London Eye: 1 (Toxic City)(15)

“Maybe over there,” Jenna said. She walked toward one corner, kicking through the layered dust at her feet. She looked up at the ceiling, then back at the group, nodding. “Must have been closed in ages ago.”

Lucy-Anne saw the discoloured ceiling above where Jenna stood. The evidence of a blocked in staircase, perhaps, or the remains of where a hatch had once led down to this place.

“Why'd you think it's a church?” Jack asked.

“Over there,” Rosemary said. “In the end wall. That's the way we have to go. You'll see.”

We'll see what? Lucy-Anne thought. She was about to ask when she heard the growl.

Her heart stuttered, missing a beat and taking her breath away when it restarted. Her arms and chest went cold. A sound returned from her dream, as fresh and alive as if she were dreaming it again now: another growl, and a low, throaty bark.

They were all frozen. The sudden stillness would have been comical, were it not for the other growls now answering the first.

“Oh, no,” Rosemary groaned. And she sounded her age for the first time since Lucy-Anne had met her.

Emily dashed over to her brother's side. He glanced at Lucy-Anne, but she could not even blink.

“What?” Jack whispered. He stepped closer to Rosemary, and the others all turned to look at the old woman. Their eyes were wide in the darkness, glittering with strange yellow light. “Rosemary, what?”

“Dogs,” Lucy-Anne whispered.

“Yes,” Rosemary said. “I met them on the way out, but they were much further back, just beneath the Exclusion Zone.”

“And?” Jack asked.

“They're wild, Jack. From London. There are packs in there, big packs.”

“We've heard about them,” Jenna said. All of them had drawn close, subconsciously shielding Emily from whatever danger approached.

“Some of them went down beneath the city,” Rosemary said. “The Tube, tunnels, sewers. Dog, and…”

“Other things,” Jenna finished for her.

Rosemary nodded. Lucy-Anne knew what “other things” meant, because they'd had a series of reports left in the drops close to Camp Truth a few months before. Much could be put down to hearsay and exaggeration, they'd agreed, but it also seemed likely that some of what they read was true. Alligators, snakes, poisonous frogs, deadly spiders, and even a pride of lions, all of them escaped from various zoos and private collections in and around London following Doomsday.

But dogs…

“I dreamed this,” she whispered, and she was aware of Jack's torch shifting as he turned to look at her.

Another growl came, much closer than before, and there seemed to be cunning there, and purpose.

Jack stepped in front of Emily, a four inch folding knife in his hand. Jenna also shielded the girl, and Sparky already had a knife in each hand, torch tucked in his back pocket.

“How many were there?” Jack asked the old woman.

“Five,” Lucy-Anne said.

“Yes,” Rosemary said, surprised. “But I think I broke one of their legs.”

“Four's still enough,” Sparky said. “Shit. Shit! Why didn't you tell us?”

“Would you still have come?” Rosemary asked.

“Yes!” Sparky and Jack spoke at the same time, and the woman looked down at her feet.

No, Lucy-Anne thought, and when she blinked she saw a flash of her dream, a dog snarling with her own meat hanging from its teeth—

—and when she looked again, the growl was real.

The first dog emerged from the tunnel into the large basement, dodging their torch beams, darting from column to column as it came for them.





News from London is contradictory and confusing. Official sources talk of at least nine separate terrorist attacks, including explosions at the London Eye, the Houses of Parliament, London Bridge, Leicester Square, and Buckingham Palace. A source at Scotland Yard has said that several terrorist cells are being actively pursued through London, and that more attacks are feared. There is still no clear news of which chemical or biological agent has been deployed. Eyewitness accounts tell of military roadblocks, bulldozers piling bodies in public parks, and execution-style shootings to contain certain areas of the population. Whatever is true, it's certain that this is a tragedy of extreme magnitude, and CNN will, of course, be broadcasting throughout the day to bring you updates as and when they become available.