by Tim Lebbon
“Where…?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Nomad said. “You don’t want to see.”
I’ll sleep, she thought. I’ll fall asleep and dream him alive and fine and laughing, and when I wake up…
Lucy-Anne could not find her tears. She realised that she had not even cried for her parents, because from the moment their deaths had been confirmed to her everything had been Andrew, Andrew, all Andrew. And now…
“I’ve got nothing left,” she said. She felt Rook’s hand on her shoulder and remembered his dead brother, but it was Nomad she looked at. “Nothing. Nothing left at all. And…and you killed him. You killed my parents, and my brother.”
Nomad’s expression barely changed, but she did not look away.
Lucy-Anne knew she should be feeling rage at Nomad, and the Choppers, and everything that had happened to steal away her family. She should be grieving for her brother, who she had hoped would still be alive so that she was not now alone in this cruel new world. But she felt only a peculiar emptiness. Everything was distant to her, and she was a hollow girl.
“We need to get away from the Heath,” Rook said. “Night’s falling, and it feels strange. Like something terrible’s about to happen.”
“Something already is,” Nomad said. And she told them.
Running again, always running, and Lucy-Anne so wished she could simply sit somewhere and fill her emptiness with grief.
But she feared that if she did, the grief would consume her. At least running, she had something else to think about. Rook held her hand and she so loved the contact, feeling a rush of affection for him as he squeezed her hand. They had both lost and found someone.
And she refused, totally, to lose anyone else.
On the back of the news about Andrew, Nomad’s talk of the fate hanging over London had felt vaguely flat, almost uninteresting. But then Lucy-Anne had thought of Jack and Sparky, Jenna and Emily, and her heart had started sprinting in her chest. No. Not them as well. They were her friends—they had been her family for every second she had been on her own since Doomsday—and she would not let them die.
Running, always running, it took some time to even consider the possibility of her own death. It meant nothing.
Nomad had vanished again, and Lucy-Anne had let her go without a second glance. She could inspire no hatred for the strange woman or anger for what she had done. Perhaps over time, as her hollowness faded, that would come.
“It’s not fair,” Rook said, running with her. Birds swirled around them and took turns landing on his shoulders, and he kept tilting his head to hear their calls. They were scouting the way ahead and keeping a watch on their rear. He was doing his best to get them off Hampstead Heath safely, but with every step she sensed danger increasing. There was nothing specific—no shapes darting at them, no cries of attack—but a sense of doom had dropped over her that had nothing to do with Andrew.
It was the future that terrified her, and with every step they were closer to it.
“I guess maybe I knew he was dead,” Lucy-Anne said.
“Not that,” Rook said. “London. Everything they’ve done to it, what they’ve made it. And now…” He sounded like a child, and she could not feel angry at him. He didn’t mean to lessen the impact of her brother’s death. He had found a place for himself in London, and now everything was about to change again. What of Rook then? What of any of them?
“We’ll get out,” she said. “Find my friends, and all of us will get out.”
“But what about my birds?”
You can set them free, she went to say, but realised that they were an integral part of him. Everyone left in London—Irregulars, Superiors, and anyone in between—belonged there now, and nowhere else.
“Maybe we can stop them,” she said. Rook did not reply. Even if Nomad had stayed with them, it was a foolish idea.
“All these streets,” Rook said. “All this city.” He tilted his head as another rook landed on his shoulder, smiling as he glanced across at Lucy-Anne. “We’re close. Just down this slope and through those trees, and we’ll be—”
He vanished. Lucy-Anne ran on for a couple of seconds, barely registering what had happened. Her feet stamped through long grass, breeze ruffled through her dirty hair, her jacket flapped at her hips like loose wings. Pain kicked in across the back of her hand where Rook’s nails had raked her skin, and as the gashes welled blood she heard his voice.
“Lucy-Anne!”
And then his scream.
She skidded to a stop, turned back and saw the hole in the ground, the stark edges of snapped branches protruding from where they had been laid across the pit. She could not see Rook, but his birds swooped around the pit and spiralled up again, taking up his cry, amplifying and echoing it, and she couldn’t tell which was more bloodcurdling. She screamed herself, but did not hear. She smelled blackberries.
Please, no one else! she thought, because she had already lost too much. She went back to the hole and looked down. She wished the sun had set a little more.
Rook’s scream faded as she saw what had happened to him, and with his one remaining eye he looked up at her. She hoped he saw her, but thought he was probably dead already, because the long, pale worm-thing—with its remnant of human limbs and filthy, tangled auburn hair—was pushing its snout deep into the hole it had torn in his throat and up beneath his unhinged jaw. It shook and scrabbled at the ground as it struggled to push its mouth deeper, and Lucy-Anne could smell the stench of freshly spilled blood.
“But I saved you,” she said. “I saved you, I saved you, I—”
A rook tangled on her hair and pecked at her cheek. She swatted it away, then had to squeeze her eyes closed as two more came for her face. She punched at one and clawed at the other, and their cries as they swung away from her were heartrending. Loss rang out across that hillside. Lucy-Anne tripped and fell onto her back in the long grass, and looking up she saw the rooks circling higher and higher, an aerial dance for their dead master.
She crawled to the hole again and looked down, and the worm-thing was eating him now, chewing into his head with awful jaws. A crunching sound, a twitch of his body, and what remained of his face shifted sideways.
Unable to scream, not knowing what to say or do or think, she stood and ran down towards the trees, aimless and thoughtless, until she tripped over something hidden in the grass and smacked her head on the ground.
Vision faded, and sound grew distant. I don’t want to wake up, Lucy-Anne thought as she drifted away. Let me stay down here.
Nomad is running towards her. She is in a burning street somewhere in London—buildings are aflame, a vehicle has exploded, bodies litter the road and pavements, and someone is staggering across the road, crying wretchedly as they try to gather their unspooling guts.
Lucy-Anne holds up her hands, but she cannot speak. She tries to back away from Nomad, but her feet will not obey her. She can do nothing as the woman runs closer, jumping past a burning motorcycle whose flames barely seem to touch her.
In the distance, gunfire. Closer by, the sound of heavy footsteps. Bullets strike the road and kick up gravel and dust.
Everything seems to be converging on her.
Nomad reaches her and does not stop running. She knocks Lucy-Anne to the ground and sits astride her, raising one hand high above her head with two fingers pointing down, like a child forming its hand into a gun.
This is my dream, Lucy-Anne thinks, and whatever happens next I can just dream away.
Nomad’s hand strikes down and her stiff fingers punch a hole directly into Lucy-Anne’s throat.
But this is my…
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BIG BINDY
Jack had been wrong. A terrible thing was not about to happen. He thought perhaps it already had.
“He’s laughing even though he’s lost,” Jack said.
“Guy looks seriously screwed,” Sparky said. “Your old man do that to him, mate?”
J
ack caught Reaper’s eye. Reaper looked as hard and determined as ever, but a shadow of doubt shaded his eyes. He was not quite as in control of this situation as he’d hoped.
“The first move they make, kill them,” Reaper said, and he started forward.
“Jenna!” Jack said urgently. His friend nodded because she knew exactly what he wanted—she came to him and took the girl, hugging her close even though she stank. Jack saw the sympathy in his friend’s eyes and loved her even more.
Jack started forward and Sparky came with him. Behind them were Breezer and the Irregulars. Fleeter walked close with Reaper, exaggerating the swing of her hips and enjoying the moment, even after what they had just seen and done. As they approached the first of the terrified soldiers she flipped, and the air boomed as it filled the space she had occupied. The Choppers glanced around in a panic. She could have been readying to gut any one of them.
From up on the container stacks, four soldiers were lowered roughly to the ground, their twisted and broken weapons dropping with them. One of them cried out as he struck the ground, and Jack heard the sickening sound of breaking bone. Puppeteer, he thought. At least he hadn’t killed them. He caught movement from the corner of his eye and knew that Shade was there also, and perhaps a couple of other Superiors he had yet to meet.
This felt very much like the final confrontation, and though they were all there and Miller was exposed, Jack was certain that somehow they no longer had the advantage.
Reaper turned to Jack and Breezer and said, “You two and me. Seems appropriate.” He walked towards Miller, and Jack and Breezer went with him. They were representatives of their alliance—Irregular, Superior, and Jack from outside. As they closed on Miller, Jack knew he had to speak first.
“The New are united against you and everything you’ve done. And you’ve lost, Miller.”
In the doorway before them, Miller laughed again. This close he was grotesque, only part of a man. Yet his laughter was heartfelt, and Jack thought perhaps he wasn’t yet mad.
“You’ve lost, Jack,” he said. “All of you were lost, from the moment Doomsday ended and we took control of London. We’ve been letting your father and his cronies have their fun since then, but your end was inevitable. You just didn’t know it.”
“Shut up,” Reaper said. “Shade?” Shade appeared behind Miller and pressed a knife across his throat. Miller tensed and grew quiet, but the laughter did not leave his eyes.
Jack should have waited. There might have been guards hiding in there with machine guns at the ready, or traps designed to gut the unwary. But he could not wait, not after all this time. He grabbed Miller’s wheelchair and used it to haul himself up into the container, pushed past Shade, and entered the shadowy interior.
After seeing inside the other place he’d expected something high-tech. What he saw was the exact opposite. Inside the first container was a rough seating area, with chairs around the edges, a few camping tables scattered with polystyrene cups and food wrappers, and a gun rack on one wall. At the far end were several camp beds, with a curtained area that might have been a toilet. The floor was messed with sawdust and lined with tracks from Miller’s wheelchair.
Two Choppers stood facing Jack, guns in their hands. He reached for the pistol in his belt and drew it slowly, keeping a careful watch on their faces, eyes, hands. But they looked terrified. If they move I’ll just flip, he thought, or shout, or I’ll melt their gun barrels before they can even shoot.
As the pistol left his belt, the two Choppers dropped their guns and edged around him towards the door.
“Get out,” Jack said. They scampered away, and he watched Shade kick them out past Miller’s wheelchair.
A heavy curtain hid a doorway into the middle container. He grabbed it and pulled it aside, hooks squealing on the metal curtain pole to reveal a poorly lit area with heavy cages stacked on either side. They resembled large dog crates, and were fixed in place by roughly welded metal bars.
The cages held people.
“Mum!” Jack called. “Emily!”
There was movement in the shadows as the prisoners stirred, trying to stretch limbs against their confinement. The place stank of human waste, unwashed bodies, gone-off food. Hopelessness. Jack’s eyes watered from the smell, and from tears of rage.
“Emily! Mum!”
“Jack,” a weak, quiet voice said, and Jack’s heart broke. His little sister, Emily, locked away like an animal, filthy, weak, terrified, and hopeless, he dashed to her cage and knelt so that they could touch each other’s fingers through the grille.
“Oh, Emily,” he said through his tears.
“Son?”
“Mum!” He looked behind him at one of the cages stacked higher, and his mother was there. She looked strong, and proud. “I came for you,” he said. “All of you.” Everyone was stirring now, and he guessed there were a dozen people locked away in there. He didn’t understand how they could exist in such conditions, but he was here to set them free, now. And on the way out, he would see Miller.
He gripped the gun tighter in his hand. Then he shoved it in his belt and tried to rationalise his anger. Murder was not in his nature.
“Rosemary?” he asked. His mother’s head dipped, and that was all the answer he needed.
“Jack,” Emily said, her voice breaking. He knelt by her again and they entwined fingers through the thick wires. Her tears cleared streaks down her face, and Jack blinked away his own. His little sister was so strong and resourceful, and since Doomsday she had looked after him as much as the other way around. He loved her more than anything or anyone, and he was shaking at how close he had come to losing her.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll get you out, then we’re leaving. All of us.”
“And we’ll get my camera on the way?” she asked.
“Oh, Emily.” He couldn’t believe how brave she was being. But as he stood and readied to release the pathetic prisoners, he thought that the camera might be a very good idea. Things were changing rapidly inside London, but that didn’t mean that anything was different on the outside. They would still need proof to expose the truth.
“Everybody back from your cage doors,” he said.
“Jack, what are you doing?” his mother asked.
“Lots has happened, Mum. Dad’s outside.”
“Oh,” she breathed. He hated that she sounded so vulnerable.
There was a rustle of clothing and a few tired groans as they shuffled back in their small cages—too small to stand in or lie out straight—and then Jack breathed deeply and closed his eyes. He tasted Nomad’s finger, the tang of everything she had given him, and then he zeroed in on a gleaming point in his mind.
“Hurry,” a voice said behind him. It sounded like Fleeter. He hated the idea that she had been watching him all along, and he had not heard the impact of her manifesting behind him. But he knew she was right. There was a balance of power here, and it would only take one Chopper to pick up a gun for chaos to descend.
Then there would be rapid, terrible slaughter.
Jack grunted, and three padlocks crunched apart. He turned slightly and focussed again, sending the concentrated power elsewhere. Four more times, and then he kicked at the bars and sent broken metal tinkling to the floor.
Fleeter helped. She threw cage doors open and looked inside, moving on to the next, and the next. Jack realised that she was searching for someone.
Emily stood and gripped hold of him. She buried her face in his shirt and cried, and then he felt his mother’s arms about both of them. He closed his eyes and lost himself in her feel and her smell, and for the briefest moment he was eight again and they were back at home, happy.
“Damn it!” Fleeter said. Jack opened his eyes. She was shoving past people standing uncertainly, finding their feet after incarceration in these tiny cages. One man cried out and slipped to the floor, but Fleeter did not apologise or help him up.
“We’ve got them,” Jack said. “Come on.” But he alread
y knew that this was something else.
“You go,” Fleeter said.
“There,” Jack’s mother said. “They’re through there, in the next one. They torture them often.”
Jack looked down into his sister’s haunted face, and then the other prisoners, all of them staring towards the dark opening into the next container.
“You go,” Fleeter said again to Jack.
“What’s back there?”
She came close to him, and she was more human than he had ever seen her. She reached out and touched his cheek. “Take your family, sweetheart,” she said. “Get out. Run. This is all going to go bad.”
“No,” Jack said. “No, this is the changing point. This is when peace begins.”
“Peace?” Fleeter asked. Her grin returned. “Who wants peace? This is too much fun.” She pulled a pocket torch and went through into the next container. Jack saw the heavier bars of larger cages beyond, and then Fleeter was fiddling with padlocks and locks.
“Son,” his mother said. “There’s nothing good back there. You’re a brave, good boy. Lead us out.”
“But I can do things, Mum,” he said. “Amazing things.”
“So I see. Then amaze us all away from here. This place is evil.”
Jack led them out. Miller had been moved down the ramp now, and Reaper stood behind his wheelchair, looking for all the world like someone taking a sick friend for a walk. His hands rested on the chair’s handles. Miller looked scared, but defiant.
“Where are they?” Reaper asked.
“Here,” Jack said. He jumped down and lifted Emily down to the ground, then held out his hand for his mother.
“Daddy!” Emily said. Their mother did not speak, because she already knew the truth.
“Where are they?” Reaper asked again. He had barely glanced at his family, and as the other freed prisoners started climbing down, wincing against the dusky light, he virtually ignored them all.
“Fleeter’s getting them,” he said. “Mum said there are two left.”