"Unchanged," Nomad said, "apart from the healer. All of you...so pure and untouched."
"I"m Reaper"s son," Jack said.
"Reaper? Just another name. Nothing to me, when I walk to spread the word."
"What word?" Jack asked, and he thought, To some of them, she"s a G.o.d.
"The word of change."
"You"ve changed everything anyway," Jenna said. "You were the one. You were the terrorist."
"Terrorist?" Nomad"s flowing walk continued, and she seemed to be tasting the word, considering its meaning. "It was all about freedom," she said. "And it"s only just begun."
Jack tried to step forward but could not. Rosemary seemed to have entered a trance-like state, still muttering words none of them could hear. "Why is Rosemary so scared of you?" she asked.
"People are scared of what they cannot know."
"I"m not," Sparky said.
Nomad did not answer, and Jack saw Jenna reach out and take Sparky"s hand. He did not know whether it took a strength of will, or if Nomad allowed them the contact.
"I think you"re the one I want," the woman whispered in Jack"s ear. He felt her breath against his neck and a s.e.xual thrill warmed through him. But when she paused before him, halting at last, he knew this was much more than that. Beneath the s.e.xual excitement nestled a fear he had never known before. A fear of the unknown, not without, but within.
"Me?" he said.
"Jack?" Emily said. His sister was scared, but he could not even turn to look at her. This woman, this Nomad, held his complete attention in the palm of her outstretched hand.
"I always knew I"d need help," she said, slipping her index finger into her mouth. Then she reached out, pointing at Jack"s mouth. He pressed his lips closed, but still they opened. He leaned back, but stretched forward. He closed his eyes but saw, and he understood that none of this was her. It was all him. Whatever it was she offered, he wanted it completely.
Her finger pa.s.sed across his tongue and it tasted unknowable. When she withdrew it the taste was gone. But he would know it forever.
"Jack?" Sparky asked.
"It"s okay," Jack said, to all of them. "I"m fine."
Nomad gave him that coy smile one more time, and then without another word she walked past them and along the street.
They turned to watch her go. Rosemary slumped down and started shaking, but the others could not take their eyes off the strange woman. She drifted away. Even when she turned out of sight along another road they watched, as if the ghost of her pa.s.sing would always be here.
"Well, that was weird," Sparky said. He was looking at Jack. "What was all that about?"
"Don"t know," Jack said. He moved his tongue about his mouth, and still recalled the taste of that alien touch. He had no idea what she had done, only that she had done something.
"That was Nomad," Jenna said, amazed. "Even after all this time, I was never really sure. But to be here, and to see her..." She looked at Jack as well, and he thought he saw a flash of jealousy in her eyes.
"b.u.g.g.e.r," Emily said. She was looking at the display screen on the back of her camera, pressing b.u.t.tons to snap between pictures and bits of film. "It wasn"t filming."
"Rosemary"s coming to," Jenna said. The woman was looking around, seeing them as if for the first time.
"Is it gone?" she asked.
"Nomad?"
"Is it gone?"
"Yes," Emily said. "She"s gone."
"Which way?"
Jack pointed along the street, back the way they had come.
"Then we go that way," Rosemary said. She pointed in the opposite direction.
When they started walking again, Rosemary would not answer any of their questions. She shook her head when they mentioned Nomad, refused to elaborate on her fear, said nothing when Jenna talked to her about the strange woman. Jack felt angry, but he let his anger filter away, carried on his own thoughts of Nomad.
A few minutes later, still walking in silence, they paused in an old garage forecourt while a group of a dozen people ran by. They were dirty and wild, some of them naked, others dressed in scars. A few growled or whimpered as they ran, and several dribbled blood and mucus from their mouths.
Some loped like animals.
Rosemary did not seem too concerned about hiding.
"The sick ones?" Jack asked. Rosemary did not reply, so he answered for himself. "The ones who can"t take it." They all watched the people disappear along the street, and a couple of minutes later Rosemary led them away again.
They walked quickly and as they reached the mouth of Stockwell Tube Station, the healer seemed pleased when they left the sunlight and found cool shadows.
"Down," she said. "We"ll be there soon. But once we reach the platform, remember the twins. You"ll see things that scare you. But they"re not really there." Without another word she pulled a small torch from her pocket and started down the escalators.
Jack and the other followed. Back into the darkness.
And when they stepped onto the platform, Jack saw the first of the giant scorpions.
There were no terrorists. There is no help. London is dying, and we"re all dying with it.
-Radio ham communication out of London
(first and last transmission),
11:44 a.m. GMT, July 29, 2019
He could see why the unwary would choose to go no further.
The scorpions were as fat as Jack"s head, their legs as long as his arms, and there were too many to count. Some were bright yellow, stings dripping tears of poison that sizzled small holes in the floor tiles. Others were black, with red markings on their backs and spikes along their legs on which rotten meat festered. They hissed and spat at each other, crawled up the shattered tile walls, balanced along the dulled rails where trains used to run, dropped from the ceiling, and a group of them further along the platform worried at a pile of fresh bodies, ripping flesh, and breaking bones.
They"re not real, Jack thought. Rosemary walked into a scorpion and it disappeared around her feet, melting away into a breath of mist and shadow. Living in my mind, that"s all. They"re not here. They"re not real. He closed his eyes and opened them again, and the scorpions were multiplying and growing larger.
"I can"t!" Emily said. "The snakes. The snakes!"
"I see scorpions," Jack said. He held his sister"s hand, and the sweat on her palm added to his own.
"Chickens," Sparky said.
"Chickens?" Jack laughed nervously.
"Ten feet tall," the boy said defensively. "Beaks are covered in blood, and-"
"You are truly weird."
"They"re not here," Rosemary said, her voice cool and flat. "None of this is here."
"What do you see?" Jack asked, but the woman did not respond. Since their meeting with the Nomad she had been distant, and he vowed to ask her why. But right now, his mind was focussed on his mother. She was down here in the dark, his dear, lovely mum, and soon they would be together again.
Emily looked at him and smiled. "Not real snakes," she said.
"Not real scorpions," Jack said.
"I see moths as big as seagulls," Jenna said.
"My chickens will take your moths any day," Sparky said, and they all laughed. The edgy banter continued as they made their way along the platform, helping each other walk past and through their own unique fears. Jack"s attention turned inward, and he tried to sense whether the twins Rosemary had mentioned were touching him inside to plant these fears, or causing him to project them himself. If he closed his eyes he could still hear the scorpions, though he had yet to feel their cool, sharp touch. He could understand how the twins were such an effective defence: what he saw was terrifying, even though he understood it was not real. To anyone unsuspecting, seeing a Tube platform crawling, squirming, or sliming with their own personal fears would be unbearable.
They walked to the end of the platform, and Rosemary shone her torch into the tunnel. There was a ledge leading in there, just wide enough to shuffle along sideways, and the others followed her as she started edging her way inside.
Something squealed, and Jenna let out a sharp scream.
"The rats are real," Rosemary said.
"Thanks."
The wall at their backs ended suddenly, and by the time they were all through Rosemary was a dozen feet ahead of them, talking quietly to someone sitting in an armchair. The furniture was so incongruous that Jack wondered if he was still seeing things. But the girl was still in the chair, a boy sitting beside her on a camp bed, and he knew they were almost there.
"The twins," Jenna whispered. "What power! It"s scary, isn"t it?"
"It"s wonderful," Emily said.
It"s both, Jack thought. Just like everything these London survivors can do, it"s both.
Rosemary waved them all over and shone her torch at a metal door in the wall behind the twins. "In there," she said. "Down a spiral staircase to an old deep level shelter. They built it during the Second World War, and now it"s found its use again." She smiled at Jack and Emily.
"Does she know we"re coming?" Emily asked.
"No. I never told her I was going for you. It was a secret, and...I didn"t want to raise her hopes. It"ll be a nice surprise."
A nice surprise. It was the phrase Jack and his friends used for something amazing. He was certain it was going to be just that.
He and Emily went alone, the others remaining up on the platform to give them their moment. He glanced at Sparky as the metal door closed behind them, feeling awkward and embarra.s.sed, but his friend beamed a smile and gave him a big thumbs-up.
Beyond the door was a small metal landing, then a staircase that spiralled down into the darkness. Its walls moved, flexing in the flickering light from candles placed on every third or fourth riser. Jack went first, and the candlelight moved even more.
He heard Emily descending behind him.
He was nervous, and scared, and his heart beat so fast that his vision seemed to throb. We"re going to see Mum, he thought. In his memory she was always alive, but in his mind"s eye he sometimes found her dead. This descent felt so surreal and unbelievable. He paused on the spiral staircase and breathed in deeply, and Emily did not ask why he had stopped. He heard her taking in a big breath as well.
The staircase ended, and Jack ducked through a narrow doorway. They were at the end of a very long room, twice the length of the platform up above. It had a similar vaulted brick ceiling and tiled walls. A generator hummed somewhere, and strings of light bulbs were suspended from the ceiling. There were three lines of beds, maybe fifteen in each line, and at the far end of the room, two curtained areas. Along one wall stood metal storage cabinets, desks and shelving, and two doors leading away into other rooms beyond.
About half of the beds were taken. Several people wandered from bed to bed, giving drinks, touching patients, and Jack spotted his mother immediately.
"There," he said, grabbing Emily"s arm and pointing.
"I see her," his sister said, and her voice broke.
They watched their mother for a minute, remembering the way she moved, brushed her hair back from her forehead, and laughed, and then it was too much and Emily dashed forward, unable to call out through her tears.
The sobbing was enough. Jack saw their mother stiffen, her back to them, and her stillness told him that she already knew.
"Mum," he said.
It was stranger than he"d ever thought it could be, because his mother had changed so much. She was thinner than before, her hair shorter, an ugly scar beside her nose, and though he knew it was impossible, her fingers seemed longer and more delicate. She had aged ten years in the two since they had parted.
But she was still their mother, and as she hugged them both and Jack smelled her familiar smells, he realised that this reunion must be even stranger for her. Emily had been seven when they"d come to London, now she was nine. The change in her was greater than all of them, and that showed in their mother"s eyes as she kept pulling back and staring at her daughter.
They went into one of the side rooms, which was stacked all around with towels, beddings, and bags of medical supplies. There was a s.p.a.ce in the middle with a large table and several chairs, mugs, and plates scattered across its surface. More tears and hugs were inevitable, but eventually the talking had to start. There were two years and a whole new world to catch up on.
So Jack told his mother how he had been looking after Emily, living in the house they"d shared ever since he was born, and how Emily had helped him as much as he had helped her. He said he"d always tried to keep the faith that she and his father were still alive somewhere in the Toxic City. He told her about the doubts he and others had about the government"s lies, but that the general populace believed that London was now a city of deadly, toxic monsters. He had met his best friends-Sparky, Jenna, and Lucy-Anne-through the growing certainty that they were all being lied to.
His mother said how proud she was of her brave children, and how not a day had gone by since Doomsday when she had not thought about them and felt desperate for them to be together again.
Whenever Jack mentioned their father, she changed the subject. For now, he allowed her that.
He and Emily took turns relating their journey into London, and when he mentioned Rosemary, his mother smiled and shook her head. "She"s become a good friend. As good as any friend can be in this place, at least."