 
**Of the Shadows' Own Accord (The Green and Pleasant Land)**

Oliver Kennedy

Copyright 2014 by Oliver Kennedy

Smashwords Edition
Chapter one, Crash

Something moves outside the window

Does it see me? Does it see me?

Something moves up and down the hall

Does it hear me? Does it hear me?

Something's shadow falls over my bed

Does it know me? Does it know me?

A.B.

Hello. My name is Annabel Benyion. I am going to tell you about my journey. How I came to be here, all the things I saw between the now and then. He sits opposite me at the moment. The giant, the blackwing, the silent, brooding saviour. He polishes the pistols, the long silver cannons which deal such beautiful destruction. I will sit quietly in his company, for within the sphere of the calm colossus I feel safe, I am safe. It all started some months ago, as I sat screaming in the back of a car...

...The twisting of metal. The breaking of glass. The smell of burned rubber. The hiss of airbags. The thud and crack of bones striking hard surfaces at high speeds. We were trying to escape you see. Escaping is rarely something done in a relaxed way.

"Dad."

"Mum."

Neither of them respond. They are both dead. As dead as dead can be these days. Dad leans over the steering wheel which has smashed his ribcage to pieces. Mothers blood drips down over the dashboard.

"Dad."

"Mum."

We need to escape now. We need to run away just like they said on the radio. How long do I sit here? Outside the tinted windows of our luxury car I would say the world is ending. A world has ended in here as well. The causes of our crash are getting to their feet, they stagger, imploring arms outstretched.

Bloody knuckles hammer at the tinted windows. I know not which ones are worse. The ones with grey, black veined faces who leer and growl. Or the faceless ones who have had their features gnawed off by their cadaverous comrades while they were waiting to turn. Gore and grey matter smear on the glass as their demand for sustenance grows more frantic. The windscreen gives way.

They do not take the time to drag my parents from the vehicle. They seep in through the broken glass like a thick mist of tangled limbs and gnashing teeth. I put my hands to my ears to block out the sounds as skin rips and bones crack. I can still hear, gurgling noises punctuated by growls as the undead vie for supremacy at the dinner table. The odd string of bloody goo splatters over me. My eyes are squeezed shut. But nothing will block out my imagination, my minds eye in which grey hands are reaching for me.

Then there comes a different sound. A high pitched screeching followed by a low boom. The minds eye sees a giant, whose mighty footsteps cause the car to shake and rock. The grey hands have not reached me. More screeching, more booming, the crackling hiss of fire being born. There is an acrid smell in the air. That same smell has hung over the city for weeks now; it is the smell of war, the scent of a weapon that is working hard and breathing heavily.

I turn towards the door. I look only at the door. I do not need to look at the front seat. My daydreams will paint the picture of the remnants of my parents bodies for me, images I never saw will be plastered on the corridors of my memory forever. For we are at a point of union now, a point at which the worse things we can imagine and the real world have met. It no longer matters whether you think it or see it, the horror is identical.

As I exit the car I see the helicopter swooping away. The ground around the car has been churned up by the rockets. Alas it was no giant after all, another fairy tale fades, swallowed by the steely miasma of the collapsing world. The mud still smoulders as I run through it. My saviours will never know that they rescued me, nor will they be aware of the life they condemned me to with their salvation. I glance back once. At the ruined black car and the mounds of bodies in front of it. There are bits and pieces scattered across the earth, chunks of bone and metal that have fused together in the heat.

The helicopter is far away now, it has joined the flock which courses through the city skies, trying to save us, trying to roll back the tide.

I have nothing to cling to now. Just a broken heart, these tears, would that I could fall into a well of them and drown. But the well is overflowing with grief which would flood me back into the world. So I run.

I run up Prince Charles road towards the roundabout and across it without needing to check to see if there is traffic. Black clouds stare down at me, frowning at my flight. I cross Charlton way into the apparent safety of the trees.

This a deer park. Dad used to take me here often. In the days when we could go outside. The deer were so tame that a steady hand might feed them straight from it. Over thick tree roots I stumble, low branches grab at my hair and thorny bushes lash at my unprotected legs with their spikes and barbs.

I reach a clearing and see the deer. The beautiful creatures, they are graceful, and peaceful, they are a symbol. They are all lying down. Thick layers of their blood coat the grass. Bloody cadavers kneel over them, feasting. The deer have died, as have the memories.

I stand stock still. One of them notices me, it looks up with bloody slobber dripping from its maw onto the body of the doe it is devouring.

I was good at cross country in school. This is something for which I am profoundly grateful as the Wilderness deer park disappears beneath my fleet feet and I move into Greenwich Park. The scene here is hardly different. I see the occasional live person soon to be not so. What can I do to help? Live, remember them perhaps, it is a weak promise, but it is all I have to offer. For all I have in my mind is to run.

The dusty grass throws up a thin cloud of dirt as I move over it at speed, for the ground was much in need of a drink, though it is more likely to be quenched by blood than rain such is the weather of the world right now.

As I reach the fence on the far side of the park a cadaver lunges for me. I am like a cat as I scale the barrier between death and a reprieve. All he takes is a shred of the once pretty white dress, which is now caked in dirt and the splattered contents of my parents corpses. I need to stop thinking about them.

I am the grounds of the National Maritime Museum. This place always made me think of old men with wispy moustaches, standing in the sun twiddling them and talking about the state of the empire. What would they think of the empire now I wonder?

I am glad to see more of the living here. They run from in between the ornate pillars. From underneath magnificent, carved marble lintels they emerge. Some of them look like students. They are being chased by a professor, who seeks to teach them one last lesson. They will not learn it from him, for several of them turn, they grab bricks and metal posts and batter him. More cadavers emerge from the buildings.

I join the tide of unfortunate tourists and students who have been driven from their hiding place. They are running through the west wing of the museum. I am amazed to see some people turning with cameras in hand and photograph the staggering pursuers who lunge across the quad after us. Why would you take pictures of such things? For which future that will never be are you hoping to preserve the memories? Where will you find yourself if you have the time or the inclination to peruse such images? Our minds will recall with perfectly clarify this horror, and where they fail it is a good thing, each moment of this nightmare that we forget can only be a good thing.

I pay no heed to the lovingly cared for exhibits. I have no time to read the notes on the displays, I have no history, for I am trying to preserve this small piece of present that is mine. Suddenly we are outside. The throng of which I was so gratefully a part breaks up. Within moments the mass has splintered, there is no cohesion to our panic.

I am on the streets now. My feet ache in my white trainers, every muscle burns and my lungs are pleading with me to stop. I keep going. It is what they would have wanted. I run past the tooting cars who are going nowhere. I run north, for no other reason than that is where a number of others appear to be going. Explosions rock the city. Windows which have seen decades of rumbling vehicles and passers by are broken by the noise and the sonic vibrations.

Plumes of fire and smoke erupt on every horizon like miniature volcanoes. All of a sudden I run out of road. In front me the great grey worm that is the river Thames rushes by. I look to my right and head for the bustling ferry port. There are many of the living here. They jostle for a place on the ferry they think will save them.

"Women and children, women and children!!" bellows the red faced man in the life jacket standing by the gangplank. The looks on the faces of the many men gathered here seem to show that they disagree with such sentiments. The red faced man will brook no arguments though, nor will the large revolver in his hand.

I feel a pair of hands grab me by the underarms and thrust me towards the ferry. I stumble down the gangplank towards a vessel filled with sorry souls just like me. I clamber through the wall of tears. There are several shots from the dock. The red faced captain leaps aboard the ferry and knocks the boarding plank into the water. The engine hums into life, a large pole prods at the dock wall to propel us away, then prods again at a few pitiable souls who are attempting to board by force.

The ferry is not large. This was a leisurely transit from the south bank to the north for those who did not feel like taking the train or the bridge. With a maximum capacity of fifty people, it lists and pitches badly in the water with almost three times that number clinging to every pole and long wooden bench.

I look at the hundreds still on the ferry port. Some of them stay where they are, staring forlornly at the overloaded ferry. Many others drift off this way and that, it will not be long until the cadavers arrived in force, or worse. Then they will run, for but a scratch is all they would need, but a single bite and they shall turn and turn and cease to be. But they would never cease thereafter. They would forever walk, and kill, and eat, and walk, and kill, and eat.

They are not office workers any more, they are not scientists, or students, or bin men, or bankers, or anything else. They are waiting to be victims, they are not survivors, survival is many tomorrows away. I lose sight of them. I would later think about the person who lifted me up through the crowd and deposited me on the the gangplank, I never even saw their face.

Dad used to say that cities like London were giant cogs which helped to drive the world. Well now the machine was broken and the cogs span wildly and brought death to those caught up in them.

"Mum, dad, mum, dad, mum, dad, mum, dad."

A kindly woman strokes my hair. She speaks soothing words. Only then do I realise it was me calling out for mum and dad. I do not know at which point I sank to the deck of the ferry, but here I lay amidst the destruction of my home town.

"Mum, dad, mum, dad, mum, dad, mum, dad."

Jet planes screech overhead. That which was once a symbol of power has now become a sign of desperation. The RAF was bombing its own capital city, destroying all to deny the cadaver.

Suddenly there are screams where before there had been only sobbing. I sit up and looked through the crowd. All along the riverbank there are hundreds of cadavers. Many up them leap into the water and sink beneath the murk, they want us, such is the totality of their hunger that they have neither the sense nor reason to understand the water, they see flesh and they would follow it through the fires of hell.

Then I see the reason for the screams. Up ahead on the south bank is a construction site. A large container ship whose deck is stacked up with building material is moored there. Hundreds of people are swarming onto the ship trying to escape the host of cadavers appearing from the direction of the O2 Arena. There is no armed man standing by to control the crowds here, it's a free for all and there are evidently already far too many people on board the cargo ship which is listing badly.

Then there is a roar of engines, the bellowing of the horn and a huge wrenching sound as the struggling vessel pulls violently away from the riverbank, too violently.

"No, no, no, no, no" shouts our captain who looks back from the tiller with panic on his face. We see it only a few seconds after him. The container ship pulls out across the river, it begins to turn and it begins to flip onto its side, right in front of us. The captain steers the ferry to as far over near the north bank as possible, maybe, just maybe we can squeeze through the gap and avoid the stricken vessel. Some maybes just aren't meant to be.

Horror seizes me as I see hundreds of people plunging into the water of the Thames before being pushed under by the body of the ship rolling on top of them. I am equally horrified as the prow of the construction ship smashes into the front of the ferry. We rock, we dip, we flip and are flung towards the water with tremendous force. The ferry tips over onto the sandy shore at the foot of the river wall, and for a few merciful moments I am plunged into darkness...

Women and children first, women and children into the water...

When I come to I can hear the tail end of the screams which had accompanied me into the dark. My blessed sojourn from consciousness was all too brief. They say there is such a thing as flight or fight, an instinctive reaction to events which kicks in when we are faced with extreme circumstance. It works. There is blood on my hands as they reached for the rusty iron bar which forms the first rung on a ladder up the river wall. One by one I clamber up.

I am getting good at not looking back, but as I scurry up over onto the riverbank I spare a glance. There are still hundreds of people in the water. Some of them have started to turn. It is a scene of utter chaos, which does not seem out of place in a city that is collapsing in on itself, in a nation that's disintegrating, on a world which will continue to turn regardless.

I am just next to a large lock which leads to one of the Isle of Dogs inner docks. There is no time to take in the scenery. The time for running is back again, the currents of the world had carried me such a short way.

There are containers, and offices. Live people fight with dead people, dead people fight with each other over the remnants of the living. Tanks. People on fire. A row of dead policemen with riot shields scattered about them. Creaking tyre tracks, burning buildings, billowing smoke. Run, run Annabel, run for them, run for you, run for life. Don't stop, don't ever stop tiptoeing at high speed through this tragedy, the stage is so busy that no one will notice you.

Then suddenly there is greenery. Suddenly I am in the shadow of true giants of the modern world, steel and glass behemoths who breath fire from their thousands of broken eyes.

This used to be what I could see from my bedroom window. Dad used to tell me that I was lucky, he told me that places like this were man made inspirations. Dad said a lot of things, I think I will spend the rest of my life sifting through his little sayings, finding out which ones were wisdom and which ones were opinion.

The banks are burning. They loom all around me, I am in this tiny green space surrounded by the leering towers which teeter on the brink. Through the windows I can see thousands of things which used to be people. They reach down towards me, they drawl and slaver out of broken windows. They moan and screech. There are other things there too, beings which were never human in the first place, the dread in the middle of the nightmare.

The jets roar past again. Weaving between the towers unleashing destruction as they go. Missiles hit the already unsteady feet of the giants who start to fall towards me, bringing their hungry inhabitants with them. I run. I run towards familiarity, towards the sign. The red, the white and the blue. One step, then two steps, then three steps, then four. Down into the dark of Canary Wharf I go, down into the underground as the over ground comes crashing down on top of it.

Dust and metal and glass follow me down the steps into the tube station. One little ripple in time, one world, many bad decisions. The walls have come tumbling down. My name is Annabel Benyion. This is my ninth year in the world, I saw too little before it was gone.
Chapter 2, Rats

"Hello."

"Hi."

"Alright."

"Hey there."

Lights appear. Pale, with a blueish tinge. A small sea of mobile phones has burst into life below me. Framed in the glowing light are the faces of the people I am trapped with, old and young, rich and poor, all of them with fading hopes, and doubtlessly dying batteries. The lights begin to flicker and fade, standby mode kicks in, a few of the lights shine in my direction.

Friendly arms guide me down the last few steps onto the platform area. They take pity on me, the call me 'poor child', 'poor thing' and 'poor little dear'. I am poor regardless, they are not wrong, but their pity does not seem right. They are buried underground, the city of London has just collapsed on top of them, their pity should be universal, not reserved for a single child. Perhaps it helps them, to think of my own predicament as being somehow worse than their own.

There are a few torches and lanterns, it is around these that most of the masses huddle. They all look like ghosts, such was the billowing cloud of dust which poured underground like a wave, it has covered everything. A few people have climbed back to the top of the non functioning escalator, they prod pointlessly at the thick metal girders and the large pieces of concrete. Hundreds of tons of London lay above us, the dark is the only way now, the dark is the air and the thoughts, and will be for all our near futures, and maybe the dark shall be all that we know until the end.

Time in the dark is a creature of its own, it lurks and creeps and keeps its presence an ominous secret, a shadow which will sneak up on you when you least expect it, and announce that your moments are at an end.

I move close to one of the lights, not too close, I do not want to be one of the people that everyone else can see, I do not want more sympathy. What I really want is to be somewhere alone, completely alone so that I can deal with what has happened to me. And by deal with, I mean disintegrate into a heap which is swallowed by the ground and never has to lift a tearful head again.

I cannot do that here. I cannot grieve in the midst of the grief of so many other people, my sadness is special, it is my own, I do not want to put it on display.

People have their arms around each other, many cry silent dusty tears. Above us the boom and rumble of battle is almost constant. I imagine giants striding around up there, feeing and fieing and foing and fumming, angrily pacing and cursing and drumming. Searching for blood, English or otherwise, but they will not find it, we are all down here.

"You okay luv?" asks a lady to my left who sat so silently in the near dark that I did not even know she was there. I can't speak, would be rude not to respond though. I consider a nod or a shake of the head. In the end I settle for a shrug.

"Where are your folks petal?" says the man next to her. They are holding hands. The dust covers them, there is no break in it, they have been holding hands for quite some time. I look back towards the escalator, I look back at the couple and point "Up there, and they're not coming to get me" says I. Acknowledgement of the fact, a tiny chink in the thin armour which I have been trying to coat myself in.

Some dusty tears fall, I feel sobs that I try to resist, it only makes them stronger. Two arms encircle me, I am a part of their circle of dust now. Perhaps it's safe to cry here, in the circle, just for a while...

Seconds. Hours. Days. I don't know. Raj is sleeping, I cannot see him, I can tell by the snoring. Lucy is awake. In the dead silence I can hear her biting at her fingernails, people don't do that in their sleep, not that I know.

"Lucy?" I ask the darkness.

"Yes luv?"

"How long have we been down here?" I ask.

"I still don't know Annabel." I am annoying her. I will leave her to her nail biting.

Platform vending machines have been broken into. Little people like me are fortunate, for there are still some threads down here, some little links to the old world. There is no greedy guzzling and snacking, meagre supplies are gathered, bottled water is pooled together. We take sips and nibbles, doled out by the people who control the torches, the ones with their fingers on the button. I don't know how long the civility will last. A part of me does not care.

I have been adopted down here in the dark, Lucy and Raj have taken me in. We have traded whispers, I now know them and they know me. Dad always told me not to talk to strangers, but that was another world. In this world, there are only strangers and if you don't talk to them then you're alone.

Lucy and Raj were teachers. They lived in south west London but fled to the middle of the city when everything started to melt down a couple of weeks ago. They thought that the centre of town would be secure, that the heart of government, the heart of the nation would be protected by strong ribs of metal and fire. How wrong they were, the fire burned brightest at the heart, which proceeded to pump out ash and agony with reckless abandon.

Now they're stuck with everybody else. Sometimes the odd sound from above reaches us. The explosive rumble of detonating ordinance. Screams, lone screams, the screams of the many.

Down here some people talk about going up the tunnels. They throw things on to the rails to see if the sparks fly. Eventually a brave soul climbs down. He does not die, there is no power in the third rail. The brave soul is joined by a couple of slightly less courageous hangers on. They are going to make their way up the tunnel, they are going to find help for the hundreds of souls under Canary Wharf.

Will we ever see them again? Time will tell and take its sweet time in doing so no doubt. Tick tock goes the clock, but then, then there is a new sound I think. I stand and walk closer to the platform edge. There is a scuttling squeaking sound. A big round man with a torch comes over.

"Bloody rats eh, just what we need" says he. A sleek grey form pitter patters from the tunnel. It meanders about down on the tracks for a while. It has spent its life in the darkness, its world has not changed. Then the rat climbs up on to the platform as it has done many times before in the after hours. The round man's shoe comes down with a loud, wet, crunch.

"That's that taken care of" says he. The round man smiles triumphantly, the human has killed the rat and now he thinks himself the master. I don't like the round man. But, my dislike of him does not ease the shock as a large form leaps from the darkness of the eastern tunnel and knocks him to the floor.

The round man is screaming, the screams are infectious. There is a scuffle. Lots of shouting and swearing, lots of kicking and punching and stamping. Torch light whizzes from side to side, it is difficult to see that is going on. Then. Then it is over, silence. Steady lights and a grisly scene, the round man has been opened. Some recoil from the blood oozing out of him. But most eyes aren't on the round man.

Most eyes are on the rat that killed him. The rat that the mob has collectively stamped to death. It is the size of a large dog, the tail must be over a metre in length, it has a lean muscular form and its blood wet front teeth are razor sharp, and almost a foot long.

Questions are asked, worried glances are exchanged. The rat stinks, there is much vomiting, though the round man's savaged corpse has probably caused some of that too. Then from behind me I hear a sound. Not a solitary squeak, nor a few lone claws scuttling. This is an ocean of sound, like a train, comprised of tens of thousands of claws and beady black eyes.

I run to Lucy and Raj who have woken up from the commotion.

"What is going on Annabel?" Lucy asks.

"There is no time for questions, only trust, and running, lots of running."

I try to drag them to their feet. The roaring noise is louder. Many torches now search the black pit that is the eastern tunnel. Lucy and Raj are on their feet and being reluctantly pulled to the west. Their reluctance dissipates a few moments later. Raj scoops me up in his arms and then we are away, down the western tunnel. For from the east there has emerged a tide of giant black rats, there are screams amidst the screeching, the feast begins.
Chapter 3, Leave it all behind

The three of us lay on the pavement, sucking in long, hungry gasps of acrid, smoke filled air. I look down the steps leading to Camden Town underground station. I expected to see the rats flowing up out of the pit. I expect them to come for me, to gnaw at me as they had done hundreds of others. But they do not. We have outrun them, for now.

Along the way many of those who fled Canary Wharf with us had been overtaken by the horde of long tailed monsters. As we'd run through other tube stations we saw thousands of other Londoners, we tried to warn them, but, we didn't stop, we couldn't. Sometimes they followed us, but we lost them all.

We'd turned this way and that in the dark maze of the London Underground until finally emerging in the northern part of the city. Night had fallen, real night, not the fake night that the smoky warfare brings.

"We need to hide" said Raj crawling over to me and helping me stand with him. Lucy climbed to her feet and the three of us staggered down a nearby alley and tried to get our bearings.

Whole streets are on fire, the sound of battle is constant, the ack ack ack of the machine gun permeates every thought. I do not know if we are winning but it sure doesn't feel like it. Raj manages to jimmy open a window. They pull me through it. Back in the darkness. Though this is a gloom that at least my eyes can adjust to. The orange glow of burning London eventually permeates the blackness.

We are in a small storeroom. Probably at the back of a shop of some kind. Its deserted, and fortunately for us still stocked. After a dinner of crisps and fizzy drinks I sink to the floor, such sugary delights might strive to keep me awake, but I have teetered on the edge of the deepest sleeps for too many hours, and my weariness will no longer be denied...

Sunlight, curious sunlight bouncing around inside an empty crisp packet, exploring the places where the darkness hid from it not so long ago, but that silvery cavern is just made for the light, which bounces happily between every fold and crinkle.

I sit up with a start. I know its silly of me to think it, but the world does seem ever so less threatening in the daylight. I look over at my companions, my protectors. They are still sleeping. I would put them both in their early thirties. Raj has a mound of unruly, curly black hair, and a friendly face, despite the daily growing count of worry lines. It is the kind of face that is made for smiling.

Lucy has light brown hair with a coppery edge to it. A few freckles lurk about her nose, she is pretty, at least that is what I can make out beneath the dust and soot from yesterdays escapades. They are both dressed casually, jeans and polo shirts, trainers and converse. They are dressed for casual strolling, very few people in our society seemed to have had the appropriate wardrobe for that 'end of the world' look.

Raj opens his eyes. There it is, that smile. Before words, before thought, he just beams at me and winks a brown eyed wink.

"Morning Annabel" he whispers.

"Good morning Raj" I whisper back.

"Morning luv" says Lucy rubbing the sleep from her eyes as they both sit up. Raj moves to the window and looks up and down the alley sniffing at the smoky air. Lucy prepares breakfast, I am being very generous with that term. She opens some crisp packets and gathers some bottled water.

"Have we got a plan?" says I. They look at each other. Raj rubs a hand through his stubble. "Is there anywhere you want to go Annabel, any family nearby that we can take you to?" he asks. I get a vague sense from his question that this is what they would like to do, I am a weak link in a small chain. Sadly I must disappoint them. I shake my head.

"There isn't anyone, we are...we were a small family. I think my Dad had a brother in Yorkshire, but they fell out a long time ago." They exchange another look. I wish I could be party to their secret language, comprised of facial expressions and a knowledge of what the other one is thinking just from experience.

"Then I guess we'll take you with us then luv, if that's okay with you?" says Lucy. I nod.

"To where?".

"Out of this city, before it claims us" says Raj ominously. We cram our pockets with snacks. Raj creates an impromptu rucksack out of his jumper which is loaded up with bottles of water. We make our way to the window, and back out into the big wide world...

The cadaver falls to the ground as Raj staves the back of its head in with a brick. The goth chick that it was about to savage shouts her thanks as she gets up and runs. Lucy is behind us despatching another of the grey hands with a heavy metal pipe. It would seem that the chaos has not subscribed to the idea of things calming down in the day.

We made it barely a few hundred metres from the shop when we ran into street battles between Camden residents and the undead predators who are trying to recruit them. I came here once with mum. She said it would help to broaden my horizons a bit to come to places like this. She used to tell me that dad would never bring me somewhere like this, that is not to say that the museums and art galleries which he took me to did not help to evolve my young mind. Mum just thought that balance was a good thing, that there are lots of different types of people out there, but despite those differences, the things we want are still essentially the same, and the only way to find that out was to meet them.

Back then Camden market had been a bustling maze of colours and smells and visual intrigues. Not now though. Gone were the tattoos, and the flashing lights and the music. Now there was just burning and death, all London was transforming into the same things. Ash and dust were becoming uniform, they were eroding the cultural diversity of this once great city.

We link hands and run once more. The streets pass us by, I steal glances as we cross them, people flee, cadavers follow. Of the army sent to save us I see no sign except for the occasional abandoned vehicle with bodies slumped over it. We debate acquiring a vehicle ourselves but there seems little point, the roads are filled with cars, abandoned, in flames, or just stationary roadblocks that we would spend more time navigating than if we just stayed on our feet.

We come to a crossroads and Raj looks up at the road signs.

"Lets stick to the A10, I used to live just off of it and I know it works its way right out of the city."

"Sounds good to me" shouts Lucy above the sound of several helicopters which come screaming overhead. I look up at them, bulky metal machines. Their side doors are open and they fly so low that I can see men leaning out of the door with their hands on large, terrifying looking machine guns. One of them looks directly at me through his aviator sunglasses. He gives me a thumbs up as they pass by. I don't know what to make of that, should it bring me hope?

Not long after they pass by we hear the guns open up. We don't want to hang around to find out whether or not they hit what they are shooting at. We join hands, we follow the signs for the A10 and mile by mile we flee the London burning.

We walked all day. As darkness fell on the Great Cambridge road I looked back. The skyline was different now. Many of the cities iconic towers were gone. Those which were still standing gave off huge plumes of smoke, it made the city look like it must have during older days when hundreds of chimneys pumped their waste into the air.

Jet planes and helicopters still hovered over the scarred metal heap that was London. I don't know why they still bother, the pyrrhic victory which is their only hope, will leave them kings of a mountain of fire and broken glass. There can be no hope, no salvation for the old world, it is gone, lost, sailed off down the river with the rest of the dead. The ferryman was doing a roaring trade, such a hefty handful of silver was his that it would likely sink him, along with all the souls he was collecting.

We hunkered down in an old shed on some allotments. We'd crossed over from the London of towers and money, now we were in the London of houses and gardens. Mile after mile of suburbs was what had met our eye for most of the day. There were still some people around, the odd curtain twitched. But most had fled the city for the apparent safety of the countryside.

There was no road any more, the traffic was total. A long line of cars that stretched as far as the eye could see. Plenty of them were occupied. No engines ran, people sheltered in their vehicles. They peered with hostility at us as we passed. Britons were all alone now, solitary lions in a pride of blind men and suspicion.

As Raj and Lucy settle down for an uncomfortable night on the shed floor I stare out of the dirty window, mesmerized by the sight of the city aflame. As the night rolls in I spy flashes in the sky. Balls of fire which fall to the ground. Here and there amidst the flames, I see things flying, not man made things any more. Things with wings that I try convince myself are not actually there despite the fact I'm looking at them. I think of the rats in the tunnel and shudder. More than the dead now occupy London, and all the might of mankind cannot hope to prevail.

We walk all the next day. Gradually even the suburbs thin out. Here and there we pass shopping centres, leisure parks and industrial estates. I can see the places where the government had set up temporary clinics. I can see how the carnage emanated out from them in a wave. Rolls of bloody bandages, spent gun cartridges and seas of barbed wire are an indication of how it all went wrong, of the consequences of the deathwalker virus gaining the upper hand.

Within the mounds of barbed wire things still struggle, made dead long ago, but they do not give up despite their predicament. They reach out to us, but they are trapped by the razor sharp coils that they fell into as the living.

We keep going. Until the flaming towers are just tendrils of smoke, until the suburbs and the motorways end, until there is a sea of green either side and a long grey road in front of us.

That night we shelter beneath the branches of an old oak tree. It had been a tiring day, a day of fighting cadavers, and running from cadavers. We sink down gratefully to the floor, ensconced in the false protection of the most ancient arboreal guardian. It is only then that we see it, a glow on the horizon.

Not the setting of the sun, for it was the wrong direction entirely. Nor the city of London on fire, for this light was too broad and too bright to have been that. Our ears made us think we heard something, far off booming noises. There are flashes on the glowing horizon, like lightning strikes that danced this way and that. We watch, mesmerized, until even the dream like fantasy isn't enough to keep us from the real thing, the deep, dark sleep we suffer.

We didn't know then. But what we saw was France, on fire. It would be aeons before anyone ever knew what happened that night, before the nationality of the submarines which had sat in the English Channel was revealed. Before the world knew the who and the why behind a devastating nuclear attack that vaporised millions, the living and the dead.

It was about half way through the morning of the next day when we reached the destination that we didn't know we'd been heading for. Raj didn't say what made him choose it, I dare say that if I'd asked him then he would have blamed gut instinct. Whatever the drive behind it, he suddenly started up a slip road, we'd passed many more on the tarmac trail behind but this one took his fancy. So we reached the top of it, and away to the east we saw a town nestled with the valley, and the signs read Hertford, historic county town.
Chapter 4, Change

An alarm went off as Raj broke the shop window. Lucy and I stood guard outside as he rushed in, several minutes passed before we saw the first of them, staggering down the high street in our direction. "They're coming" Lucy shouted into the shop. Raj emerged a few moments later carrying several heavily laden bags of shopping. A few dozen cadavers were heading our way, we easily outpaced them up the clear street before ducking down an underpass.

As we went through it I saw graffiti and cobwebs. I wonder what had become of the humans who wrote the words, young residents of the town who even now might be staggering after them. I did not have to wonder about the spinners of the webs, for they sat there still in the dark underpass, their many eyes observing dispassionately those of us who ran for our lives.

We'd been here a couple of days now and were beginning to get into a routine. Hertford was not a large town, but there was enough room for us to be able to outrun most of the cadavers we came across whilst on foraging runs.

We ran through the church yard and through the thick wooden doors into the church. The doors slammed shut and the heavy bar fell into place. Out of breath we sunk to the floor and examined the fruits of Raj's labour.

Tins of beans, tins of soup, tins of things I don't recognise, fair fare but nothing to write home about. Not that there would anyone to read about it if I did. Raj and Lucy tuck into some food. I leave them to it and make my way up the steps. We were fortunate that this church had a tall bell tower which reared high above the town. From it both sides of the steep valley and the town which wound its way along the river could be seen.

I look out over Hertford as I have done many times in the days we've been here. There are plenty of cadavers roaming the town, some in gangs, some solitary figures. Every now and then I see someone like us. Small groups of survivors who make smash and grab runs into the abandoned supermarkets and eateries. How long this kind of lifestyle can go on I do not know, eventually we will have leached everything from the town. The groups do as we do, the pull out of the town and flee back to their holdfasts, to their houses and flats, to their fortified positions beyond the reach of the grey hands.

I sigh as I hear footsteps making their way up the tower to meet me. It is not that I am ungrateful to them for getting me this far, but I find myself increasingly detached from them. I have a feeling that I am far more suited to this world than I realised I would have been. Lucy and Raj, they are a symbol of the world which has gone, I hear them sometimes, idly talking about rescue, and hope, and rebuilding. I do not engage them on such matters, once again I will not shatter the dreams of others without a solid dream of my own to take their place, which I do not have, just inklings, just sensations.

"Hey luvvie I brought you some soup" says Lucy squeezing past the giant bell and crouching down beside me. "Thank you" says I to her as she passes me the mug of cold tomato soup.

"See anything interesting?" says my freckled friend looking out over the town.

"More of the same, still plenty of people in town, running, hiding."

"Yeah" mused Lucy, "Maybe we'll see if we can meet up with some up them, would you like that?" she asks me. I shrug and look at her.

"I don't know if that's a good idea Lucy" says I.

"Why not luv?" she replies. I consider my answer carefully.

"We don't know who we might meet." Lucy looks surprised.

"Just people like us Annabel, people trying to survive, trying to weather the storm."

I shake my head.

"It isn't a storm Lucy, it's the way things are, and I don't think that there are many people like us left, a lot of the people who have survived, are hard people, the only kind of people who could have survived." She regards me for a few moments before chuckling and mussing up my long brown hair. "You are way too serious for one so young Annabel Benyion, we don't know what the futures going to be."

With that she gets up and leaves. I return to my pondering of the town. Here I spend the rest of the day. As the light fades I look to the centre of town. There is an old castle there, within the castle grounds there sits a mound that must have once been the motte. There stands atop the motte a lonely figure, not a cadaver for they cannot contain themselves to be still so long. This is a living being, and though he is far away I shrink back further into the shadow of the bell tower, for I am sure that he is staring right at me.

The hour is late. The stars twinkle through the stained glass. What has woken me? Suddenly a hand clamps over my mouth. I see Raj lifting a finger to his lips, I nod and he releases me from his grip and proceeds to do the same to Lucy. I can hear a noise from close to the front of the church. Very, very slowly I sit up. Our camp, such as it is, sits between two pews at the front of the church near the pulpit.

At the rear of the church near the large doors I can see figures moving around. They do not move like cadavers, they are looking with too great a purpose to be of the dead. A finger taps me on the shoulder and makes me jump. Raj indicates to follow and I do so with Lucy in tow.

We head to a reception room at the very front of the church. As quietly as possible Raj closes the door leaving a tiny gap through which he spies. I glance around the sparsely furnished room. On a wooden table at its centre sits a book. By the starlight I cannot make out the words in the book, but I suspect this to be the wedding registry, where the people who loved each other pledged that love before their god.

I tiptoe over to Raj and kneel down next to him. When suddenly a human eye appears in the tiny gap betwixt the door and the frame. I scream and jump back as a foot kicks the door and sends it flying open striking Raj in the face as it does.

A track suit wearing man enters. There is a look about him, a desperate look, a look of resolve. I glance at Lucy, my words about the nature of the people who have survived are coming to the forefront of both our minds. "Hiding in the dark eh" says the man. As he moves into the room I see he has a knife. A sinking, churning fear grips me. There is nothing to stop him any more, the beast in him has broken free of the chains which held it in life.

Then Raj is on his feet. The knife lunges forward, but my smiling friend blocks it, with surprising skill he twists the attackers arm forcing him to drop the blade. Then, three short sharp punches later and the assailant falls back through the doorway. As quick as a flash Raj and Lucy drag the wooden table in front of the door. No sooner has it settled into place that a banging on the door starts.

Swearing, shouting voices echo from the outside it. Raj and Lucy are struggling to hold them back. The pounding on the door is constant. I lift my hands to my ears to block it out. I step back away from them towards the fireplace. I find myself huddling down and pushing myself back, back into the sooty hole where it has been many months since a fire burned.

Do you believe in fate? Believe me now when I tell you that there are more destinies than stars, and one of them has just reached out to me.

A ring of iron sits on the wall on the inside of the fireplace. It calls to me, I reach up and take a hold of the cool metal, the heat of the fireplace is a distant memory to it, but the secret it holds is not. I turn the ring and to my surprise the wall inside the fireplace gives way to reveal a dark passage.

I look out under the lintel. They are being pushed back inch by inch. For a moment I truly ponder leaving them, but only for a moment, an instant of dishonour amongst many hours of something quite the opposite.

"Lucy, Raj" I shout for all my worth, "In here, quickly." There is something in my voice, the note of insistent urgency I have struck resonates with them. They give one last mighty shove back against the door before running into the fireplace. They follow blindly into the darkness, it will not be the last time. Though there may come a day when they regret not staying in that room and facing the human threat.

The stone doorway which let us through swings shut effortlessly with barely a brush of my hand. The noise of our attackers is instantly muffled. Though a part of me fears what will happen if they find the secret passageway, a deeper part of me knows they will not, that the ring and the door were presented to me and only me, and that for another it will be as if they did not exist at all.

A chorus of heavy breathing. It's the adrenaline I guess. We did not run far, but we ran with fear. "Annabel, where are we?" asks Raj.

"I don't know" says I trying to track his location in the utter pitch black of the tunnel.

"Perhaps it's an old priests hole" says Lucy.

"A what?" says Raj.

"A priests hole, an escape route for priests fleeing from persecution."

"Well" said Raj, despite the gloom I could tell he was smiling.

"Well what?" said Lucy.

"Well, I'm just amazed that history lessons have come in useful for something."

"I'm a great teacher" says Lucy, again, the crossed arms and cross looks are implied by the darkness.

"You are" says Raj.

"And History is a great subject to teach."

"It really is" says Raj. I don't have to be able to see to get a face full of the sarcasm rolling of his tongue. Lucy chooses not to respond vocally, but I suspect some hand gestures may have turned the black air blue.

"We need to move on" I say. I don't know why, but something is drawing me down the long tunnel through which I can feel a gentle night breeze blowing.

"Lead on chief" says Raj. I start to feel may way down the tunnel. Without thinking I reach back and locate Lucy's outstretched hand in the dark, I know that she is linked with Raj, and together we proceed down the tunnel.

It sloped downwards at first. I was half afraid that my feet would find a huge precipice and that we would be able to go no further. I tapped in front with each and every step but alas there did not seem to be any pits waiting for us. In fact as we went along my mind conjured many images of all the maladies that might just be sitting around in the dark waiting for me to tread on them. But not a squeak or growl did I hear, cobwebs, yes there were cobwebs galore, but that was to be expected, for what old tunnel in the dark would be complete without a cast of spiders.

The stone is cold and ever so smooth, I cannot tell if it was made that way, or if it has seen the passing of so many searching hands that they have worn it down over time. Either way I am not convinced by Lucy's priests hole theory. This is a Church of England, priests holes were predominantly the realm of catholic churches. I won't mention it though, this does not seem like the kind of time to be scoring points against teacher.

I am uncertain for how much time we have been going down and along, but all of a sudden the dark is not so total. I can see a hand in front of my face, I can see two shadows bobbing along behind me. And slowly but surely there comes to my eyes a faint, glowing orange light.

We emerge into a large underground chamber. Six lanterns flicker without smoke in the walls. The chamber is around twenty metres across. There's a broken table, several piles of straw, a bookshelf bereft of books, and a fireplace which burns happily without intervention from mortal hands.

We look at each other and the chamber in wonder. Several other passages lead away from it, similarly clad in darkness as the way down which we had just come. The walls are smooth stone but the roof is earth and I can see tiny roots here and there hanging down like spindly stalactites.

Lucy and Raj are talking, and gasping in amazed awe at what we have found. But I have no time for awe, something is calling to me, something that speaks louder than the utterances of my friends or the crackling of the fire.

By some force I am drawn across the the room to the bookshelf. I was wrong, it is not lacking in books. A single tome sits there, as my hands touch the ancient leather cover I feel an electrical crackle that is not altogether unpleasant, it is but one of a number of sensations, the predominant one being a feeling that I am being greeted by the oldest of friends. The golden writing on the front is faded but still legible.

The Raven and the Wolf

A tale of real fiction by Atticus Faraday

As my hands turn the pages it feels like I am parting a sea somewhere, and all the majesty that lay beneath the water comes flooding my way.

'If you have found me then I am glad, though what's on these pages may make you sad'

Without a word I go to the fireplace. I sit and I begin to read.
Chapter 5, Winter

Have you ever tried describing an epiphany to anyone? Ever tried really nailing down that moment of inspiration, extracting it from itself and painting it into a picture that can be fathomed by a mind that is not yours. It's not easy is it? Raj and Lucy found my behaviour strange. And it was. But since the death of my parents I'd been seeking comfort, seeking solace. Within the pages of Atticus Faradays book I found it. Within its pages were the words of a man who had been to places he should never have been. Atticus Faraday had seen behind the curtain, and the secrets of the machinery of the universe which he'd gleaned had, in many ways, made him an enemy of it.

I'm going too fast. I know. But even that seems kind of slow.

Raj, Lucy and I wintered in the cave beneath Hertford. We explored the other passageways and found them to be part of a network which seemed to snake its way under the entire town. I feel bad, for I did not pull my weight. Raj and Lucy would explore frequently. They came back with maps and over the winter months we gradually built up a picture of the whole of the cave network. There were a couple of places where the roof was caved in, and we will never know what lay on the other side.

Raj and Lucy had questions. They wanted to know how I found this place, they wanted to know who made it, and most of all they wanted to know what treasures lay within the pages of the book that made it so valuable that I would not put it down. I could not answer their questions, not in any way that would make sense even in this mad world. All I tried to convey to them was this, strange as things may seem, life down here was far preferable to life up there, a fact with which they could not but agree.

That is not to say that we did not venture above ground. Lucy and Raj would often go off, to forage for supplies or to spend time alone as love seems to want to do when it finds a couple of people who let it in. I valued those times greatly, for then it was only me and Atticus in the cave and I could hear him that bit more clearly.

I tried, once, in midwinter to venture out myself. Raj had found a number of trapdoors atop ladders leading out into the world from various nexus points. The closest one was just off of the cave and opened out to behind some rocks in the castle grounds.

The snow had been falling heavily and Raj convinced me that it had been many days since he'd spotted a cadaver. But, well I must have a penchant for attracting the dead. For I'd bundled myself up in the many layers of clothing which my defenders procured for me, and climbed up out of the cave in order to sit upon a rock, bask in the winter sun and take in some crisp, cold air.

It felt like I had only been up there a few minutes when from the castle garden there came an irregular crunching noise. I knew that something walked upon the ice, something with a random, wounded gait. Across the white field it made its way to me. Blood dripped from its pores, why do they always seem to be bleeding? Even when it has been many days since the last time they drew blood from another, still a sanguine saliva seems able to gather in their maws.

Most of the lower half of its face was in bits, whether through an over enthusiastic feeding frenzy or because it picked on the wrong human I don't know. I wasn't sure how it intended to bite me, but it was an embrace I was keen to avoid regardless. I found myself paralysed as it came closer. But not by fear.

I'd learned so much already from the book I held tightly to me. Profound knowledge, profound thoughts on things such as the time that Atticus Faraday broke the dawn and spent all day putting it back together. In the light of the brilliance of this man who was taking my mind on an incredible journey, the thing in front of me seemed ridiculous. It was less than human, less than an animal, less than anything.

The beauty of form that it once possessed was a memory, its own memories were not even that, they were virus ridden, shredded pieces of grey matter which contained nothing. It's love was gone, its education lost, I do not think they even breathe. They are the detritus of the world. Yet we run from them, we run lest we become like them. It seems obscene to me that mankind must flee such low, base creatures as the cadavers.

Raj screamed as he leapt forward and bashed the beasts head in with a rock. It fell down in the snow and my friend looked at me.

"Why didn't you run?" he asked incredulously.

"I felt I shouldn't have to any more" came my exasperating reply. He shook his head. A line of fellow cadavers was making its way across the ice. They smelt blood. Raj picked me up and almost threw me down the hole back into the cavern network. That was my only sojourn all winter, I was not saddened by this, for it allowed me to spend my time by the fireplace getting more acquainted with Atticus.

There were some tricky conversations. Lucy and Raj wanted to know how the fire in the fireplace kept on burning without any of us adding fuel. Raj almost pulled the cave apart looking for pipes leading to gas cylinders. His search for a rational explanation came up with nothing. Lucy would purse her lips and tap her foot a lot, she would voice wild ideas about optical illusions or a naturally occurring phenomenon.

I could feel the heat, and whether or not the fire was natural or otherwise did not bother me in the slightest. It was keeping us warm through the harsh winter, for me that was enough of an explanation of its existence. To probe further, seemed almost rude, an ingratitude of sorts.

The lanterns were equally baffling but their light was oh so welcome; so, what did it matter? I read by that light for many hours and that was all I needed. On several occasions my compatriots tried to borrow the book from me, I think I frightened them a little with my vehemence. Apologies were issued, and they promised to let the matter lie provided I did not try and bite them again or kick them in the shins.

I was an only child but that did not mean mum and dad didn't frequently share with me the importance of sharing. But this book, this book was my lifeline to the stars, it was all the stepping stones stacked upon each other, and atop them I was able to see everything that I needed to see. I was graced by the light of heaven almost at its source, and it was selfish of me but yes, I was not willing to share it, at least not yet.

I would like to be able to convey to you the entirety of the genius that is Atticus Faraday, but books within books are like dreams within dreams, confusing and shrouded in secrets built on mysteries. Also, despite having spent several months on what is a relatively small volume, I have not reached the end. Each time I come close some new chapter opens out on me, some new saga with unstoppable ink weaving its way through every page.

There is something else I have noticed too, as winter was worn on and waned. There is a familiarity about the tales that Atticus is telling me. Some resonance that I cannot quite place. His journey is an incredible one, to move from the first place where there was only darkness, along the first ray of light and beyond; into all the things it brought with it.

But it is not this part of Atticus' journey which reminds me of something, it is his tales of fallen worlds, of chaos, and the dead who have risen. It is his stories of heroes in black and evil which looked with green eyed envy upon a good it would never be a part of. I would occasionally probe Lucy on some of the wonderment within the book, to see if it had any basis in historical fact. It didn't seem to however, she told me that there were similarities, that The Raven and the Wolf might be hinting at allegory, but what the intent and meaning behind his work might be none of us could say.

Winter ended, as all good winters do. Spring was in the air, its freshness even found a way down to me in the cave. The ice retreated, the snow retired for a time. The world was bright, and sadly still filled with the dead.

Lucy and Raj started to plan, they wanted to find out what had happened to Britain, to the British people and that which they held dear. For Lucy and Raj what had occurred was a storm, they wanted to see if it was over, they wanted to see if the infection had burned itself out, and which parts of the world survived in its wake.

I was reluctant to leave. For me the world ended, I was not keen to look upon what remained, not when at the heart of it I knew there would be the staring dead eyes of the ones I'd loved. However my opinion was eventually swayed. Not by Lucy and Raj, nor by the dwindling food and water supplies. No, the decision to leave Hertford came about as the result of a dream, and a call for help which I could not ignore.
Chapter 6, She screams

I can't see her properly. It is like I am staring at her through a waterfall. I know she is waving her arms. I think she is trying to signal to me, but I just cant seem to focus on her. I am sure it will not surprise you to learn that all winter, each night I have slept with my old leather bound copy of 'The Raven and the Wolf' in my arms.

I did so this night, however unbeknownst to the sleeping me, the book and my skin with it had grown very warm.

She is still waving, and now I can hear her, she calls in warbles and hisses. It is like hearing a robot from a long way away. Suddenly the wall of shimmering liquid through which I am staring at her turns red. Her severed arm comes flying through the waterfall. It falls at my feet and is shortly joined by the other arm.

The rest of the dream figure throws herself towards me, and lands at my feet in bits and pieces. The only part I can make out with any clarity is the face. The perfectly preserved face of a pretty girl who is smiling at me. However, despite her smile, I can hear her screaming, screaming with an agony that defies any sound that I have heard in the last nightmare ravaged year of existence.

Suddenly the waterfall changes colour again. Now it is green, a shimmering emerald green. On the other side of it I see a shadow, a vast form that seems to me from my disadvantaged point of view to represent a great bulbous worm.

The shadow starts to move closer. Then I hear her voice.

"Ravensburg" she screams at me "Ravensburg, Ravensburg, Ravensburg" each time louder, each time more insistent. Then the shadow bursts through the waterfall, I am showered in blood...

And it is at this point I wake up thrashing around in the cave with Raj and Lucy desperately trying to calm me down.

"Chill out luv, it's just a dream" says Lucy, cradling a shaken me in her arms. I have had dreams which felt real before, and dreams in which I knew I was dreaming, but nothing like this had ever assailed the night time hours in such a way.

Fate is like a circuit which needs to be a closed link in order for it to be connected. For me, the dream was the last switch. For ten chapters and ten more after that Atticus Faraday wrote about the ravens tower. He talked about the kings and torturers that occupied it, about the drunks who wear faded glory and the killers who wore the night.

"We have to go to Ravensburg."

"Where?"

"Ravensburg."

"I gotta ask sweet, where's that and why have we got to go there?" says Raj giving Lucy a look. I know what they are thinking, the dream addled girl, still clutching to the edges of her nightmare, she needs to let go.

I shrug off Lucy's embrace and go over to the bookshelf. To stave off cabin fever Raj has been raiding the towns book shops, and possibly some of the empty homes I suspect, and he'd built up quite a library. I am not the only reader in the cave. One of the tomes he has picked up, which I must remark is far less interesting than 'The Raven and the Wolf' is an A to Z of Great Britain.

My hands tremble as I thumb through the pages. Two curious shadows fall over me, keen to see where my agitation and excitement lead. It takes me a while to find it, I am dealing with a mystery, a quandary and a riddle all rolled into one. Perhaps I will call it a mysdariddle. Perhaps I will not. How is it, that such a fantastic tale such as the one written by Atticus Faraday, can contain hints of such truth?

How is it that the words I read have leaked into my dreams, only to spill back out into the real world in a different form? Perhaps I am dressing up a coincidence as something else. Passages from Faradays neverending book leapt unbidden to my mind;

'And all the lands of Mercurions Gate were plunged into a darkness where only the dead could see and feel'

'A dark clad angel descended from the scorched heavens, he gathered the children of the future at Ravensberg, and as one they sailed across the sea to the dead kings isle, where eternity would be met'

Finally my shaking finger was calm as it pressed upon the page of the map. "Ravensburg is here" says I "and it is here that we must go." Again they swap looks, damn I wish I could hear their secret language.

"Honey, you've had a bad dream, it's okay.." begins Lucy, kneeling next to me.

"You think, that I have had a bad dream, and now I've suddenly woken up and want to go to the other side of the country because of it?" I interrupt her.

"It does seem a tad like that Annabel, why don't you tell us about the dream?" asks Raj. I don't want to tell them about the dream, with my eyes wide open now I can still see it, the severed yet smiling head yelling at me. I can still sense the immensity of the evil that came at me, that drove me from my sleep.

"If we stay here we will die" I say simply.

"That's a horrible thing to say Annabel" says Lucy, her patience has always been thinnest, whereas Raj has always absorbed the oddities of my behaviour with a smile and a shrug; but, sometimes I needle her, I know this.

"If we leave we may well die too" says Raj. He uses logic, a clever move.

"A choice between certain death and maybe death is no choice at all" I counter.

"We have only your word that death here is certain, this place has kept us alive all winter, why do you doubt it now?". He is winning. Scoring more logic points. I want to tell him that I have a very strong feeling, I want to tell him that, I am almost completely certain that Atticus Faraday died in this cave. I want to tell him that there is no permanent sanctuary in a world where evil dwells with such all pervading, terrifying eminence.

I want to be able to convince him that only by staying ahead of the wave will we avoid being crushed and broken by it.

But all I have are feelings, and senses. All I have are the tatters of dreams and some coincidences in a book. I am desperate for something that will help me to convince two mortal adults to leave a place which, as Raj quite rightly states, has kept them alive all through the winter at the end of the world. I have only one choice left, it's not one which I want to make.

"Then I will go alone." From Lucy I get scepticism, from Raj, worry. There are pangs of guilt, certainly, at making him feel like that, at doing what I am about to do. I collect the book and don a large red duffel coat.

"Don't be silly Annabel" says Raj as I start to walk out of the cave down one of the passageways. They follow. I get to the point where one of the hatches that leads to the outside lay above me. I put one hand on the rung of the wooden ladder. Lucy's hand grips my wrist. I let go of the ladder, drop the book and slap her as hard as I can across the face.

"You.." she gasps, "You horrible little shit."

"I'm going and there is nothing you can do to stop me, I am as free as you."

"Please Annabel, don't do this, we've looked after you" says Raj the placater.

"How is letting me going off on my own looking after me?" says I. The shame of what I am saying, burns.

"Please" he says "Let's go in and talk about it." He puts a hand on my back. I go dizzy, an image flashes into my mind; I see Raj, dead eyes staring up at me. The dizziness tows with it a nausea. A few deep breaths. I look at Raj, suddenly terribly afraid of what I'm doing.

"How did you do it?" I ask Raj with a memory of him popping into my head.

"How did I do what?" he replies.

"In the church, when the man attacked us, you disarmed him, and drove him off, it looked easy, how did you do that?".

"I study, studied martial arts, back when, back in the time...before." He looks pained. My selfishness is so stark, even I cannot fail to notice. All this time I have spent with Lucy and Raj, they comforted me, they asked so many questions about me and my life. They were adopting me through shared memories, trying to help me out of the mire. And I'd reciprocated so little, the knowledge that they had each other had somehow blinded me to everything else that they'd lost, the lives they left behind.

I lift a pale hand to his face. "Raj, I am so sorry, but I need you. And I need you to understand, I can't do it without you, but that won't stop me from trying." It wounds him, these things I say. Lucy is still holding a hand to her face. She is on the middle ground now. I think, as upsetting as it might be in the short run, that she believes it might be better to just let me go.

But Raj tells a different story, it is in a resigned sigh, slumped shoulders and a sullen tone as he says to me "Okay, we will leave, together, when we're all ready."
Chapter 7, Bound

Hertford was stripped of its usefulness. Bags were crammed, clips snapped shut, a very special book was wrapped and protected and nestled under my thick coat.

We walk, we walk to you destiny, will you meet us half way or will we have to track all the way into the darkness in order to draw you out?

Lucy held the map. She was our navigator. Her reluctance to come had been evident in those last hours as we counted down to leaving the cave. But she was very much in love with Raj, and there were no paths down which she would not tread to be at his side.

I felt pangs of regret at leaving the cave, there was an essence of peace there, which I knew we would not find again. Regardless of any success the mission might bring, there was no haven which would ever hold us quite us snugly and as safely as the cave beneath Hertford.

This was a new day and every road we walked down was a new road. It felt like an adventure, albeit an incredibly dangerous one. But as the minutes ticked by, I started to feel better and better, the sun held my chin in its tender grip and decided that I needed more. Using Raj's knowledge of the cave network we'd exited through one of the portals as close to the edge of town as possible.

As we climbed a thinly wooded hill I looked back at the town. There was no movement, perhaps winters hand had scraped the town clear of all its infections, perhaps the cadavers were frozen statues in the towns square, perhaps the living still hid.

The first day was uneventful. The office of an abandoned petrol station was our refuge for the night. Pumps still hung from cars, but the juice had stopped flowing a long time ago, and whoever held the handle was long since gone, chased away by whatever had come upon it so suddenly.

There were a few bodies dotted around the forecourt, but time dealt with them, its thin, probing fingers had peeled apart the physical makeup of the former human beings. It would continue its grisly task, assisted by workhorses of nature, until only bones remained. Then slowly but surely it would whittle away at them, returning them to the dust of the world.

As we huddled under the torchlight looking at the map my heart sank. We'd walked all day with minimal breaks, yet barely covered an inch of ground on the map. The realisation dawned on me that it would take weeks to reach the Lake District.

"Happy?" asked Lucy reading my reaction.

"Leave it Luc" said Raj. Lucy's scowl continued long after the lights went out.

Day after day we plodded. Where we could we followed the main roads, but sometimes obstacles, both natural and unnatural forced us off-road into the undergrowth. There was the occasional cadaver incident. What is left of the human race is extremely lucky that these are such dumb creatures. In the cities, in the midst of all that writhing flesh, the cadaver is at the top of the food chain.

They turn quickly, those who are bitten and scratched, one becomes hundreds within a matter of minutes, within the concrete walls of civilisations grandest abodes. But, out here, the scales are even. For they have no guile nor cunning, they do not lay traps, nor do they lay in wait, they see as far as the next meal and that is all. If you can think at all then you can out think them.

So we played elaborate games of hide and seek, the stakes were high but we did not lose. Behind trees we would hide and lure our prey, then a rock would cave a skull, a knife would pierce a brain, an iron bar would dismember through blunt force. And so we carried on, where we could win we fought, and where we might lose, then we were never there to fight at all. We were the shadows in the trees, lighter and more fast flowing than the breeze.

Sometimes we caught sight of other people. Contact was minimal, we all remembered the lack of civility which humans displayed towards each other before, we could only imagine what we might have in store for each other now; now that justice and retribution were gone. We did not want to find out if there was any darkness in their hearts, and they did not want to fall under the shadow of ours. So we avoided them, we laid no traps, nor did we lend any blessings.

We three had each other, and as small as our clade seemed, it felt like enough for now.

A week into our journey we encountered...something.

Raj was on point, we'd all fashioned impromptu walking sticks. They knocked the dew from the grass, they took our weight and helped forge the path ahead. It was a sunny day, not the kind of day where you imagine evil will take the stage, I imagine that it would wait for cloudier, darker times.

We are approaching a motorway junction. Raj has procured a pair of binoculars from one of the hundred thousand abandoned cars we have passed along the way. He seems to spend as much time looking through them as he does his own eyes. A road weaves its way from the junction up to a service centre. It looks to be a big one, I can see the golden arches, and the logos from a dozen other branded chains.

"What do you think?" asks Lucy from behind me.

"I think we're running low on water" says Raj from behind the binoculars.

"I meant.."

"I know what you meant" he says. Things have been strained between them since we left the cave, the responsibility is mine, yet they both carry it too, without knowing. He turns. My smiling man is tired, too often does he volunteer himself as night watchmen. Too often does he sit up, looking at the stars. We were gone from under their gaze for so long, I wonder with what kind of curiosity they look back at us, certainly they do not lend us strength, for each night Raj spends under their glare his strength is waning.

"I can't see anything, but that works both ways. It's a risk. I will go alone". I shook my head while Lucy voiced the words we were both thinking.

"No way, three sets of eyes, three sets of ears, three sets of weapons, remember?" she says pulling a large kitchen knife from her belt to emphasise the point. Fashion is gone, we dress for the world we are in, clothes are items of practicality, they are disguises and barriers against the world. Comfort and style have gone the way they needed to go.

Raj lifts his hands "Okay" says he. A strong man and a weak man all rolled into one, he cannot deny his ladies, where our reason may fail our strength of will overcomes him every time. On this occasion it is both.

We circle the perimeter of the service station until we are at the back of the complex. We help each other over the fence and creep across the service yard at the rear of the large building which has a tall glass pyramid on top of it. I gag at the smell from the waste bins, filled with rotten, putrescent slime that is swimming with maggots.

The back door is open, darkness streams through it. Our eyes adjust as we creep through the portal. We have entered a kitchen behind one of the fast food takeaways. Once a beehive of grease, shouting, and rampant consumerism; now, there is a solemn silence, an acknowledgement by the cluttered work surfaces and rusting cooking implements that they will never feel the heat again. The taps, like most of those we have come across, dribble out a dark brown sludge that would likely kill us as quickly as dehydration.

The mouldy fridge is empty, we will have to explore beyond the realm of the king of burgers. The counter creaks as we climb over it. There is less darkness here. Sunlight streams in through the dirty glass of the pyramid. The vending machines have been smashed to pieces, we are not the first to have come across this place, though we will likely be the last to retrieve anything of use from it.

We have better luck in the newsagents. There was obviously a fight in the refrigerated section. The remnants of a corpse are there, where it has rotted away we spy several bottles of water in the folds of its clothes. He or she fell upon these, in their dying moments they covered over this precious resource, and only in the wasting away of their form have the bottles been revealed. Once the gore has been wiped away from the plastic, they look like new, and are stowed safely in back packs, after a quick, guilty guzzle.

As we leave the newsagents to cross the foyer a sound grabs out attention. Half a dozen figures, loitering just beyond the smeared glass of the non functioning automatic doors, while one of their number attempts to jimmy them open.

Seconds to react. Panic, rushing blood, adrenaline. I run across the foyer. The door breaks open, I turn in the dark portal, I can see Raj and Lucy. Oh my god, they didn't run with me. They stayed on the other side of the foyer, they are hunkered down behind some counters beckoning furiously at me to run to them.

A group of men has walked in through the doors, they are armed. I can't take the chance, I just can't. I shake my head at my comrades, I back further into the darkness and slink into the rest room.

The windows in here are tiny slits through which little light can pour. I can hear walking and talking coming from the foyer. I hope that my friends will be okay, I hope that they will take no risks for me. Untreated septic tanks have seized the air inside the dank toilets. As I creep forward through slimy puddles which are made up of things I don't want to think about, I turn to look in one of the mirrors.

There is a figure there, one who is not me. I freeze in fear, but there is something I recognise about the form. I turn, ever so slowly to where they should be standing. There is no one in the rest room with me, I turn back to the mirror which tells a different story. As my eyes adjust to the darkness my focus and concentration on the figure in the mirror becomes greater. Then I see that it is her, the dismembered girl from my dream. She speaks, with clarity and urgency. "Hide, it is coming."

She doesn't have to tell me again. I splash through the puddles into one of the cubicles. I shut the door quickly and quietly behind me, before closing the loo and climbing up onto the seat. Seconds tick by, I am listening intently, listening in the direction of the foyer, for the men who entered there. But, when I do hear a sound, it is not from that direction, it is coming from the far end of the expansive rest room, from a dark corner that I never laid eyes on.

The smell from the loo was enough to make me gag, but it was almost like a breath of fresh air compared to what came next. An odour that filled every pore. A scent so foul that for weeks it would linger with me, to be in the same room as its source, was to feel like it was pouring off of me. And as for that source.

Well, all I can see is blurry, slow movements in the dark. The shadows grow deeper, for whatever is out there, whatever makes the stench, has arrived before the cubicle in which I cower. I hear a scraping, a sharp, probing, scratching noise on the door. I hear a talon probing curiously outside the locked cubicle.

Then there is a shout from the foyer. The claw retracts from the door, the slow heavy thing starts to move away. It seems to suck the darkness along with it, the pondering, thudding footsteps are a testament to the weight and bulk of the stench creature. A cadaver perhaps, I tell myself this, as if the thought of the cadaver is somehow less horrifying than the unknown.

The odour drifts away along with the sound of the creature. Against my better judgement I slink out of the cubicle and slowly step along after the beast. Cadavers are thin. Even the grossest and most overweight individuals tends to shift their bulk once they join the ranks of the dead, once they start to gorge on a new kind of meat. Whatever it is moving away from me out into the lobby area, it's big, and it smells worse than death.

An overcast sky has formed above us. The darkness has increased in tone. Spidery shadows have became bloated whales of gloom. I exit the rest room to the sound and scene of violence. Lucy is dragging Raj through broken glass and discarded toys. Back towards the land of the king of burgers they go.

I run towards them. As I go I try to take in the scene unfolding close to the front doors. The men who broke in are fighting, and dying. Try as I might I find it difficult to focus on their foe. Because it doesn't make sense. It fails to fit with any of the dimensional norms of the kingdoms of earth, human and natural entities.

It's torso is huge, a hunched rippling mass of armour plated muscles that look like they're being held together with crooked metal staples, as the creature breathes the plates flex and part in places, to reveal a glowing, red, oozing mass underneath. The two arms which emerge from that, are each split into four other arms at the elbow, each of these is currently engaged in acts of violence.

Several of the already dead men are being held down on the ground by those arms, they are convulsing, in a way that looks as if something is being pumped out of their bodies. In the time it takes me to run across the foyer and start helping Raj over the counter all of the men are truly dead, and being drained by the bulky creature which turns on its grey, tree trunk legs.

As I climb over the counter I steal a glance I cannot give back. Its eyes are glowing red coals, it makes no move towards me, instead it smiles, row upon row of broken jagged yellow teeth. A pointed tongue all covered in boils takes a long, lingering lick over those teeth. I take one more quick look down at its victims, which are now paper thin husks on the ground, I leap down behind the counter and follow my comrades out into the woods. Hell has spilled over. And it stinks.
Chapter 8, Shepherd

"It's not that bad" says Raj as Lucy and I sit dabbing at the nasty cut on his head.

"Can you see it?" asks Lucy.

"Nope" says reluctant Raj.

"Then be quiet" says his lady. I don't know how many miles we covered after leaving the services, but it was enough that we collapsed in an exhausted heap, with no breath left to talk about what we'd seen. I just about got enough out of them to know that rather than leaving me they'd revealed themselves to the marauders in an attempt to reason with them. That didn't go too well as evidenced by the nasty cut Raj had taken from a swung crowbar.

Fortunately our friend from the cesspit had emerged at that particular moment and the fight had taken on a whole other persona. We steered the conversation away from the creature. We allowed our concern to take precedence, we lost ourselves in the trickle of blood on Raj's face, we set our sights on stemming the tide, we focused our attention on very human concerns, and let the other stuff deal with itself for a while.

We managed to get to an old farm that night. Aside from the fact that it was deserted, and that in the corner of a nearby field there was a pile of carcases that I hope used to be cows, there was little sign of the troubles here.

We settled down in an empty stable with some passably soft straw. Some might have made for the farmhouse and the thought of comfortable beds, but none of us knows what lays behind the curtains, beyond the front door. None of us knows what might come looking in the night. Beds do not have the safety they once did, robbers are far less likely to search the old abandoned barn.

Raj fell asleep quickly, Lucy not long after. I watched them for a while. I listened to their beating hearts and grew envious of their held hands. What love would I know? What love would be left to me in this world? What they have is so valuable. Yet I risk it.

I waited until their eyes blinked rapidly through a kaleidoscope of dreams, then I snuck out into the night. I found an old lantern, which though reluctant, eventually by luck and many matches was able to shine a light for me. I sat in another old shed, with only the spiders for company I opened the book and bathed myself in the words of Atticus Faraday. But this time I did not read forward. I flipped back through the infinite pages, looking for a memory of that already read. It did not take me long to find it, the passage I sought;

'With eyes that glowed like mountain fire they came, the wrothclida stomped down the hillside, and the Huntsman charged up to meet them. And though the armour of the wrothclida was strong the Huntsman would not be swayed from the purge, the foul stench of the wrothclida was gone from the world for now, no more would they draw life from another, not in this cycle, not in this age'

Glowing eyes, foul smelling, armoured creatures. I closed the book. Am I grasping at straws? Seeing coincidence for more. But there is more, more to this world than I ever knew before, more horror, yes. But there is mystery in horror, fascinating, terrifying mystery. I walked back to the stable. I doused the flame and settled down with Raj and Lucy. When I fall asleep it is by their side, when I wake I am nestled between them, warm and content, if only for a moment or two.

It took us quite a while to get back on track, to locate an identifying landmark that was on Lucy's map. But eventually we found the motorway again. We decided to steer clear of any more service stations. We looked for streams. We were moving beyond the days where we quibbled about the freshness of what came out of them. It was water, it kept us alive, bacteria was a lesser concern.

The days moved along with the miles. By night, in delight, by candle light and bright moonlight, I would read more of what Atticus Faraday once did write. I fell in love with a book. I was afraid, and intrigued, mystified and inspired by 'The Raven and the Wolf'. Who was Atticus Faraday and why did so much of what he wrote seem to bear more than a passing resemblance to the changing world of today?

A number of inches across the map later and we finally reached the borders of the Lake District. Despite none of us being any the wiser about what we would find when we got there, it felt good to be making progress. I'd seen the dismembered girl several more times, always in my dreams, and fortunately all in one piece. She did not say anything, she just stood at the edge of my other fantasy, watching and smiling, and learning. I was not afraid of her, just curious if anything.

Then one night, as we camped just off the M6 near Crooklands, she talked to me again. In my dream I sat atop a vast tower, so large that whole nations could have lived in its shadow. I dangled my feet off one of the wings which protruded from it, when she sat down beside me, and dangled too.

"Hello" she said to me.

"Hi" I said back. We just sat for a while. Around the base of the tower the land moved under the foot of an army of monsters. They battered with claw and club at the tower, it stared down at them impassively. Then, from the skies around the tower there descended thousands of metal ravens. They flew down to the army below, they unleashed fire from their claws and beaks and all was returned to normal.

"Thank you" I said to her.

"For what?"

"For warning me at the service station."

"That's okay, you would have done the same for me," she smiled.

"Yes, I would have done, but then I couldn't, because I'm not like you."

"No, you're not Annabel, and that's no bad thing, believe me."

"Are you a dream?"

"No."

"Then what are you?"

"I am an old shadow, a memory of the world that has not yet faded."

"What is your name?" I ask her.

"My name is Ellie." We enjoy some more silence. The monsters roll in around the tower, more battles are fought. This time the inhabitants of the tower also march on the enemy with towering metal giants which carve the enemy, the land, and the ash into one with their giant weapons.

"I have to go now Annabel" says the girl next to me. I nod. "Tomorrow you are going to meet somebody, you don't need to be afraid of him." Then she is gone. As is the tower. I wake up in the old pill box, aches and shivers greet me. I spare a moment to contemplate our grandfathers, sitting in such shelters up and down the country, waiting for an enemy that never came. Well ours did, and we didn't have you to defend us.

We started our days march. I gave very little thought to the dream and this person who she said I was going to meet. Not that is until I nearly bumped right into him.

"Shit" said Lucy going for the knives at her belt, Raj reached for his metal pipe.

"You won't need those my friends" said a figure sitting on a bench but a few feet away. Once we got over the initial shock of seeing him things started to calm down. He was fairly normal looking. Old, grey hair, quite thin. But friendly. He was wearing a long, weather beaten sea jacket that was probably green before it was faded and grey. He wore Wellington boots and a flat cap and sticking out of his mouth was a pipe.

Next to him sat a dog, also quite ancient looking, I couldn't tell you the breed, a mix of this and that, third generation mongrel and not bothered in the slightest. He sat there with his long floppy ears and paid us very little notice.

"Sorry mate" said Raj "We're just not used to bumping into people on the road these days."

"Times have made you wary my friend, no bad thing, certainly no reason to apologise for your vigilance." There was silence. For two of us it was awkward. For two of us it was a natural interlude, a period where we allowed time to speak for itself.

"Well" said Lucy "This has been nice but I think maybe we're going to..."

"Leave an old man sitting alone?" said the man.

"You've got a dog" said Raj.

"My best friend" said the old man. "But conversation does tend to lag at times." The old man stood. He was very tall, and he had an expensive looking black cane which had a metal silver bird at the top of it, around which his old gnarled hand was curled.

"Perhaps I could walk with you a while, you won't begrudge me that surely? We've all gotten lost in this new world, perhaps the crossing of our paths might be permitted for a mile or two, just to pass the time." I looked at Raj and smiled my approval. The dog wagged his tail.

"Alright then..?"

"Joe" said the old man handing out a hand which Raj took and shook firmly. So we walked, so we talked. Joe seemed like a nice man, and his dog Percy didn't take long until he was licking hands and chasing sticks.

"Where are you from Joe?" asked Lucy.

"North of here, by a long way."

"And your heading south?" she asked.

"Not heading anywhere really, just wandering, for the sake of the wander."

"Bit of a dangerous time to have taken up rambling isn't it?" laughed Raj.

"Bit of a dangerous time to have taken up anything, I was a walker before all this happened" he said gesturing to the world with his hand as if he was talking about a new housing estate or a bypass being built. "And I will be a walker forever more."

We continued to chat amiably as we went along and moved onto a dirt track going through some woodland. Our eyes still scanned the horizon constantly. Hands were drawn with every flicker and rustle in the trees to the weapons we carried. Somehow though Joe had a relaxing effect on the whole group. Perhaps it wasn't him, perhaps it was Percy, perhaps having a dog running around wagging his tail was helping to remind people of better days.

As we went further Raj and Lucy started to drop back. I turned to them, Raj smiled to me. They held hands and whispered in each others ear. The road ahead was long and clear. I turn away from them.

"So Annabel" said Joe. "I've told you where I'm going, albeit it that place is nowhere, what about you, where is the wanderlust taking you?"

"To Ravensburg" I tell him.

"And what is at Ravensburg?" he asks. Should I be suspicious of this old man? Time has taught me to suspect everyone, but there is no secret to be told, the reasons I need to go to Ravensburg will be as vague and difficult to explain to Joe as they were to Raj and Lucy.

"Well, I sort of, had this feeling..." I start to explain but stop myself, it already sounds like such weak and preposterous reasoning.

"Something called out to you did it, a voice across the land, over the trees, through the valleys and into your dreams?".

"Yes" said I, surprised at Joe's succinctness.

"Well, we've all heard those voices young lady. The question is whether or not to follow them, where will they lead and will we be willing to make sacrifices to get there?".

"I guess" says I, wondering if I should mention the book, Joe seems like a wise old man, perhaps there is some light he can shed. Joe stops. The tip of his cane sinks into the mud and he looks far off into the trees.

"Are you?" he says.

"Am I what?" I reply. Joe has suddenly become very serious. Even Percy has stopped wagging his tail.

"Willing to make sacrifices?". I ponder this. I prefer smiling Joe telling me about coastal erosion. I would like to go back to him.

"I have made many already" says I.

"Your parents?" he asks. I nod. He returns the nod.

"Their sacrifice was their own. Not yours." He looks down at me. For the first time I notice the steel in his eyes, the coldness, not built of cruelty, but of watching all that one has loved be taken away. "Do you know what has happened to the world Annabel? Has he told you yet, within the pages of his book what devastation has been wrought on the natural order of things?".

I shake my head. How does he know about the book?

"Do you have what it takes to survive Annabel, do you have what it takes to protect what is left?" I nod again. Several tears creep their way stealthily onto my face.

"And if I told you..." he is struggling to say something. "If I told you that they are going to make him watch while your friend Lucy is raped and murdered. If I told you that once they are done, they will stake Raj to the ground and laugh while he is torn apart by dogs, could you protect them, could you stop that?".

The adrenaline shot is so fast, so furious; that it is almost painful. The world starts to shake. There is a roar in my ears, a surge of blood that for a second or two blocks out all else such is the force of it. Time has slowed down. I have forgotten to breathe for too many moments. Percy growls. Time returns. I turn around. I face down the dirt track. I scream, I scream so hard my voice breaks and the sound chokes itself off.

They are not there. I start to run again.
Chapter 9, Fates

Branches whip at my face. They lacerate, they claw. Roots trip me, mounds of heaving earth try to bring me down to meet them. Rocks twist my ankles. Yet there are worse enemies waiting for me. And all the while, the daylight fades. You all know, you all know how much worse the world seems in the dark. Why , why, why, why, why? Did he hypnotise me? Did my mind wander? Did I forget them? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry.

Scream into the forest. See what screams back. Cry into the dirt. Feel the first drops of rain upon my neck. "Raaaaaajjjjj". "Luuccccyyyyyyyyyy". I don't know how to track. I don't know what to look for. One broken twig is just like any other to me. The forest is a maze without uniformity, it is a damned canopy where all the monsters live. Thus has it begun, so I am mired by the long shadows being cast over the land.

The dirt gets under my fingernails. The odd leaf clings to me. I can feel the book under my coat. The corners jab at me, adding to my discomfort as I run. Where were you in my hour of need Atticus Faraday, where was this in your predictions?

I stop for breath and for life. I look around. The gloom is sweeping in. The west is the east and the north is the south. The branches and the boughs are carbon copies of each other and the dirt is the dirt is the dirt, dirt, dirt. "Nooooooooooooo". More screams, nothing back, not even an evil chuckle.

Maybe he was lying. The thought stops me in my tracks for only a moment, the cloud of calm lucidity dissipates, he was not lying. He was cruel, and frightening, but he did not lie to me, the man I was told I could trust. She lied though. She lied.

I keep on running. I may be worlds away from them by now. Who took them? Who took them? Come here, come here and I will claw your eyes out. Blind fate, blind fate, who took your eyes so long ago? Who made it so that you can't see what you are doing? That is why, that blindness, that must be why you cause such destruction.

The shadows embrace me. They wrap their arms around me. I feel no warmth from their embrace, just cold whispers. I look up. And there it is. The beacon, the dancing flame, far away, but still on a horizon that I can see, a skyline that I can run to.

Nerves, they make me shake as I stumble through the darkness. Every twig that cracks beneath my boots is like a firework. The fire is coming closer, though I doubt each footstep that takes me there, I step through them and on to the next. As I clamber through the undergrowth the fire breaks apart, one becomes many, twinkling stars set low to the ground, what wishes I make upon you, please let them be okay...please.

I creep closer, close enough to hear voices, close enough to hear cries of pain. I have heard plenty of those before, in London during the fall, but these are worse, these aren't strangers, these are my saviours, and now I have to save them.

The bushes are cruel while they are kind. They do not rustle and crackle as I climb through them. But they do prick me with their thorns, I pay for my silent passage with blood.

Raj is tied to a tree. They have beaten the smile from him. Blood, swellings and thumping bruises are his makeup. He is weeping. Like a child, like a man reduced to one, he weeps for all that is lost, for all I lost for him. I squeeze closer to the edge of the bush. I freeze in horror, one of them sits right in front of it. How I wish I could hurt you, how I wish I could watch you reduced to the bile and ash that you are.

I peer over his shoulder. I snatch my eyes away. I can see what they are doing to Lucy. I don't want to watch. I can't see that, I can't. They grunt like dogs, they are dogs, and parasites and worms and demons and worse. I squeeze shut my eyes. I close them to the world, I close them to Raj's weeping, to Lucy's pained cries of protest. I close them to unhelpful ghosts and harsh old men who feign friendship. I close them to London, and Britain and all the people who don't live in her anymore.

I shake like a leaf, I cry quietly and I wait. Deeper darkness stirs. Fires burn low as does the raging vileness of the evil men. They cease their deeds. They retire to the ground, to the leaves, drunk on their own corruption. They may sleep other nights after this one, but I vow, their dawns are numbered. But thoughts of vengeance must wait. Rescue is the recipe I must cook this hour.

I make my way back through the bushes. I circle their camp, tiptoeing over the worms, gliding softly through the ferns. They have left my friend Lucy in a heap. A discarded thing they have cast down into the mud. I crawl through the dark to her. My eyes are bright, they see by night. They see the vicious marks on her legs and body. I must be strong. I must be swift.

I put my mouth so close to her ears that even the angels could not have heard my whispering. "Lucy, it's me Annabel, we have to go, please wake up." As I bring my face around to hers I see that she is already awake. And the look of terror on her face is indescribable. It hurts as her hand clamps around the back of my neck and pulls me in. Her whisper is as quiet, though it is filled with fear. "Annabel, my god, please, please run away." Even now her concern is for me, she is afraid for me.

I ignore her. I grab at her arms, imploring her with my touch to follow me, to escape. She can do it. And then I will come back for him, we will all run off into the night, and be safe, and carry on the adventure. I half carry Lucy to the edge of the clearing, we stagger between a few trees. Then I am face to face with a pair of eyes. And a row of shiny white teeth. "Well hello there" says the demon, before he strikes me into darkness.

Rough ropes bind me. They are wrapped tightly all the way around, they hold me upright against the rough bark of a tree. I was not a good rescuer. And now there is a sorry spectacle before me. A mockery of good. Hope teased me, it drew me back into the world, now I am cursed. I squeeze my eyes shut again.

A calloused hand grabs me by the hair and almost yanks out a handful, I feel something sharp prick at my skin.

"Open your eyes" I open them. His is a dirty face, cruel lines, dark eyes and boils.

"Close them again, and I will cut them out, do you understand?" I nod and he withdraws the blade. And I am forced to watch. The fires are burning brightly once more.

Lucy is hanging by her neck from a branch. Her feet brush the floor, just enough to keep her alive, just enough to keep her struggling for breath. Her hands are bound in front of her. A number of the demons lurk in the darkness around her, they beat at her with whips, over and over again.

The demons look like men. Stripped to the waist with the image of their lord daubed upon their chests in dirt and dark green slim. They look like men. But surely the worst of mankind was not capable of what I see now.

The whips are tipped with metal, they bite into her each time they hit. Blood sprays off of her. Soon enough more of her skin is lacerated than whole. She stops struggling against the noose, she stops fighting for air. She chokes herself, she hangs there. Raj's wailing is non stop. Where one cry ends another begins, and so does his song go on, as the demons beat his lady love.

Then one of them walks forward. The others stop with their assault, not that there is a great deal left to attack. The whips go silent, the air remains whole. This one, he is wearing military fatigues. He is wearing what the soldiers in London were wearing, but he is not like them, he is not interested in reclamation or preservation, he is only interested in death and his own desire.

The fire dances ever so briefly on his blade before he plunges it into her, then the serrated edge feasts on blood. Those gathered dance and hoot and holler. Except Raj, who gives one last howl before his head sinks.

I am numb. I can't hold my bladder or my tears. Lucy's dead eyes are looking at me. They do not accuse or plead. They do nothing, they are lifeless. The only emotion left in them is that which I imagine.

"Bring him" says the ringleader, the army man. The man with the boils on his face, who so elegantly swore to rob me of my sight moves to Raj with several of his other demons. The cut loose my protector who struggles meekly against them. I wait for the martial artist to appear. I wait for him to disarm them and beat the living crap out of them. It doesn't happen. Instead he is dragged to the middle of the clearing and they begin to bind him.

"Do you understand what is happening?" he makes me jump out my skin. The army man is right next to me, he moved so silently. I shake my head. Questions, how can he ask me questions, how can he utter words, those are real things, the kinds of things that people say, not that demons say to people.

"He will show you, he will, I promise, tomorrow. We're going to get a boat, and we'll take you to him. He will explain it to you in a way you will understand. He will share his vision with you and then you'll see the world through his eyes." I turn away from him. I turn away from his mad sentences.

"Little girl, little girl, the future may be theirs for now, but today, today is ours." He moves away from me, laughing quietly to himself.

The man with the boils comes over and grabs my hair again. It used to be so soft, I brushed it twice a day, I would stare at it in the mirror and imagine it to be the hair of someone else, some princess that I desired to be.

"Watch this, you little bitch" says the boils man. And so I do.

I see that Raj has been tied to the floor by four stakes. One to bind each of his wrists, one to bind each of his ankles. They have hauled Lucy's body up into the trees above him and left her tied off there. Her blood drips down upon him, but he does not seem to notice, his open eyes are vacant, beyond the sky they gaze, I envy his apparent absence.

Then I hear the growling. I hear the clinking of chains, I see the demons lead their dogs from the forest. A half dozen of them are there. Big, well muscled brutes. They snap at each other and claw at the floor. They are awash with scars and their dull, snout faces are awash with drawl. These are not friendly dogs, these are the kind of dogs that were banned in the old world; hidden, in outhouses, and basements, and fighting dens. There is nothing monstrous about these monsters, they are very man made indeed, and they are very angry.

"Raj" my voice is a croak. "Raj, please forgive me, please." My vacant eyed friend looks my way. His head turns, his brown eyes lock on to mine, they were once so soft, once so full of love. His mouth opens and out it comes "Nooooooooooooo, noooooooooo" he shouts at me.

The sound of it drives the dogs wild. The pull furiously at their chains. Then the army man shouts out "To know darkness, become the dark". The chains let fly. Raj screams. I vomit. Canine fury unleashed, teeth sink through clothes, and skin, and flesh and bone. They tear and they growl, they make shreds of my friend, they make scraps of him, and then proceed to fight over them. Devouring and gnawing, the sounds and sights follow me all the way into the pit where I lose it all, down into the abyss, down into the haunted dream.
Chapter 10, The wolf road

It was a forced sleep. I was in shutdown. I know not for how long. While I was there I remained numb. And I met a ghost again.

"You told me not to fear him."

"He did you no harm."

"He knew what was going to happen."

"But I did not, I'm so sorry Annabel."

"I don't trust you." And then I threw her out of the dream. I fell at terminal velocity through a thousand worlds, I developed every super power imaginable and then I lost them. I cured every ill and replaced them with more, when I landed it was upon broken glass, the ground was slick beneath my feet, out of which I could feel the shards protruding. I look up at the planetary graveyard above me, my mind explodes as the worlds fall like old grey rain.

I am in a cage. Of old wood, built for an animal. Tight leather straps hold my prison in place, it hangs from long bars which two of my captors are carrying, one in front and one behind. The dogs pad along next to me, they pay me the occasional snarl, they smile at me, pieces of my friend still linger in their mouths, sinews lodged between canine cutters, the parts that did not wash out with the blood.

Things look no better, this is a new kind of light, this is the start of the day which I can no longer separate from the night. This is the part where I realise, when a part of me grows up. This is hopelessness.

Each and every footstep thunders in a slow motion machine, lumbering through the forest the demon-giant-humans laugh and taunt. Now I can see their features more clearly, now I can see the colours of their eyes, now I can see their scars and the thickness of their hair. Now I can see all of the facets which should have made them more human to me, but they are not, they are dogs among dogs.

It is an uncomfortable ride, carried by reluctant slaves inches above the dirt. Every now and then I catch the gaze of one of my captors, every time I regret doing so. Though a part of me wants to squeeze my eyes shut forever, another part realises that the number of waking moments I posses may be rapidly diminishing. These may be the last things I ever see, I should watch for the sake of watching.

They stop at times to take on water or feast on meat from their backpacks. I do not know what it is they eat, but I refuse every morsel scornfully offered through the bars. I am cold, the steadily marching spring does not heat the land in the way I have come to expect, this will be a cold year.

The day is half dead when an argument ensues up ahead. It stops short our passage. I am dumped to the floor with a bang, a few more tiny bruises to add to my collection.

There are over a dozen of them in total. Most of them mill about, not wanting to walk into the epicentre of the debate up ahead. I can see the man with the boils on his face, he has a knife out, he gestures with it in the air, he angles it in my direction many times. I can see army man shaking his head, but each shake seems slightly less convincing, as if his enthusiasm for the disagreement is waning.

Then a breeze touches the forest. It winds its way down from the two men at the front of the party. It carries no scents that I can tell. What it carries are words, snippets of their conversation which up until now eluded me.

"Didn't say anything...enjoying her...punishment"

"If he...out...worse than..."

"Her fate...death...matter the state....when she dies..."

"On...head...it"

"Gladly...Sutton...she'll....squeal..." finished the man with the boils. He looks at me then. I tremble and force myself as far back against the bars of the cage as possible, as if the few extra inches it gives me will make a difference.

He stalks towards me down the straight forest path. He licks his lips, the tip of his pale tongue brushes against the boils and pockmarks about his mouth. Oh god no, please, please no.

He reaches the cage, the knife goes down towards the leather straps.

"Stop."

Cold air ripples across everything. After it has passed, after the word, it all stops, the heartbeats, the rushing blood, the sounds and the movements. It is a voice; that must be obeyed. It does not command, it simply speaks and alters reality.

Once the cold passes, once I regain some semblance of motion, I look beyond the man with the boils. I look to the front of the pack, beyond the army man. And I see him, for the first time. A statue, black of cloak, skin so pale it makes a mockery of the winter snow. His long flowing hair is black as the shadows ore, seven feet he stands, or maybe more. Here is a true giant, a true colossus, a true arbiter.

He says nothing more. He is patience personified. His hands are lost within the many folds of the long dark cloak. He stands and stares, he does dare forth from them a response that he is more than willing to wait for. Eventually they draw breath again, eventually they summon the ability to posture, to speak back. Though they must know, every word spoken after hearing the voice of the raven, is a lowly sound that's just not worth saying.

"Begone, begone raven" shouts the army man. The statue moves slightly, only ever so slightly, just one eyebrow, raised in curiosity more than anything else.

"This is a wolf road" squeaks the man with the boils moving to the front of the pack, "You know this, you know the rules."

Again the eyebrow lifts, and again he blesses us with the voice, the cold, metallic relentless voice which exudes such raw, uncompromising power.

"It intrigues me, to hear you speak so, you have been under his sway for such a short time, you know so little of the dynamics that govern us. You seek to quote rules to me, even as you break them yourselves, you have been poorly schooled my lost children, and I think that a lesson is in order."

"You couldn't raise a hand against us last time, and you won't do so now" shouts the army man. The rest of the pack have been moving. Getting themselves into positions behind trees, whips have been traded for guns, I feel the fear that had been banished by the voice return, there are too many of them.

"Last time was long ago as far as today is concerned, you've drunk from his cup now, you've felt the taint, and now you must be cleansed" spoke the raven.

"You wouldn't dare" shouted army man. At this the raven smiled, and it was a beautiful thing to behold. "Let us see" he said. Like a snake a silver cannon snapped from beneath his cloak, it spoke in a booming voice, the man with the boils exploded. His head, boils and all, erupted in a bloody spray.

The guns of the dark men answer, but by then the dance is joined, and I am about to discover that my colossus is a rare and sublime talent.

Army man dives off into the bushes as the raven runs forward. He jumps, ten, twenty, thirty feet through the air. Their guns are shooting at empty space, they take aim at nothing. As he flies over the top of the cage he looks down at me, I am lost in in those eyes, they are the night sky without the stars, but no less mesmerising, no less absorbing and daunting.

Another silver cannon flashes from the cloak. In unison they boom even as he sails over the top of me. Bark splinters, trees shatter and spray across the path. Then he is in amongst them. The cannons club and lash, faces cave in under the force of his headbutts, ribcages shatter as his knees arc into them. He is the weapon. Their guns fire uselessly. Some of them try to run in, to punch and kick at their assailant, they are fools.

Then a dead man falls against the cage, illusions shatter. I grab a knife from his belt, I ignore the stench of him as I cut at the leather thongs, the cage falls apart. I am free, and then I do what I have done best this whole time, I run, I run like the last wind flees the world ending.

Behind me the battle continues, behind me evil men die as the raven cleanses them, I cannot call him good, I can but call him death incarnate, I can but name him justice.

Through trees that are similar by the dozen, I run up on to a high ridge. The gunfire is less frequent behind me now. I come upon a rocky outcrop. There is graffiti on it. Slang and slogans, the tags of teenage whimsy, the children of the old world played here once. They painted their imagined names on the rocks, thinking that the name along with the youth it personified would last forever. How wrong they were, for every generation ends, and each new one begins as if they were the pioneers of humanity, of emotion, of need. There would be no more pioneers, no more adventurers, no more children of mankind would see this rock again.

A hand grabs me from behind, a knife touches my throat. I look up. It is the army man. He has spared himself through cowardice. I do not blame him. I would not want to fight the raven either.

He starts to pull me up towards a cave in the rock face. His knife is cold, but I know it's felt heat before, it has felt life rush over it. He stops as he sees the raven.

Hearts beat slowly.

Predictions will not rescue me. But they are all I have.

I expect cannons. Long barrelled silver blessings.

I expect the silence to be broken by them and them alone. But he does not move, my raven has become a statue again, he stares, with the calm curiosity that only one such as he can can muster. Army man tenses, the knife pushes ever so slightly against my throat, the tiniest trickle of blood seeps forth, I know it, I am in it, I can feel it as it coils down the serrated edge of the blade.

Then he speaks again.

"Annabel" says the raven. Coarse fingers grip my hair. I am the rocks and the dirt beneath my feet, I am the world, I am alive as he says my name.

"Yes," says I, feeling liberated at throwing my voice out there into the same arena as his. He smiles again.

"Kill him."

Echoes. The words echo. Peace, peace I feel. I see myself, I see my mind, I see the me I never get to see. I am in a wide clearing, there is snow all around me. I can see my parents, they smile, I can see Raj and Lucy, I can see all the people of the old world beyond the clearing, beyond the snow. But in front of them, standing in the snow before me is the raven, my calm colossus, my protector.

Finally the words stop rolling around inside my head. Finally all the veils are blown away, finally I understand. I close my eyes to everything except my will. I imagine tiny orange particles, glowing within my blood.

They float up out of me, the float along my hair, from the pores of my skin, they tumble and weave out of my blood. They snake their way around the knife and the hands of the army man, they climb ponderously up his arm. They reach his neck, his cursed neck. Still they move, they curl through the air until they reach his head, they push through his skin and into his mind, that is what I am interested in.

I show him, I show him all that I have seen, I allow my fear to roll into him a thousand fold, I read to him the words of the book of Atticus Faraday, my mind sits down with his mind, I make him understand before the end. And then my thoughts, turn to fire, hotter than the sun, than all the stars combined, the kind of heat that comes only from the heart. The kind of fire that leaves no ash. I let them wash over us both, I let the flames do their work.

I open my eyes and walk down to the raven. I do not look back, but I see it all the same, the smouldering remains in the cave behind me.

Lucello takes my hand in his, we walk down through the forest, into the future, together.

