by Tim Lebbon
“Lucky? My guts are pouring out and—”
“Don't be a wimp,” she said, her voice high with panic. “Just a scratch. Sparky?”
Sparky stood from the dog now lying dead at his feet, wiping his knife quickly on its coat. His face looked grey, eyes deep and dark. His right hand and wrist were black with blood. “Yeah.”
“Get your torch out,” Lucy-Anne said.
“Yeah.”
“Here they come!” Jenna shouted.
Light beams wavered and flashed, shadows danced, and within those shadows were the dogs. Jack could not count them, and in the chaos of the next couple of minutes he made no effort to do so. He simply fought. He kicked and punched, swung his torch, slashed out with his knife, edging close to Emily and keeping her at his back so that she was sandwiched between him and Jenna.
Rosemary seemed to drift in and out of the light, her arms and legs twisting and thrashing as she did her best to keep the dogs away from her flesh.
Jenna had started using her knapsack as a weapon, swinging it back and forth and—if a dog chose the moment between swings to come at her—kicking out with her heavy boots. Dogs yelped and growled, people roared and screamed, and Jack tried to stay focussed.
A flash of yellow to his left marked the third attack by a dog he thought was a Labrador, though it was ragged and thin. Its fur was streaked dark, its muzzle wet with blood. Jack hoped it was its own.
As the animal leaped, he ducked low and thrust up with the knife. The dog's paws scraped the side of his head and it howled. He felt a gush of warmth across his hand. Swinging his torch around, he was just in time to see the wounded animal dragging itself away between stone columns.
He looked around at the others. Sparky was fighting the pitbull, using his feet and knees to keep it away from him as he slashed out with his knife. His right hand was hanging by his side now, and blood had darkened his jeans. The dog was mad, foaming at the mouth, growling, scrabbling at Sparky's legs with its claws and gnashing its teeth. For every wound the boy put in its body, it gave him one back.
Behind Jack, Jenna still had Emily. His sister seemed unhurt, though she was looking around with unbridled terror. He hoped she did not try to run. Jenna hefted her backpack, caught Jack's eyes, smiled.
Lucy-Anne had picked up Sparky's dropped knife and was kneeling on the ground, stabbing repeatedly at a meaty mess that had once been a dog. For an instant Jack thought it was the King Charles Spaniel that Sparky had brought down, but then he saw that this animal was larger, its legs black and brown. She stabbed, slashed, hacked, and though the creature was obviously dead, her rage seemed to be growing.
“Jenna,” Jack said, glancing back at his sister and friend.
Yet again, Jenna seemed to read his mind. She glanced past Jack at Lucy-Anne. “Go,” she said. “I've got Emily.”
Keeping an eye out for the injured Labrador, Jack hurried across to Lucy-Anne. As he drew close she span around and crouched, bloody knife in one hand, the other held out for balance. And for a moment shorter than a blink, he thought she was going to come at him. Her eyes were white pools in a face smeared with blood, her teeth bared, and she reminded him of one of their crazed attackers.
“It's dead,” Jack said. A waving torch beam played across the corpse at Lucy-Anne's feet. Steam rose.
Lucy-Anne's eyes closed slightly, her lips softened over her teeth, and she stood.
“Watch out!” Emily called.
A yellow blur erupted from the shadows and struck Lucy-Anne from behind. She went down, eyes widening in surprise now rather than fury, and dropped Sparky's knife. Jack actually heard the wind knocked from her as she hit the ground, the Labrador falling on top of her.
He went to help, but not fast enough. The dog bit into the back of Lucy-Anne's neck, jaw working as it tried to penetrate skin, flesh and gristle. It shook its head, and as Jack thrust his knife between its ribs Lucy-Anne shrieked, a terrible sound that turned wet.
“Lucy-Anne!”
Sparky appeared by his side, kicking at the dog even as Jack stabbed it again. It died with a violent shudder. Sparky heaved it off, and Jack had to use his knife to prise its jaws apart, away from Lucy-Anne's neck. Someone kept their torch played on her, and Jack wished he could not see so much detail.
“The other one?” he asked.
“Dead,” Sparky said. “All four, dead. Let's just hope there are no more.”
“This is the same pack,” Rosemary said.
Sparky surged upright, and from the corner of his eye Jack was aware of a flash of movement, a growl of anger. “You led us down into this!” Sparky said. He grabbed Rosemary by her coat's collar and almost lifted her, pushing her back against one of the stone columns. “We followed you down here, and all the time you knew what could be waiting for us!”
“I was afraid you wouldn't come!”
Lucy-Anne was moaning before him, Emily was crying, face pressed into Jenna's neck, and now Sparky was about to beat on the old woman. Jack knew they did not need this at all.
“Sparky!” he shouted. His friend turned. “I need you here. We're through it, but we're all hurt.”
Sparky let go and came slowly to Jack's side. He was looking down at Lucy-Anne. There was so much blood.
“I'll help her first,” Rosemary said. “Then you, Sparky. Then Jack. I think Jenna and Emily are unhurt, so—”
“You're not laying your pissing hands on me!” Sparky said. “No way! Bloody witch.”
Lucy-Anne groaned again, trying to roll over onto her back. She raised one hand and clawed at Jack's boot, her fingers hooking into a lace. He felt her pull as she tried to sit up, but he leaned forward and eased her back down, whispering to her, telling her everything was going to be all right.
“She needs you now,” he said, looking up at Rosemary.
The woman came. Jack backed away slightly, but he would not let go of Lucy-Anne's hand. He watched as Rosemary laid her hands on the girl's wounds, and he remembered the way it had felt when she had been healing the knife wound in his leg. There had been an intrusion there, an invasion of his flesh, but then he had passed out. Now, it was his turn to watch.
Rosemary healed Lucy-Anne's wounds from the inside out. Her hand seemed to enter the girl's torn neck, neither aggravating nor enlarging the existing wounds. Her fingers went deep. Then she slowly withdrew them, the tendons on the back of her hand flexing and stretching constantly, the fingers moving like individual living things as they emerged. By the time Rosemary had removed her hand fully, Lucy-Anne had stopped groaning.
The woman kept her fingertips in contact with the torn skin until it was healed over, and as she sat back with a sigh Jack leaned forward with his torch, searching for where the ugly bite marks had been, seeking the torn flesh, but finding smooth skin marred only by a smear of drying blood.
The others were silent. They had all been watching.
“That hand?” Rosemary said, nodding at Sparky's tattered right hand and wrist. The boy came forward, and Rosemary went to work again.
They waited in that subterranean room for an hour or more. Rosemary healed Sparky's hand and Jack's hip, and then she went back to Lucy-Anne and touched her more minor wounds. There were cuts and scrapes, bruises and bumps, and Rosemary's hands fixed them all.
Jack sat with Emily for a while, hugging her and talking with her. She no longer seemed to be afraid. He was once again stunned at how resilient his young sister was, and he wished he could live in the moment like her. The dead dogs disturbed her somewhat, but only because of the bloody meat of their injuries. The amazement at what Rosemary was doing seemed to wipe fear from the slate of her mind, and she watched wide-eyed as the woman touched cut skin and healed it without leaving a scar.
“It's just amazing,” she said, over and over, and Jack could only agree. But he was still shaken by the attack. And however benevolent Rosemary's touch was now, he could not help wondering how much more she had decided to keep from them.
Jenna
came and sat beside them, and she and Emily giggled over something Jack could not hear. The girls had always been close—Emily seemed to be the sister that Jenna had never had—and right now Jack was very grateful for that. He tried not to feel selfish, but sometimes he needed time. Sometimes, he needed to be on his own.
And other times, there were things he did not want Emily to hear.
“Alligators?” he said, kneeling beside Rosemary. The old woman had sat against one of the side walls, resting her head back against the stone and closing her eyes. She seemed tired. Jack did not care. “Snakes? A pride of lions? What more will we have to face before we get there?” He was speaking quietly, but he was aware of Sparky watching him from across the basement. They'd arranged two torches so that they gave much of the room a diffused, even light, and Sparky had taken it upon himself to collect the four dogs’ corpses into one pile.
“Hopefully no more,” the woman said. “Jack, listen to me. You're the leader of this little group, whether the others realise or acknowledge that, or not.”
“We have no leader,” he said.
“Not true. You know that. I think maybe it's because you have Emily, and you have to keep rooted. Have to stay strong.”
“I'm looking after her.”
“You are, son.” Rosemary leaned close to him, becoming more animated. “And you're doing a fine job.”
“I didn't come here for compliments,” he said. “I came to ask you: Is there anything else you haven't told us?”
“About the tunnels, and the route to London? No. The dogs attacked me, I escaped, and the rest of my journey was uneventful. But about London itself? Yes, there's plenty I haven't told you. Some amazing things, and some horrible.”
“Like the Nomad?” Jack asked, fishing for information. “We heard about that. A thing haunting London from before, untouchable and tortured. A legend, I suppose, but it sounded amazing and horrible.”
“A legend?” Rosemary said, shrugging and glancing aside. “Perhaps. London is full of them, now. There's so much you'll have to find out for yourself.”
Jack looked across to Emily and Jenna, then at Sparky dragging the last dog's corpse across the ground. Lucy-Anne sat against a stone pillar, looking at the knife Sparky had let her keep, its reflection travelling the room as she turned it slowly in her hand. He considered what Rosemary had said, and nodded.
“That'll do for now,” he said. “But you know the trust is damaged, don't you?”
“I know. And I wish I could do something to repair it.”
“Tell us the truth from now on,” Jack said, standing. “That'll do, for a start.” He walked away, but paused a few steps from Rosemary. He turned around and patted his hip where the dog had chewed into him. “Rosemary. Thanks for…”
The old woman nodded and smiled.
On their way into the tunnel from which the dogs had emerged, Rosemary pointed out the evidence that this basement had once been below a church. In the corner beside the tunnel mouth stood a font, its water bowl cracked and covered in moss. The little water that stood in there was so black that it could have been blood.
“I wonder if the church is still up there?” Jenna said, looking up at the ceiling. “And if it is, maybe someone's in there right now.”
“We're in a different place now,” Lucy-Anne said, her voice was low and quiet. She felt haunted. She wondered just how close she'd come to dying, and she thought about asking Rosemary the next time they had a quiet moment. But on the other hand, she wasn't sure she really wanted to know.
It wasn't exactly the same, she kept thinking. But dream memories are deceitful things, and the more she thought about it, the more reality and dream had begun to merge.
“This tunnel's another reason I think this was a church,” Rosemary said. “It's long, and there are a few places where it used to branch off. I think it might have been an escape tunnel between churches hundreds of years ago.”
“Escape from what?” Emily asked.
“Persecution,” Jenna said. “People of one religion not liking people of another. Hunting them. Sometimes killing them.”
Emily snorted. “That's just stupid.”
They left the basement room splashed with droplets of their own blood and the promise of rot. Sparky and Rosemary went first this time, Lucy-Anne walking on her own behind them, the others following her. Jack approached her a couple of times, but she gave him a distant smile and shook her head. Not yet, she thought. I need to get things square in my own mind first.
As she walked, she tried to remember the other strange dreams and nightmares she'd been having. But though she knew they were there, they kept themselves hidden well away.
Underground for a couple of hours, and already we've all nearly died, Jack thought. The tunnel was so narrow that in some places they had to go in single file. In these places Rosemary insisted on going first, perhaps some small penance for what they had been through.
Emily walked just ahead of him, filming again. He could see the viewing screen of her camera, and noticed that much of the time it was focussed on Lucy-Anne's back. Good, he thought. My little sis knows where the mystery is.
“So who do you think left the picture of your mother?” Jenna asked quietly. She was walking at their rear. Jack glanced back at her and shrugged.
“At first, I thought it was obvious. Her. Rosemary. But now I'm not so sure. She swore she didn't put the pictures there, and why would she lie if she did? We'd already committed to coming in with her. We'd have committed to it even if she told us about the dogs.”
“She was just being cautious,” Jenna said. “I guess there was always a chance we'd never meet them.”
“A chance, yeah.”
Emily must have heard them chatting, because she turned and walked backward for a while, training her torch and the camera lens on them. Jack gave her a thumbs-up, and Jenna laughed and waved.
“The intrepid explorers venture deeper into unknown territory…” Emily whispered into the microphone, hurrying on ahead until she walked beside Sparky. He gave her a goofy grin and started making faces at the camera, obviously enjoying the attention.
“So if it wasn't Rosemary, then who?” Jenna asked. “Bit of a coincidence.”
“A lot of one,” Jack agreed. The tunnel was wider here, and he and Jenna started walking side by side. It was easier to talk that way, and he enjoyed making eye contact with her. She was a good friend. “I dunno, I feel a bit…”
“I know,” Jenna said. “You know your mum's alive, but Sparky and Lucy-Anne are walking into the dark.”
“That's one way of putting it.” Jack smiled and reached out, squeezing Jenna's shoulder. She surprised him by leaning in quickly and giving him a strong hug, then going on ahead.
“Your turn to bring up the rear,” she said. “The quiet we've left behind gets heavy after a while.”
“I've got big shoulders.”
They went on, and Jack discovered that Jenna was right. Before him was subdued chatter, the sound of shoes scraping the floor and clothes brushing against the walls. Behind him…nothing but darkness and silence. They both took on weight very quickly.
He thought a little about what Lucy-Anne had said before the dogs attacked, about dreaming it. Strange, but she was a strange girl. Back when they'd still been sleeping together, she'd frequently woken up with a start, always claiming to not remember the nightmares that had woken her. She'd suffered more than all of them, he supposed, being left on her own in that big, empty house. She must have a head full of nightmares.
The tunnel ended in another room, smaller than the basement where the dogs had attacked. From here Rosemary led them through a series of small chambers and connecting tunnels, and here and there they passed through tumbled walls, crawling and squirming their way through narrow gaps. Beyond, they entered a place that kept its origins a mystery: tunnel or cave? It was difficult to decide, and Jack spent half an hour trying to make out which was the case. The place had an uneven floor and
fissures across its walls and ceiling, but here and there he was sure he could make out tool marks.
Sparky's shout startled him from his contemplation.
“Hey, you lot! I'm bloody starving! Rosemary says there's a place up ahead where we can stop for lunch.”
At the mention of food, Jack's stomach rumbled. The fact that he was still hungry after what they had been through, he saw as a good sign. Need to go moment by moment, he thought. The past has gone. The future is waiting. It's the here and now that matters most.
They found somewhere beautiful. It was so unexpected that Jack had to blink several times to make sure everything was real. They climbed some stone steps and emerged inside a ruined church, its walls blackened by an old fire, charred ceiling timbers littering the floor, windows long-since vanished and steeple tumbled down. But the walls were still solid, and because the roof had gone, the insides were a riot of wild undergrowth, unchecked for many years. A thick, heavy curtain of clematis covered two walls, smothering window openings and bursting with pink and yellow flowers. Another wall hung with wisteria, swinging with pendulous sprays of mauve blooms, and the final wall, below which the remains of what may have been an altar lay in ruins, was home to a gorgeous, heavily thorned yellow rose. The floor of the church was awash with colour and a low, tangled plant that Jack could not identify.
“Wow,” Jenna said. Nobody else could think of anything more suitable, so they stared around in silence.
“Sorry,” Rosemary said. “I forgot to tell you about this place, as well.”
Jack smiled. And then Emily was running, dashing here and there, filming, lifting shrub branches and delving beneath, and a robin landed on a bush close to where they all stood.
“Seems quite tame,” Lucy-Anne said. “How close are we to people in here?”
“We're right on the edge of the Exclusion Zone.” Rosemary spoke quietly, as though to mention those words could spoil this place.
