The Enemy
Charlie Higson
 The book begins a year after a worldwide sickness has infected all the adults, turning them into zombie-like creatures. The surviving children have formed a number of groups throughout London in order to better combat the threat posed by the adults and to increase their odds of survival. A young survivor named Small Sam is kidnapped by infected adults and taken away. He and several other children have made a base within the confines of a Waitrose supermarket. The other children led by a boy named Arran and his second-in-command, Maxie, have increasingly grown tired of the children being killed one-by-one. The adults are becoming smarter and as a consequence the children are being picked off more frequently. A scavenger party, composed of Arran and several other boys Achilleus, Ollie, Freak and Deke, explore a building with a swimming pool and they find a vending machine, but it turns out to be a trap. During the battle, Deke is killed and Arran is bitten by an adult woman. He becomes sick from the bite, and they only just manage to escape. Later that night a boy in a patchwork coat named Jester arrives at the gates of the building and asks for the group's help. He tells the group he has come from Buckingham Palace, where a group of kids are based in a safe environment. He claims that if they travel there, they will all be safe as well. The majority of the group like the idea and soon set off through Camden to the palace, along with another group of kids from a Morrisons supermarket who share the same feeling. A loner named Callum decides to stay behind on his own, afraid to leave to confines of his base. Meanwhile, Small Sam awakes in a grown-up base made at Arsenal Stadium. He escapes and heads back to Waitrose to find only Callum, as the other children have left. Callum explains that the other children are headed for Buckingham Palace, and Sam sets off to catch up with them. Sam is unable to catch up with the other kids and is chased by adults into the London Underground and gets as far as King's Cross when an older, uninfected man named Nick appears with a sawed-off shotgun and saves him. Nick has been living in the tunnels inside a train with his wife, Rachael. The couple aids Sam, but appear to have sinister motives behind it. Later Sam discovers he is chained up with 3 other children whom the couple have found, and it seems the couple are cannibals. With the help of a young boy known only as "the Kid" Sam escapes. However, Nick chases them outside but then gets infected and dies. Sam and the Kid go on, eventually making it to safety at the Tower of London, where another group of kids have taken shelter. As the Waitrose and Morrison's group travels to Buckingham Palace they are attacked by a pack of grown-ups, led by one wearing a St. George's Cross shirt. The children win the fight, but Arran has gone out of control because of his bite wound, and gets carried away with killing the adults. As a result he is mistaken for an adult and becomes fatally wounded by an arrow, which was shot by a girl named Sophie from another surviving group of kids. Maxie comes to Arran's aid but he dies in her arms. The group teams up with Sophie's group and after a few more skirmishes they eventually manage to find Buckingham Palace. The group of kids meet David King, the leader of the kids at Buckingham Palace who seems to have things well worked-out, but turns out to be hiding the truth of his plans. The Waitrose and Morrison's group are pressured into going to a park opposite the palace to peacefully talk with a group of kids, called the "squatters," about joining them at Buckingham Palace. However, after their leader, Just John, refuses, fight breaks out. After a tough fight in which Freak dies, they capture John and take him back to the palace. John and David come to an agreement: Achilleus and Just John fight to the death over the territorial ownership of the park. They fight, and Achilleus wins and spares Just John's life. Callum becomes overly upset at his loneliness, despite having stashed things like a music player which he hid from other kids, and becomes upset when he remembers having to kill his own mother after the epidemic. He loses hope slowly as adults led by the Saint George zombie break into the store and kill him Maxie and Ollie find that they don't trust David because of how he acts, and his obsession with taking over London. Maxie expresses her concerns to the rest of the group and they decide to escape. David and Jester attempt to stop them, but they all manage to escape, with a girl named Brooke, who leads them to the British Museum, where there is another group of kids. Meanwhile, the Saint George zombie continues to grow smarter and to lead his army of adults through London, searching out more kids. He craves more power and destruction, and wants to kill and eat every last child he can find...