The Fallen

The Fallen is a novel by the English writer Charles Higson, published in 2013 by Penguin and part of the series that began with The Enemy.

The London of the book has been emptied of adults in any useful sense. A sickness turned them first into something close to animals and then into creatures that walk the streets hunting for human flesh, which leaves the children of the city to look after themselves. The Holloway crew are a group of survivors who have fought their way across London and reached the Natural History Museum, where they have walls, a supply of food and the beginnings of a settled life.

When part of the group goes back out for medical supplies, the question of who the enemy is becomes harder to answer, because the children they meet in other gangs of the city are just as capable of killing them as the adults outside. The book keeps its cast small and its stakes domestic: food, medicine, who sleeps where, and who is willing to trust a stranger.