He walked slowly toward it. He could smell smoke in the air, like a barbecue. His mouth was watering. A pain in his gut reminded him how long it was since he’d last eaten anything. Why did he have to think about barbecues now? He remembered how whenever the sun had come out in the summer, you could smell them for miles around.

That had been the old days.

As he walked he gradually saw more of the way ahead. He made out wires and junction boxes on the walls, a stop sign for train drivers, and a sort of traffic light thing, then the edge of the tunnel mouth, and finally bits of the station platform.

He realized that the fire was pretty small. It had seemed bigger at first because it was the only light around. There were dancing lights and shifting shadows, but he could tell that they weren’t being caused by a big blaze.

He reached the end of the tunnel and peered out. He could now see the full length of the platform. He saw some signs. He was at Euston. He was fairly sure he was going in the right direction.

And there was the fire. Just by the entrance where the passengers came onto the platform. A pile of trash was smoldering, and a man’s legs were sticking out of it. Sitting on the platform nearby were five or six grown-ups. They were thin and dirty and feeble looking, little more than stick people. They stared at the fire and the man’s burning legs but seemed too tired to move.

Sam swore to himself. If there were grown-ups on the platform, they had probably infested the whole of Euston. He would have to somehow get past them and continue on to the next station.

He figured that if he stayed down on the tracks and kept close to the wall nearest the platform, the grown-ups wouldn’t be able to see him. He was short of breath and tried to fill his lungs with clean air. There wasn’t a lot of oxygen down here. Smoke was drifting from the fire through the passenger entrance, but it was also hanging in the air above the platform.

No wonder the grown-ups looked half dead. If they stayed there long enough, the fumes would kill them.

Good riddance.

Sam ducked down and crawled out of the tunnel, hugging the wall, gasping for breath, praying that one of the stick people wouldn’t get up and peer over the edge. As he passed below the fire he could hear it crackling and popping. A spark jumped through the air and a burning cinder dropped onto the far side of the tracks. Sam ignored it and pressed on.