by Tim Lebbon
Jack watched Emily dash off between the trees towards the ruined house, happy now he knew Jenna was already down in Camp Truth.
“You okay?” he asked his friend.
“’Spose,” Sparky said.
“We'll be all right.”
“Yeah. Feels like we're doing something at last.”
They stood silently for a moment, neither catching the other's eye, each finding something interesting to look at in the woods.
“We could disappear,” Jack said quietly. “Have you and your parents…? You know.”
“Made peace? Nah. Sod ‘em. They never forgave Stephen, even after Doomsday.”
“Perhaps they think he doesn't need forgiving if he's dead.”
Sparky's face dropped, innocent and honest. “That's just stupid.”
Jack nodded. “You'll be fine.”
“Thanks, mate. And yeah, I need this. I really do. Otherwise I've got you lot, and the Capri, and…”
“It's not inevitable.”
“That I'd end up doing what Steve did? Drink, drugs, nicking cars? Nah, not inevitable.” But he looked away between the trees, and Jack wondered how close Sparky had already come.
“Has the car started yet?”
“Honestly? I think it's been ready for weeks. I've taken it apart, cleaned it, replaced what I can and put it back together. All the work I'm doing on it now is cosmetic, really. Fixing rust, repainting. But I'm afraid to try. Even yesterday evening, knowing where we're goin’. Especially then. I was afraid to try. Last thing I want now is a bad omen.”
“Hey, you guys!” Lucy-Anne said. She approached along a narrow path from deeper in the woods, skirting around a pile of rubble from the old house. She seemed excited and breathless. “You'll never guess what I found in one of the drops!”
“A lump of squirrel shit?” Sparky asked.
Lucy-Anne didn't even look at him. Instead she turned and dashed towards the hidden entrance to Camp Truth. “Come on!” she said over her shoulder. Her eyes sparkled, her hair was freshly spiked, and Jack wished that they could have kept things between them stronger.
As Lucy-Anne descended into Camp Truth, she saw Rosemary. Still real, she thought, smiling at the idea that she could have ever been a dream.
Rosemary smiled at her, then looked past her shoulder. “Good morning, Jack.”
“Sleep okay?” Jack asked.
She nodded, flexing her shoulder slowly. “Old bones, that's all. I've met your little sister. She's wonderful!”
Emily was sitting on one of the tatty chairs they'd brought down here a few months ago, panning slowly around the room with her camera, eyes fixed on the display screen on its back. Lucy-Anne waved and poked her tongue out, and Emily giggled.
“You guys really need to see this,” Lucy-Anne said. She opened a small white envelope and produced a photograph, and Sparky, Jack, and Jenna gathered behind her. “Picture of someone in the city. We've had nothing like this before.”
“Did you put that there?” Sparky asked the old woman.
Rosemary shook her head.
Lucy-Anne held up the photograph. “Here, you can see a ruined building behind this woman, a burnt out car, and some things…” She shivered, a deep, cold feeling, and she knew what her mum would have said: Someone walking over your grave. “Dogs,” she said. “In a pack.” She usually loved dogs, but something about those in the picture haunted her.
The light in Camp Truth was not the best, and the photograph was small. They all leaned in closer, and Lucy-Anne felt the heat and pressure of her friends at her back.
“Got something around her neck…” Jenna muttered.
Jack gasped. He tried to speak, but his voice came out as a groan.
Lucy-Anne turned in time to see Sparky throw an arm around their friend, holding Jack up when his legs seemed to fail him.
“What is it, mate?” Sparky asked.
Jack held out his hand, and Lucy-Anne gave him the photograph. He moved carefully away from Sparky, showed Emily, and the little girl burst into tears. Then he held up the photo for them all to see again, and Lucy-Anne scolded herself for not realising before.
“Mum,” Jack said. “That's my mum.”
…and the British Government has restricted all movement into and out of London. All airports in the UK have been closed, with over five hundred flights diverted to French, German, and Spanish airports, and more than two hundred turned back to their countries of origin. At this time, the agent used in the attack has not been identified, and it is not known whether it is chemical or biological in origin. Pictures still being transmitted from inside London show soldiers in NBC suits barricading roads, and bodies piled by roadsides. There is no official word on casualties, although an unnamed source inside the Ministry of Defence describes the death toll as “catastrophic.” The British prime minister is expected to make a statement shortly.
Homeland Security Threat Level is maintained at Severe/Red, and the American public is asked to be on their guard.
—CNN, 12:20 p.m. EST, July 28, 2019
Mum's still alive.
The words were fresh in Jack's mind as they left Camp Truth and headed through the woods. Rosemary and Lucy-Anne went as a grandmother and her granddaughter going to visit friends. Sparky and Jenna were pretending to be boyfriend and girlfriend, a prospect which delighted Sparky and seemed to annoy Jenna immensely. And Jack and his sister Emily were on a family outing. If anyone asked where their parents were, Jack would only have to say “dead” for the understanding to hit home, and he hoped someone did ask, because his mother was still alive!
Emily fluttered around in excitement, filming everything in sight. Jack wanted to tell her to save the batteries, but he knew she had several spares and a solar recharger, and he liked seeing her so absorbed in something. He could always tell the difference between her being simply distracted, or completely involved in something that took her away from their sad reality. Now, she was just a little girl chasing butterflies.
When they emerged from the woods and walked along the main road, traffic was light, and nobody seemed to pay them any attention. A police car zipped by, pale face at the window. Closer to the bus stop, Jack held his breath as a Capital Keeper wagon roared past. It had once been an army truck, but the camouflage paint had gone, replaced by the now-familiar deep Royal Blue.
“I wonder where they've been,” Emily said. She was so bright. Most kids her age would have asked where they were going.
Their bus was on time, and they sat halfway along the top deck. The sun beat through the windows and made Jack sweat, but he enjoyed the heat. He looked out and watched the world go by.
He saw a field full of cows, and a car that had been stopped by the police, its occupants made to sit beside the road with their wrists bound while the officers ripped the car apart. He saw a lake where people rode jet skis, and three houses set back from the main road that had been burnt out, their blackened windows looking like sad, cried-out eyes. And amongst the faces staring from cars and lorries passing them by, he saw blank sadness that spoke volumes.
Normality, for these times after Doomsday.
“Mum's still alive,” he whispered in Emily's ear, and she grinned.
The journey took a little over an hour, and they were both glad to get off the bus. They weren't used to travelling so far.
They followed the directions Rosemary had given them, watching out for the shop names, and when they passed the Beckham Bistro, they left the pavement and headed down the narrow, rubbish-strewn alley between buildings. At the end of the alley they crossed an area of undeveloped ground. Glass crunched underfoot, and a wild dog barked at them and stalked slowly away. There were lots of wild dogs now—as well as cats, parrots, and snakes—their owners killed in London, and though there were frequent culls, numbers seemed to be increasing. Before Doomsday Jack could remember his father being fascinated with cryptozoology, the study of exotic animals living wild in Britain: wolves, bears, black panthers, c
ougars, and alligators, all were rumoured to be thriving. He wondered what his dad would make of this.
They crossed the area of rough ground, passed between two blocks of flats that had seen better days, then exited onto the towpath beside a canal.
As they passed beneath a metal road bridge spanning the canal, something changed. It took Jack a moment to spot exactly what it was: everything had grown silent. No more buzzing flies, no rustles in the overgrowth alongside the towpath, no barking from beyond the hedges and walls. It was spooky as hell, and he didn't like it one bit.
“Jack—” Emily began, her voice shadowed with worry.
Someone jumped down from the bridge's underside and pressed something against his back. “Do what I say, or I blow your kidneys all over your shoes.”
Jack glanced at Emily, and her face broke into a smile.
“I really wish I'd had my camera ready for that one,” she said.
“One of these days, Sparky…” Jack said, turning around.
“Yeah?” Sparky was still pointing his finger-and-thumb gun. “You and which army?”
“I thought we were meeting under a viaduct?”
“Just along there,” the boy nodded. “Couple hundred yards. I decided to wander back here, make sure we weren't followed, or nothin’.”
“Everyone get here okay?”
“Fine.” Sparky grinned, rubbing his cheek. “Jenna gave me a right slap on the bus when I tried getting frisky, though.”
Jack examined his friend's red, slightly swollen cheek. He nodded. “Good.”
“Let's go!” Emily said. She ran along the towpath, scaring several ducks into the water.
“You've got to help me look after her, Sparky,” he said quietly.
“You know I will.” Sparky slapped the back of Jack's head, hard, and laughed. “But you know something? I think she'll be looking after us.” Behind the laughter he was deadly serious, and Jack reminded himself yet again how blessed he was with friends.
They descended from the towpath down a steep slope, and when they entered the damp shadow of the viaduct Jack felt a chill that had nothing to do with temperature. Rosemary, Jenna, and Lucy-Anne were waiting for them there. Lucy-Anne gave him a nervous smile, but he could see that she was excited, too.
“We're about to leave the world you know,” Rosemary said, and Jack's chill seemed to settle into his bones.
The brick arch of the viaduct leaked in several places, raining water down around them and turning the ground into a quagmire. Jack had often wondered what would happen if such a canal bridge were to collapse. Would the whole waterway drain away down here? Would everything in its path be washed away? The red brick was swathed in moss, and from the ruts in the ground it appeared that the leaks had been dripping for a long time.
“It's less than ten miles to the Exclusion Zone from here,” Jenna said. “We're walking the rest of the way?”
“Not used to exercise?” Rosemary asked, smiling.
“I love walking,” Jenna said. “It's just that…won't we be seen?”
“Only if people look in all the wrong places. Like I said, we're leaving your world, going somewhere different. Slipping between the lines. It's not a quick journey, but we'll follow paths that will take us all the way into London, undetected and safe.”
“And your friend Philippe showed you the way?” Lucy-Anne asked.
“Yes, Philippe. Though he's hardly a friend.” Rosemary smiled sadly. “London's not an easy place for friendships right now, I'm sad to say. I do have some, but…well, there's so much paranoia.”
“So how do you know you can trust him?” Sparky asked.
“I think I'm a good judge of character.” Rosemary looked around at the five of them, saving her smile for Emily. Then she pointed away from the viaduct and along an overgrown path that seemed to lead into darkness. “We're going there.”
Jack's friends glanced around for a beat, meeting each other's eyes as though waiting for a decision to be made. It was Emily who started after the old woman, glancing back at them all with eyebrow raised.
Sparky started singing. “We're off to see the Wizard—”
“If you sing any more,” Jenna said, “I will kill you in your sleep.”
“The wonderful Wizard of Oz.” Sparky even started skipping.
They followed Rosemary, placing themselves completely in her hands. It was the riskiest thing any of them had done since coming together after Doomsday, but Jack knew it was the right thing, as well. They had all been aware that one day, the time for action would arrive.
Very soon, Jack had the real sense that they were travelling just beyond the veil of reality before which most people lived their lives. Rosemary led them through places that seemed forgotten, cast aside or ignored, and sometimes they could hear, and even see the world going on around them. It was like a route leading back from what the world had become towards what it might have been before, though he knew that at the end of this route lay something else entirely: London as it was now; the Toxic City.
The path from the viaduct led between the rear gardens of two rows of abandoned houses. Many of the structures seemed unsafe and close to collapse, and one or two had already taken the first tumble into ruin. One long spread of buildings on their right had been burnt out, roof joists blackened and exposed to the sky. Few windows remained. Gardens were overgrown, and here and there Jack caught sight of children's playthings clogged with bramble and grass, dulled primary colours showing through the green foliage. He wondered why so many houses had been abandoned at once.
The path stopped against a blank brick wall, a tall boundary construction that seemed to close off the garden space between the two terraces. Rosemary waited for them there, then started down a set of steps almost completely overgrown with brambles. She descended silently. At the bottom, surrounded by banks of undergrowth and overshadowed by the high wall, they huddled together before a boarded area at the base of the barrier.
“Old canal route,” Rosemary said. “It was drained and decommissioned when they built these houses, over a hundred years ago. It's dark in here. You might want to get your torches out.”
“How far does it go?” Jenna asked, amazed.
“This goes out to the edge of town. From there, we go underground almost all the way into the Exclusion Zone.”
“Underground how?” Jack asked. While everyone else was taking torches from their rucksacks, he stared at the timber boarding, one rotten corner of it recently detached.
“You'd be surprised,” Rosemary said. “There are plenty of places beneath the surface of things.” She grabbed the corner of a plywood sheet and tugged, popping it from a couple of loose nails and resting it back against the board beside it. “People have been building in this country for thousands of years. Much of what's underground is unmapped, uncharted, and forgotten. Philippe has the talent to find it, which is something new. I suspect he knows of places that haven't been seen, or trodden by human feet, for many centuries. Canals, underground rivers, storage basements, tunnels, subterranean hiding places, cave networks, roads built over and blocked off.”
“Looks spooky,” Lucy-Anne said, but Jack could hear the excitement in her voice at the prospect.
“Oh, it's bound to be haunted,” Emily said. She had picked the camera from her rucksack, not her torch.
They all stood there for a moment longer, and Jack looked up at the narrow spread of blue sky above them. The sun was behind the brick wall, and he could barely feel the summer heat down here. But he was ready. Darkness, shadows, and secret ways beckoned, but beyond that, the revelations he had been craving for two years.
And his mother. The picture was in his pocket, her stern, beautiful face waiting for him whenever he needed a look. He and Emily had mentioned their father only in whispers, afraid of what their mother's expression might mean.
“I'll go in last,” Emily said. “I really need to get this.” She stood back with her camera, and Rosemary led them away from dayli
ght and into the night.
…and the advice is to remain indoors and await further instructions. Government sources state that there is, as yet, no credible claim for responsibility. What is clear is that there has been a massive breakdown of communication into and out of London, with mobile phone networks down, satellite systems malfunctioning, and land lines dead. We understand that the prime minister will be delivering a statement at 6:00 p.m. But as of now, far from becoming clearer, the situation seems to be descending…(broadcast ends here)
—BBC TV Newsflash, 5:35 p.m. GMT, July 28, 2019
To begin with, Jack was disappointed. They walked along the dried canal bed, their torch lights flashing here and there like reflections from long forgotten water, and on the old towpaths he made out at least a dozen box structures obviously used as temporary shelters by tramps. Smashed booze bottles littered the ground, bags of refuse lay split open by rats or other carrion creatures, and he saw many broken items from the world above. He had believed that they were leaving the world he knew, but it appeared they had merely entered its underside.
But then Jenna called out from where she had stalked ahead with Rosemary, and the excitement kicked back in: “Oh, this is not a nice way to go.”
They caught up with her and all trained their torches in the same place. There was a skeleton propped against the side of the dry canal. It still wore the faded remnants of clothing, but the bones had been picked clean, and in places there were what looked like teeth marks. One leg was gone below the knee, and both arms were missing.
“Gross!” Emily said. Jack thought briefly of leading her away, but he would not patronise her like that. They were all seeing this together.
“Some bones over there,” Sparky said, pointing with his torch. Jack saw a few loose bones scattered across the ground, splintered and chewed. “Let's just hope he or she was dead before the dogs got to them.”
Lucy-Anne walked on quickly, turning her torch from the body and marching ahead into the tunnel. She paused after twenty yards, and Jack could see her shoulders rising and falling as she panted.
