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.
Chapter Fifteen
There were no terrorists. There is no help. London is dying, and we're all dying with it.
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.
“I can't!” Emily said. “The snakes. The
“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.
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.”
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 embarrassed, 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.
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
