CHAPTER V
TaphophobiaLucille had no idea how long she had been wandering these streets, dazed and listless, though she had the heartsick if improbable sense that it had been for an eternity. When she finally began to consider this, she also began to take in her surroundings, and what had seemed the familiar terraced lanes of Stepney were suddenly as alien and threatening as a scene from Dante’s Inferno.
Thick smoke hung in the air, through which only the silhouettes of the houses were visible, except where occasional glowing patches of red and deep orange revealed that many of them — and even whole streets — were on fire, and some lay in ruins. The typical sounds of bustle, chatter, and traffic were absent, replaced by a constant, low, sinister drone. Above the mournful sound of this sir
