  “HEEEEEELLLLLPPPP!!!!” I yelled.

  Elementary, as Holmes would say.

  Unsurprisingly no one heard me scream. I slumped down on to the cold floor and, as if it had been waiting for its cue, the light bulb blew, plunging me into darkness once again.

  “Perfect,” I said.

  I woke up some time later to the sound of people arguing. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep but the room didn’t exactly offer much in the way of entertainment. At least if the light had stayed on I could have cracked open a tin of paint and spent the time watching its contents dry.

  How long had I been asleep? A quick glance at my watch confirmed that I couldn’t see my watch, so that didn’t help. The arguing grew louder and I realized it was coming from the other side of the far wall.

  Suddenly, a single beam split the storeroom in two, shining through a ragged hole about the size of an apple in the wall opposite me. How had I not noticed that? I wouldn’t be adding the words ‘natural detective’ to my list of talents any time soon. Which left the list looking like this:

  As the voices grew louder, I snuck up to the hole and peeked through. Not only did it seem I had slept long enough for the concert to have finished but now I was looking into Apocalips’s dressing room. All five members were present and not one of them looked happy.

  “Forget about it. You can’t leave, it’s not happening,” said a boy with muscles on his muscles. Warren, I remembered, thanks to those huge neon letters.

  “Of course I can,” said Steve, sounding and looking much less excited than the last time I saw him.

  “You signed a contract, Steve,” said the grim-looking one called Donnie, his voice much deeper and more serious than the others.

  “So? People leave bands all the time,” said Steve.

  “Not this band,” said the walking furball that was Pete.

  I held my watch up to the light – it was 9p.m. I thought about shouting to them so they could come round and let me out. Every moment I spent listening to the band squabbling in their dressing room meant another moment spent by Lexi and Amy standing around waiting for me. And Mum and Dad had made it very clear that one of the conditions for me getting my phone was bringing them home in one piece.