London Eye

Whatever had broken in Lucy-Anne's mind was trying to fix itself. She could feel it like an itch, a tickle so deep inside her that it could never be reached, and she shook her head now and then to try and dislodge it.

Her run slowed to a fast walk, and that was when she started to see people. The first was a face in a window, pale and sickly, and when she did a double-take the face was gone. There was no expression to read there at all, and she purposely got lost in a network of streets and alleys in case the person decided to follow.

North, ever northward, and between every blink she saw the faces of her parents from her nightmare.

I'm never going to sleep again, she thought. Though she was in this terrible place, it was the blank plane between sleeping and waking that horrified her now. There had been the dogs, though her memory of them had grown indistinct, and other memories were even vaguer, so distilled through whatever had snapped in her mind that she could not tell whether they were real events or dreams. Perhaps the distinction no longer mattered.

Lucy-Anne knew that something had snapped inside. Hers was a conscious madness, a waking breakdown, and when she dwelled on it her head hurt as though physically injured. North was all that mattered, because somewhere in that direction would be Andrew.

Someone walked into the street ahead of her. The figure paused, turned her way, froze.

Lucy-Anne ran between buildings, stumbling over a pile of refuse, ducking through gardens, rushing past a Tube station with a pile of skeletons wedged in its entrance gates. She hit a main road and quickly turned left, welcoming the shadows cast by the large buildings to her right. There she slowed, listening in case she had been followed but never willing to stop her forward momentum.

The first black shape passed behind her with the sound of a whisper in the night.

She spun around, skidding to a halt in the middle of the wide residential street. Her hands came up, but there was nothing there. She fumbled the knife from her pocket and held it out before her, but it felt pitiful against the world. There were tall four-storey buildings on one side. Behind her was an overgrown park at the centre of what must be a large square, and staggered along the road were cars. Many of them were still parked in an ordered row along the pavement. There were Porsches, BMWs, Mercedes, Bentleys, and the buildings stared at her with rich, dead eyes.

Something else fluttered behind her, and when she crouched and turned she saw a black shadow disappearing into the park. She frowned. Leaves rustled ten feet above the ground, and more shadows moved through the trees.

“Birds,” she whispered. And as if conjured by her voice, they made themselves known.

They burst from the undergrowth in the park, lifted from rooftops and erupted from several broken windows in the building facades, darkening the air and swooping towards her without making a single sound.

The scream came from Lucy-Anne as she ran, because she had seen these rooks before.

She sprinted straight into one of the expensive cars, flipped across its bonnet and smacked her head against cool metal. As her vision faded, she heard a long, high whistle, and instead of retreating it seemed to grow louder as consciousness left her.

She is alone, in a ruined landscape of forgotten buildings and hopelessness, but she is at peace with her own company. She is walking through the streets without fear or trepidation. Sometimes she whistles, sometimes she sings, but she is just as comfortable with only the sound of her footsteps on dusty pavements. She would claim contentment-there are things undone, and fate hangs on a knife-edge somewhere away from where she is now-but for the moment, she is as happy as she can be.

And then she becomes aware of the others. They are crowding around her, though unseen. They stalk her across rooftops and in tunnels beneath the ground, crashing through from one terraced building to the next, and they only have eyes and ears for her.

She starts to hurry, hoping to outrun them. But that will be impossible. Not because they are fast and she is slow, or because they know this place far better than her. But because she is making these pursuers with every breath, every thought, and every time she sleeps they multiply many times over.

She breaks the silence and screams, because she knows that eventually they will catch her. And kill her.

She came to, opening her eyes a crack and immediately becoming disorientated at the movement. The sky had turned black, and it was swimming in circles above her.

The rooks screeched, hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, and she rolled over and covered her ears to shut out the sudden, terrifying sound. She screamed, but though she felt the cry vibrating in her throat, she could hear nothing.

Queasy, swaying, she stood and skirted around the parked car, heading for the gated front gardens. If she could only get into a house away from these things, then maybe…

The memory of this nightmare hit her and she turned, searching for the shadow she had seen. There was no one there. The rooks were descending closer, though, almost filling the sky as they shifted this way and that, waving and pulsing like a shoal of fish.

She crashed through a gate, ignoring the sting of nettles blooming out across the path as she ran to a front door. It was locked. She bashed on it and shouted, still unable to hear her own voice. But of course; everyone here was dead.

Almost everyone! she thought. Andrew isn't dead. He's alive, somewhere to the north of here he's alive, and I'm going to-

Something stroked across her cheek and she thrashed her arms, touching nothing. It was an intimate touch, almost a caress, and through the screeching of rooks and the alien flapping of their wings, Lucy-Anne heard a soft, melodious whistle.

She ran back down the path and through the gate, and now the rooks were buzzing her. She waved her arms and squinted her eyes almost shut; she touched nothing, and no claws went for her face. The smell of the birds was shocking, like a bundle of wet laundry left rolled up for far too long.

Across the pavement, and she ran into the same car again. Its rusted bumper scratched at her leg through her jeans. She staggered away and went to her knees. With tears welling in her eyes she screamed again, determined to show anger and rage rather than weakness.

More birds closed in, their claws raking through her hair and becoming entangled, wings flapping against her face, and she saw the orange flash of beaks dangerously close to her eyes.

This is my nightmare! And with that thought came a vague memory of what would come next. Lucy-Anne stood and closed her hand around a bird's ragged legs. And now I throw it, she thought, throwing the creature, and now the shadow.

The whistling changed pitch, and a ripple passed through the rooks. Their screeching died out as if they were concentrating on something else now, not just her. As the birds parted slightly before her, she tried to look past their chaotic wings, moving forward through them, keen to see whoever stood beyond.

The shape appeared. As the birds rose away from the square at last, roosting again on rooftops and in tree canopies, she saw the boy standing thirty yards along the street. He was short and slight, dressed in scruffy black clothing. His hair was a wild dark mop, and his stance was one of casual superiority. His smile too, when it came, communicated a level of confident control.

“They like you,” the boy called. “Which means I do as well. They're very choosy, my birds.”

“Your birds?” Lucy-Anne said.

The boy whistled one more time, a short sharp note, and the rooks fell completely silent.

“My birds.” He walked towards Lucy-Anne, and she felt herself unable to move. Not his whistling, she thought, that's not what's rooted me here. It's me. It's my nightmare of the birds, and…

…and now she wanted to see what came next.

“I dreamed about your birds,” she said.

The boy shrugged as he walked.

“You don't seem surprised.”

“Why should I?”

She tried to think of a reason, but none came. “I'm looking for my brother,” she said instead, and the boy's face grew more stern.

“You'll die,” he whispered. “In the streets, in the ruins, you'll die. If the Choppers don't get you, there are other things that will. North of here…wild places.”

“And you expect me to-”

“I can help you,” the boy said.

“What? Help me look for Andrew?”

He nodded. He paused several feet from Lucy-Anne, looking her up and down with a frankness she found unsettling. There was something birdlike about the way his dark eyes shifted, his hands clawed at the air, and his hair almost looked barbed.

“Why would you do that?” she asked.

“My name's Rook,” the boy said, “and I've met you in my dreams.”