London Eye: 1 (Toxic City)(7)

She had never, ever let herself accept the fact that they were dead.

She swigged from the bottle. It was half gone already, and she knew she should pour the rest down the sink. Last thing she wanted tomorrow was a hangover. But she was enjoying the fuzziness in her head, and it seemed to relax her muscles, enabling her to sink into the sofa and lose herself in the music blasting from her stereo.

“Sorry, Mum and Dad!” she called up to their bedroom. Led Zeppelin was particularly loud this evening, and she knew they didn't like it very much.

She never went into their room, and kept the door locked.

“Andrew, you always did like good music!”

Her brother's bedroom door was locked as well, but she had not felt able to remove his favourite CDs from where he'd left them scattered around the music system in the living room. Now they were her favourites, too.

She drank a little more, and spoke to her family, because this was the only place and time she would ever allow herself to do so: at home, alone, when no one could see her true desperation.

Tomorrow, everything was going to change.

It looks like a huge, open wasteland, but she can see its ghosts.

There used to be buildings here, and parks, and shops and pubs where people had mixed and chatted, laughing and scowling their way through life. It has all gone now, and their absence seems to make the sky far too large.

Instead there is a vast plain of broken rubble, exotic-looking plants and flattened, blurred areas that look so strange. She sees movement far away across the plain, and she squints into the merciless sun, shading her eyes to see whether it's people…or something else.

She walks towards the movement because it seems the best place to go. It's hot and harsh here, with a warm breeze blowing from the left and carrying a melange of scents: the dust of ages; dry, old rot; and something spicy and forbidden which she cannot identify.

As she nears the thing she saw moving, she finally makes out what it is. The pack of wolves is rooting at something buried deep in the ground. It's one of those strange blurred areas that she had seen, and she can now identify that effect as well: in this rugged plain of a dead city, this spread of land is as smooth as a bowling green.

The wolves growl, but she walks closer. She thought she had a knife in her pocket, still stained with the blood of a friend, but she frowns when she finds her pocket empty. Maybe she dropped it? She feels like a fool, because there are so many dangers out here.

She should be scared of the wolves, but she is not here for them. So she shouts and they flee, casting incongruous growls back as they disappear among the rubble.

The sky darkens as she walks out onto the flattened area. The breeze dies down, but she can smell rot well enough. And even though the sun has hidden its face behind a cloud, the glare of unearthed bones is obvious.

She kicks through the bones, hauling skeletons aside, rifling through half-rotten clothing, shouting out for her mother, father, and brother. She's desperate not to find them, but she cannot tear herself away.

And then there are her parents, dead but not rotten, buried deep down where the wolves had not reached, and there are worms in their eyes and beetles in their mouths, and even as she looks to the sky and screams she can see them still.

She will know them like this forever.





It is now believed that the explosion at the London Eye was a terrorist attack. Following the explosion, a toxic agent has been released into the atmosphere. Deaths have been reported in Westminster, Chelsea, Bayswater, Mayfair, and West Kensington. Security Services are closing off large tracts of south and west London, and residents are advised to remain indoors, close all windows and doors, and await further instructions. Please do not attempt to leave the city. More soon.

—BBC News Website, 5:15 p.m. GMT, July 28, 2019

Next morning, Jack and his sister Emily headed for Camp Truth. Rucksacks over their shoulders, they were walking into the sunrise and beginning a journey leading somewhere Jack had dreamed of for two years.

He felt that rush of youthful anticipation—part wonder, part fear—that had been absent for so long. But above that even now hung the crushing weight of his responsibility. He had Emily to look after and look out for, a young girl who sometimes had trouble remembering her parents’ faces when she was tired, crying and needing them most. Jack was always there for her, offering a hug and trying to hold back his own tears because he was the grown-up now. He was the one who played with Emily and told her off, washed her clothes and helped with her school work, prepared her meals and looked after the house. He sobbed with her sometimes, but other times he had to scold her if she misbehaved. He'd tried to tell himself that not tidying her room when he asked was too insignificant to worry about, but the gravity of Doomsday sometimes seemed to exaggerate the smallest of things.