Free London Eye: 1 (Toxic City) by Tim Lebbon

gravestones showing their humped grey shoulders above the undergrowth, and hidden beneath would be tomb slabs and other promises of broken bones. But the lushness also provided good cover, and they crawled their way towards the church's boundary.
    Over the road, into the ditch, right, and then left. It sounded so easy. But Rosemary's directions could not convey distance, nor the fact that there were great swathes of vicious stinging nettles all across the churchyard.
    They moved slowly, carefully, doing their best to avoid the nettles and always listening for noises that may warn of danger. In the distance Jack could hear motors, so faint that there was no way of telling whether or not they were approaching. Closer, there was only the singing of birds, and the soft, secret whispers of plants moving in a warm summer breeze.
    When they reached the edge of the churchyard, they followed the boundary wall until they found a grilled gate. The hinges looked rusted, but there was no lock or chain, and Rosemary had told him that she'd come this way.
    “Ready?” Jack asked.
    Emily nodded, rubbing at a rash of stings across one forearm. “Need some dock leaves.”
    Jack smiled. “Mum always told us that, didn't she?” Emily tried to smile back.
    Jack leaned against the gate and looked back along the road. Nothing. Then he turned and looked toward the Exclusion Zone. Hecould see where the road finished in a pile of rubble, the tarmac crushed and cracked by whatever heavy vehicle had been used to demolish so many buildings. Again, nothing. They seemed to be completely alone.
    The Exclusion Zone spooked him. So many people had lived there, and now they were gone, along with all trace of their existence. A place that had once been so full of life was now barren and sterile. The breeze lifted drifts of dust-clouds across the broken landscape, and he could imagine they were something else.
    “I'll go first,” Jack whispered. “If you hear or see anything wrong, go straight back to the church.”
    “And leave you?” Emily's eyes went wide, the mere thought of being parted from her brother patently terrifying.
    Jack touched her shoulder and squeezed. “Don't worry,” he said. He could think of nothing else to say. “I'll go first.” This was so dangerous that if he was seen, there would be no easy way out for any of them.
    Cameras? he thought. Microphones, satellite surveillance, dogs? They wouldn't leave the Exclusion Zone unwatched or unprotected, surely? But Rosemary had come this way, and that was all he could hold on to.
    He gave Emily a quick kiss on the cheek, pulled the gate open and ran. His feet kicked up dust from the road, grinding in the grit on its surface. It was only two lanes wide, but it seemed to take forever to reach the other side and fall into the ditch.
    The ditch was filled with nettles as well. Jack gasped as they touched him across one arm and beneath his chin, raising sore welts that would take hours to fade away. He squatted, turned, and looked back at the church. Nobody shouted, nobody came, no vehicles sprang to life. He could almost believe that he had made it.
    Cautiously, he lifted his head above the edge of the ditch and looked across at the gate. Emily was there, staring right back at him.He gave a thumbs-up and she smiled, returning the gesture. Then she slipped through the gate and followed his route across the road.
    “Careful!” he whispered as she dropped in beside him. “More nettles!”
    “I'm okay.” She had her camera out again, Jack noticed, and she poked it over the ditch to get a shot of the church.
    “Come on, the others will follow soon. We need to get back under cover.”
    “I like feeling the sun.”
    “Me too,” Jack said. But after only three or four hours underground, up here he felt so exposed.
    They moved slowly along the ditch bottom, doing their best to dodge the worst of the nettles, stomping on those they could not bypass. When a telegraph pole cast its shadow