Chapter 5
Five years ago…
London
Eamon Tierney
The boy on my examination table was twelve years old and trembling so hard the metal frame rattled beneath him.
His mother stood at his side, fingers clenched in the fabric of his shirt like she could hold him together by force alone.
She hadn’t cried yet, but her eyes were red-rimmed and hollow in that particular way I’d come to recognize far too well.
I closed the door to my clinic and locked it.
That alone was an act of rebellion.
The sign outside still read Dr. Eamon Tierney, Internal Medicine, printed cleanly in government-issued lettering. The waiting room beyond the walls was full of polite desperation: coughs, bandaged hands, malnutrition disguised as exhaustion.
I pulled on fresh gloves and met the boy’s eyes.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” I said gently.
He swallowed. “I was in the alley behind the bakery. There was a noise. I thought it was a dog.”
His pulse was fast. Too fast. His pupils were already dilating.
I nodded and reached for the stethoscope. “And the bite?”
He lifted his sleeve.
The marks were small, but they were unmistakable.
I kept my expression neutral and leaned in, listening to his heart. A little too fast, but still human. His temperature was elevated but not spiking just yet.
“How long ago?” I asked.
“An hour,” the mother whispered. “Please. I didn’t know where else to go.”
I straightened and peeled off my gloves slowly, buying myself some time.
“All right,” I said. “We’re going to take some blood. Just a routine panel.”
Her eyes widened. “Shouldn’t we—shouldn’t we report it?”
There it was.
The question that had ruined more lives than the Collapse itself.
I met her gaze steadily. “Not yet.”
Her breath shuddered out of her. “Thank you.”
I didn’t thank her back.
I took the blood myself, labeling the vial with a code that meant nothing to anyone but me. I logged his temperature incorrectly, just enough to seem normal. I altered the preliminary report before it ever touched anyone else’s hands.
By the time the military officer arrived two hours later, the boy was asleep in my back room under a sedative mild enough to slow the change without triggering suspicion.
The officer smiled when I let him in.
They always smiled.
“Doctor Tierney,” he said, glancing around my pristine clinic. “We’ve had reports of a possible exposure in this district.”
“I’m aware,” I replied calmly. “The child in question is stable. He’s human.”
The officer studied my face, searching for something. Fear. Guilt. Complicity.
He found none.
“Of course,” he said. “We’ll need your report.”
“You’ll have it tomorrow morning,” I said.
And they would.
Just not the truth.
That night, I burned the original lab results in my sink and memorized the boy’s name instead.
I never wrote them down anymore.
Names were dangerous.
I looked outside the window of my office.
The lamps along Whitechapel Road had flickered to life one by one, soft amber halos blooming through the smog.
From a distance, the city almost looked peaceful, orderly even.
As if children weren’t disappearing behind sealed doors.
As if families weren’t being erased with a stamp and a signature.
I locked the clinic and stood in the darkness for a long moment, keys cold in my hand.
The boy was still asleep in the back room. The sedative would hold for another hour, no more than that. Enough time, if nothing went wrong.
Nothing ever went right though.
I went through the checklist again in my head, because that was how I kept panic at bay, by breaking it into manageable pieces.
False chart already submitted. Temperature logged as stress-induced fever. Watch alert delayed by six hours. Route cleared.
The last was the most dangerous.
The alley smelled of rot and rain and old oil. Somewhere nearby, a generator coughed and died. The darkness thickened, swallowing the sound.
I walked three blocks north, cut east, then doubled back, not because I thought I was being followed, but because assuming you weren’t was how people vanished in this city.
At the corner of a shuttered bakery, I stopped and knocked once. Then twice. Then once more.
The door cracked open.
A woman’s eyes met mine, guarded and suspicious. She took in my coat, my hands, my face.
“Doctor,” she said flatly.
“I need to move some goods tonight,” I replied.
She hesitated, then opened the door wider.
Inside, the shop had been gutted and repurposed. Flour sacks replaced with blankets. Bread ovens converted into crude heaters. Half a dozen people lay sleeping on the floor, bodies tucked close together, seeking comfort and safety in each other.
“Any trouble?” the woman asked.
“Not yet,” I said.
She nodded once, already moving. “Dock route’s clear for the next two hours. After that, patrols double.”
“Then we move now.”
She studied me a second longer, then said quietly, “You sure about this one?”
I didn’t ask what she meant.
“Yes,” I said.
She pressed her lips together and stepped aside.
This was how it always went. There were never any speeches. No reassurances. Just people deciding whether or not to keep being decent in a world that punished it.
I returned to the clinic through a different route, my heart beating a little faster with every step. The military station sat three blocks south, its windows glowing too brightly, its flag hanging stiff and clean above the entrance.
I didn’t look at it.
In the back room, the boy stirred as I knelt beside him. His eyelids fluttered. He frowned up at me.
“Doctor?” he whispered.
“Where are you taking him?” the mother asked sleepily.
“Shh,” I replied gently. “We’re going on a short trip. Come on. You too.”
I wrapped him in a thick coat. It was too big for him, but it would be warm. Then I lifted him carefully. He was light. Too light. My chest tightened at the thought of why.
The three of us slipped out through the rear stairwell and into the alley, the city swallowing us whole.
Every sound felt amplified. A bottle breaking somewhere nearby made my grip tighten around the boy. Voices carried from across the street, then a quick burst of laughter, coarse and careless.
I kept walking.
Thankfully, we reached the bakery without incident. The woman opened the door just enough to let us in, then bolted it behind us.
“You’re late,” she murmured.
“I had to be careful,” I replied.
She gestured toward the back. “He’ll take you from here.”
The man she was talking about turned out to be someone I’d never seen before. He was tall, had his hood pulled low, and had eyes that glinted with alert restlessness. He didn’t speak. Just nodded once and led us through a trapdoor into darkness.
The tunnels beneath London were older than the Collapse. Brick-lined, damp, smelling of mold and secrets. We moved quickly, the man ahead of me silent as a ghost.
At the end of the tunnel, we emerged into a disused rail spur, the tracks half-buried under debris. A small transport waited there, its engine idling softly.
The man finally spoke. “This batch will be sent to Ireland.”
The boy stirred again, murmuring something incoherent.
I hesitated.
This was the point of no return.
I reached into my coat and pulled out a small comm device. It was old tech, and very heavily modified.
I thumbed it on.
Static hissed, then cleared.
“This is Tierney,” I said quietly. “I have one.”
Silence stretched long enough that I thought I’d been discovered.
Then a woman’s voice finally came through.
“Age?”
“Twelve.”
“Bitten?”
“Yes.”
“Feral signs?”
“None yet.”
Another pause.
“Bring him,” she said. “Dock seven. No lights.”
I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
“Thank you,” I said.
She didn’t respond.
The transport door opened. I laid the boy gently inside, pulling the blanket tighter around him. He blinked up at me, confused and frightened.
“Am I going to die?” he asked softly.
“No,” I said. “You’re going to live.”
He swallowed, nodded, and closed his eyes again. His mother climbed in the car beside him, her gaze locking with mine.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“You’re welcome,” I answered.
As the transport pulled away, I stood there in the dark, heart hammering, knowing that I’d probably have to do the same thing tomorrow night.
The knock came the next morning.
Not the polite, uncertain kind my patients used.
This one was quick. Official. Somehow rude.
I was halfway through scrubbing dried blood from the sink, when it came again, harder this time, followed by the unmistakable sound of a rifle cocking just outside the door.
I dried my hands slowly.
Counted my breaths.
Then went and opened the door.
Three men stood there in pressed gray coats with red insignia stitched at the collar. London Military Authority.
“Doctor Eamon Tierney,” the one in front said. “You’ll permit us entry.”
It wasn’t a request.
I stepped aside.
They moved in with professional efficiency, spreading through my clinic as if they’d rehearsed the layout. One checked the supply cupboards. Another examined my records cabinet. The third remained with me, eyes roaming the room, cataloguing everything he could see.
“We’re conducting a routine inspection,” he said. “Recent disturbances in this district.”
“I see,” I replied calmly.
“You’ve treated several bite victims,” he continued, fingers tapping idly against his belt. “All of them animal related.”
“Yes,” I said. “This is London. There are stray dogs everywhere.”
A faint smile ghosted across his mouth. “Indeed.”
They searched everything.
Every drawer. Every cabinet. Every wall seam.
They found nothing because there was nothing to find.
I was far too careful about that.
When they finally left, the clinic felt too quiet. Hollowed out. I locked the door and sat heavily in my chair, pulse finally catching up with me.
The next knock didn’t come until after dark.