Tears beaded in her eyes, and she wiped them away.
Approaching a door at the rear of the unit she skidded to a stop. There was a huddle of bodies against the wall, shrivelled, dried skin hanging on grinning skulls. More stories she'd never know. The door was closed, and she checked it quickly for locks. The moment she opened it she wanted to be running, and if she made a noise rattling the handle against locks, then—
Loud impacts sounded from the high metal roof. The noise filled the previously quiet unit. Lucy-Anne cried out in shock, then pressed down the handle and swung the door, darted into the open, and ran. She crossed a car park and dodged around several cars, then heard thuds behind her as things dropped from the roof.
She stopped and spun around, backing up against a truck sat on flattened tyres. This is where I make a stand, she thought, and she was filled with a dreadful sense of foreboding. She had not dreamed this at all. As she saw what faced her, she wished she could have fallen instantly asleep to un-dream it.
She was going to die here, and her bones would be scattered across the moss-covered concrete.
There were three of them stalking closer to her, cautious but confident, and she could sense their hunger. Each breath ended with a gentle growl.
“So what are you supposed to be?” she asked. Her voice wavered, and none of them gave any indication that they had heard.
They were smaller than adult humans, but she had no sense that they were children. Vaguely ape-like, their arms and legs had grown long and thin, yet still wiry and strong. Their naked bodies were covered with a fine brown felt-like fur, and their heads had elongated, mouths protruding and ears flattened against their triangular skulls. The teeth were long and vicious. Their eyes were startlingly human, yet they held little sign of any intelligence she could understand. One of them had a tattoo on its upper arm.
She was certain that they wanted to eat.
“Come on then,” she said, waving the knife before her. But she felt no real bravado. She would fight when they came, but she could not kid herself. She might wound one or two of them, but they'd take her down within seconds.
She only hoped it was over quickly.
I'm so sorry, Jack, she thought. Sparky, Jenna. I'm so sorry. I only hope you get out anyway, but I can't pretend that I'm sad at what's going to happen to London. She blinked and saw Nomad once more, silhouetted against the nuclear blast that would sweep away all that had gone wrong, and every twisted thing that London had birthed.
When she opened her eyes again, someone else was there.
Lucy-Anne frowned, squinted, trying to make sense of who and what she saw. It was a shadow on the light where no shadow was cast, and when it moved it was like a blind spot in her vision. It flowed from the doorway of the sports shoe unit, and then the ape-things were screeching as it moved amongst them. They darted away, one of them passing so close to her that it collided with the truck's hood, tripped over the bumper and sprawled on the ground, scrabbling for purchase before sprinting away on all fours. One took a huge leap up onto the building's roof and disappeared from view. The others ran across car parks and roads, vanishing between units. In moments they were gone, and Lucy-Anne was alone with whatever, or whomever, had saved her.
Someone new, she thought, but she instantly knew that was wrong. This was someone she already knew. She dropped the knife, barely noticing the sound as it struck the ground.
“Rook!” she whispered as the shadow formed before her. A shape where no shape should be, his features manifested from the light, coalescing into the form he used to take. Almost solid, but not quite. Nearly there, but still absent in some fundamental way.
And not Rook.
“My sweet sister,” Andrew said.