London Eye: 1 (Toxic City)(9)

“Has the car started yet?”

“Honestly? I think it's been ready for weeks. I've taken it apart, cleaned it, replaced what I can and put it back together. All the work I'm doing on it now is cosmetic, really. Fixing rust, repainting. But I'm afraid to try. Even yesterday evening, knowing where we're goin’. Especially then. I was afraid to try. Last thing I want now is a bad omen.”

“Hey, you guys!” Lucy-Anne said. She approached along a narrow path from deeper in the woods, skirting around a pile of rubble from the old house. She seemed excited and breathless. “You'll never guess what I found in one of the drops!”

“A lump of squirrel shit?” Sparky asked.

Lucy-Anne didn't even look at him. Instead she turned and dashed towards the hidden entrance to Camp Truth. “Come on!” she said over her shoulder. Her eyes sparkled, her hair was freshly spiked, and Jack wished that they could have kept things between them stronger.

As Lucy-Anne descended into Camp Truth, she saw Rosemary. Still real, she thought, smiling at the idea that she could have ever been a dream.

Rosemary smiled at her, then looked past her shoulder. “Good morning, Jack.”

“Sleep okay?” Jack asked.

She nodded, flexing her shoulder slowly. “Old bones, that's all. I've met your little sister. She's wonderful!”

Emily was sitting on one of the tatty chairs they'd brought down here a few months ago, panning slowly around the room with her camera, eyes fixed on the display screen on its back. Lucy-Anne waved and poked her tongue out, and Emily giggled.

“You guys really need to see this,” Lucy-Anne said. She opened a small white envelope and produced a photograph, and Sparky, Jack, and Jenna gathered behind her. “Picture of someone in the city. We've had nothing like this before.”

“Did you put that there?” Sparky asked the old woman.

Rosemary shook her head.

Lucy-Anne held up the photograph. “Here, you can see a ruined building behind this woman, a burnt out car, and some things…” She shivered, a deep, cold feeling, and she knew what her mum would have said: Someone walking over your grave. “Dogs,” she said. “In a pack.” She usually loved dogs, but something about those in the picture haunted her.

The light in Camp Truth was not the best, and the photograph was small. They all leaned in closer, and Lucy-Anne felt the heat and pressure of her friends at her back.

“Got something around her neck…” Jenna muttered.

Jack gasped. He tried to speak, but his voice came out as a groan.

Lucy-Anne turned in time to see Sparky throw an arm around their friend, holding Jack up when his legs seemed to fail him.

“What is it, mate?” Sparky asked.

Jack held out his hand, and Lucy-Anne gave him the photograph. He moved carefully away from Sparky, showed Emily, and the little girl burst into tears. Then he held up the photo for them all to see again, and Lucy-Anne scolded herself for not realising before.

“Mum,” Jack said. “That's my mum.”





…and the British Government has restricted all movement into and out of London. All airports in the UK have been closed, with over five hundred flights diverted to French, German, and Spanish airports, and more than two hundred turned back to their countries of origin. At this time, the agent used in the attack has not been identified, and it is not known whether it is chemical or biological in origin. Pictures still being transmitted from inside London show soldiers in NBC suits barricading roads, and bodies piled by roadsides. There is no official word on casualties, although an unnamed source inside the Ministry of Defence describes the death toll as “catastrophic.” The British prime minister is expected to make a statement shortly.

Homeland Security Threat Level is maintained at Severe/Red, and the American public is asked to be on their guard.

—CNN, 12:20 p.m. EST, July 28, 2019

Mum's still alive.

The words were fresh in Jack's mind as they left Camp Truth and headed through the woods. Rosemary and Lucy-Anne went as a grandmother and her granddaughter going to visit friends. Sparky and Jenna were pretending to be boyfriend and girlfriend, a prospect which delighted Sparky and seemed to annoy Jenna immensely. And Jack and his sister Emily were on a family outing. If anyone asked where their parents were, Jack would only have to say “dead” for the understanding to hit home, and he hoped someone did ask, because his mother was still alive!