Air whistled by me, and my heart dropped right into my guts.
I’m not going to make it.
The rusty red exterior of a car hood swooped up, jagged glass from its windshield gaped wide like a set of crystalline jaws, and I curled my legs closer to myself to brace for impact.
Whack.
I missed the sharp glass of the broken windshield by mere inches, and somehow caught hold of an old windshield-wiper blade, managing to stop myself from rolling off the hood.
Crash.
Glass flew everywhere from half a dozen shattered windows, and sheet metal wrenched with a horrific screech. The tower of scrap I’d been in collapsed onto the one I now lay on, the two colliding just below me at the halfway point of the second tower. Its force rippled through the steel under my back, and like clockwork, the second scrap-car tower began to lean. I could smell unburned diesel on the air, little streams of it leaking from the various military fuel tanks to soak the black tendrils of the nest. Echo Spiders skittered toward my new perch, their lights bathing the area around me, blasting the air with their foghorn wails.
Bwwwooonnnggg.
All four limbs shook from exhaustion, but I forced myself onto my feet, and grabbed hold of a nearby wheel hub for support.
The third tower, a heap of mostly panel vans and a school bus, reared closer, and I choked down a whimper of doubt.
That’s further than last time.
In that moment, Jamie’s face flashed through my mind. I’d known her for barely a week, and yet Jamie had been everything Carla never was; the cool older sister who included me instead of using me like an accessory, the charismatic friend who never made me the brunt of her jokes, the loyal companion who would never have skipped my birthday party for a rock concert. She was relying on me to get back, waiting on that ship with Chris in the cold, dark brig. If it were Jamie in my shoes, she would jump, without hesitation.
Gritting my teeth, I pushed off the rough, flash-rusted hood of the dilapidated sedan, and lunged forward with all my might.
With a roar of grinding metal, the second tower fell in sync with my movements, a rain of shredded iron and glass that decorated my peripheral vision. Wind gushed through my tangled brown tresses, fatigue pulled at my legs, and spotlights tracked me across the gray sky. I was weightless, so high that my heart threatened to stop, but like in the stairwell before, the fear melted away, and all that remained was a singular, chaotic drive.
Almost there . . .
Frigid steel closed over my waist and jerked me downward mid-flight.
All the air squeezed from my lungs, as more cables wrapped around my ribcage, and stifled the scream in my throat. Lowering me to its level, the Echo Spider brought me right to the curved, peeling surface of its white satellite dish.
One of the cables snaked into my hair, and jerked my head back, bright white light pouring into my eyes in a forceful stream of brilliance.
“Stop.”
The whisper came harsh now, no longer attempting to entice me. Voices raged in my head, screamed at me, berated me, and tore through my memories in a vicious spree of hate. Pain flared in my mind, the cold psychological tendrils now invasive and cruel instead of curious. They wanted me to suffer before I died, to feel every tear, every bite, every rend of my skin before I was fed to their babies. I would endure all of it, awake while their young burrowed into my chest, drank my blood, spun their telekinetic feelers into my skull, and ensnared my brain to keep me still. I would regret coming here, harming their children, trespassing on their territory.
I would regret it, for every tortuous moment it took to consume me.
My hand brushed a lump masked by rough woven nylon, and I blinked, some of the pain ebbing in my skull.
Not today.
Palming the green plastic detonator, I glared back into the light, and raised the clacker with a defiant sneer. “That’s a mistake.”
For a brief second, the voices in my head wavered, a palpable fear running through them all, and greasy braided steel slithered up my torso, over my arm toward the remote.
Click.
I shut my eyes, blocked the voices out, and shoved away the tendrils of the Echo Spider’s control. Instead, I let myself relive that dream, that wonderful moment of Chris and I in a rowboat, floating across an absurdly large ocean of soda. What I wouldn’t have given to experience that moment, even without the soda, even in the dark, on the run, cold and miserable.
Boom.
My world lit up bright as a Christmas tree, the new beacons of red, orange, and yellow enough to drown out even the perverse false light of the Echo Spiders. Flames erupted in billows, shock rippled through the air, and colossal roars swept everything away in a surge of concussive force. All the voices in my head let out a high, alien scream, and the violating tendrils were ripped from my thoughts.
Heat licked over my skin, my hair, my clothes, and tore me from the grasp of the cables in a burst that knocked all the air from my lungs. My ears rang, the world spun, and I tumbled head over heels like a rag doll.
Everything whirled into a blur, and for one last moment, I caught a glimpse of the nest as flames consumed it, the Echo Spiders writhing in the blaze.
Slap.
Melting black tendons hit me so hard that my teeth rattled, but I tore right through them, and the shockwave threw me out of the nest, into the gray, dusty streets below.
Wham.
A sharp jolt of pain exploded in my left hip, and my forehead bounced off hard asphalt, sending stars through my vision.
Unable to stop myself, I tumbled helpless over rocks, bricks, and metal, each poking and cutting me all the way. My gas mask filter snagged on a brick and the entire mask ripped loose from my face. A half-broken cinder block wrenched at my right ankle, and the box jammed into my spine every time I rolled over. At last, I slammed into a heap of charred wood, and white-hot pain seared through my side.
Throb.
I lay there, too stunned, broken, and worn-out to move. Hot, sticky blood dribbled across my belly button, and my Type-9 dug into my armpit, sending numb tingles up and down my right arm. A foul, musty, garlic odor burned at the back of my throat, my eyes watering, nose running.
Throb.
Thick black smoke clogged the sky, and little bits of burning debris rained around me. I began to choke, unable to draw a breath, and craned my neck to look for my gas mask.
There.
It lay not far away, maybe fifteen feet at most, nestled among the rubble. The black rubber straps hung in a tangle, the round silver-colored filter had been dented and smashed around the intake valve, and the plexiglass visor bore a small crack, but it was within my reach.
Excruciating coughs wracked me, and I fought to suck in a breath, each more violent than the last. Acid seemed to flood the tender regions of my throat, and tears mixed with the snot that poured over my upper lip, dripping onto my shaking pale hands as I tried to crawl.
“Come on.” Another spike of agony sliced through my torso, but I dragged myself forward with gritted teeth, muscles cramping up as the adrenaline left my system. “Just a little . . . just a little further . . .”
But my lungs revolted, the hacking intensified, and I gagged, close to vomiting. Everything hurt, especially my left hip, and stiffness crept into my sore muscles like vicious snakes. With the Echo Spiders silenced, the residual ache from their attacks inside my skull became unbearable, spots dancing before my eyes from their lights. Even as the dots faded, my vision blurred in the poisonous fumes, and panic rose in my chest.
I stretched out my hand, clawed the air to reach the gas mask, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get purchase. Gravity dragged my hand back down to the melted black tarmac, held me there, and my throat started to swell shut.
Over. It was over.
Spitting out a salty stream of mucous, I choked on a sob, and shut my eyes against the toxic air.
I’m so sorry Mom, Dad. I tried.
Shadows crept through my brain, and I curled up into a ball to keep warm, even as heat ebbed from my body.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Muffled feet strode over debris, and a hand slid under the back of my head to cradle it off the pavement.
Puppets.
My eyes flew open in alarm, but instead of wooden teeth and milk-white eyes, I found myself staring up at the stark cobalt yellow of a chemical suit, and a pair of silver irises behind a large plastic visor.
“Breathe.” Black rubber pressed to my face, and the man snugged the gas mask straps over my head with gentle hands, his words soothing like aloe to a sunburn. “You’ve done well.”
Fresh, clean air flooded into my lungs as the man screwed a new filter onto the front of my mask and smeared some clear tape over the crack in my visor. A thousand confusing thoughts swirled in my head, but they were drowned out by a surge of drowsiness.
The shadows overwhelmed my field of view, and down I went, into abyssal, black unconsciousness.
Images and sensations fluttered before my mind’s eye like a strange fever dream, reality intwined with nightmares so that I didn’t know what was real, and what wasn’t.
A silent gray world, with ash on the wind and fire everywhere passed by at an angle while I floated off the ground. Yellow arms held me up, and everything seemed to be upside-down. I saw what remained of a tall building, something in charred red brick, surrounded by the wrecks of military trucks and dozens of civilian vehicles. The bodies here were stacked right on top of each other, as if they’d all been crawling over one another at the last, desperate moment.
Whispers rose in my jumbled mind, and for a moment, I could have sworn one of the skeletons sat up to wave at me with a jovial grin.
I tried to crane my neck to see, but it hurt to move.
“Lie still.” The same tender baritone voice whispered to me, his pace never faltering. “This is a dangerous place. The others never made it through.”
More corpses passed by on the ground, some with funny clothes on like pirates, rigid in the despair of death. Another skeleton leaned out of a ruined truck to grin at me, flashing a thumbs up as if I needed a ride in his fire-blackened pickup, and I blinked in shock.
The second my eyelids peeled open, it was dark. Two-story houses and stately commercial buildings stood around a large square, not ruined but whole, the cars shiny and new, the streetlights glowing yellow in the cool misty night. People stood in a huge crowd, more coming from all directions, running, screaming, their families in tow. A thin line of gray-uniformed soldier held them back from a row of overloaded military trucks, the sky filled with the staccato of gunfire and the cries of monsters. Somehow, I could smell the smoke in the air, taste the humid midsummer breeze, and feel a stiff wind coming up from the south. Voices echoed as if from across a canyon, sobs, screams, moans of pain, and angry shouts. Curious, I peered at the people who huddled closer to the refugee caravan, my heart twinging in pity at their hopeless expressions.
“Where is she? Sarah should be here, where is she?” A woman in rumpled sweatpants and a ‘My kid is an Honor Student’ T-shirt frantically yanked at her husband’s shirt sleeve, two little boys clinging to her legs.
“Travis will bring her, we have to go.” The man in a green trucker’s cap and ragged blue jeans grabbed his wife’s hand to pull them all in the direction the crowds were shuffling, everyone pressing forward with pale faces and fearful eyes. “She’ll be there, trust me. Come on, we’ve got to get a seat on the next truck!”
Sirens wailed, and somewhere in the inky black sky, long fingers of light arched into the air, like shooting stars against the clouds.
“It’s an airstrike!” An old man shrieked, still dressed in his pajamas and slippers, and the crowd disintegrated into chaos.
Many tried to charge the ranks of soldiers, and gunfire exploded across the line, bullets cutting civilians down in bloody droves. Others crawled under vehicles, while some charged nearby houses to get inside, breaking windows, and kicking down doors. They shoved and trampled each other, punched and kicked, a few waving weapons to keep fists away from their loved ones. One woman knelt in the middle of it all to hug her son and daughter close, her husband on the other side with his arms encircling them, the four people still as statues in the center of the street.
Women screamed, children cried, men shouted in panic, and the whole awful cacophony rose in terrible climax as the lights came racing down.
Ka-boom.
Pain rippled through me, flames covered my sight, and I cried out in terror.
My eyes blinked, and once again I saw nothing but gray sky, the husk of the old courthouse, and corpses. No skeletons moved, no corpses grinned back at me. Only the steady crunch-crunch of boots perforated the air, as I floated along over the abandoned streets.
“It’s alright.” The stranger in yellow cradled me close to his chest with paternal kindness. “It was only a memory. When humans experience pain on a massive scale, it always leaves traces. Those who cannot withstand its fire are consumed by it, but you are different. That’s why you’re here, Hannah.”
He knows my name?
Unable to so much as speak, I let the pain drain away, something popping in my hip, and once again, my world went dark.
Water sloshed somewhere nearby, and feet plopped through soupy muck.
Dense, soft warmth wound itself around me, and I opened my eyes to see two silver irises looking down. Below them, in the sea of yellow that swam before my vision, a jumble of black squiggles stood out, their meaning slowly taking shape in my addled brain.
“Who . . . who are you?” At last, I managed to rasp out something like words, still unsure if I was dreaming, dying, or fully awake.
I couldn’t be sure thanks to his gas mask, but with how his eyes shone like ancient stars, I somehow thought that the man was smiling. It was a smile that held no malice, no animosity, but instead a tenderness that reminded me of my father, and how he hugged me every time he came home from work.
“A friend.” He chuckled and brushed some loose hair from my face. “Sleep now. You’re going to need it.”
As if on command, my eyelids slid shut, and the stranger vanished from sight.
Thump.
Gasping, I sat up on my elbows, and blinked.
What the . . .
I lay in the bottom of my red fiberglass canoe, floating on the quiet waters of Maple Lake. The sky lay swathed in sheets of red, orange, and yellow light as the sun slipped below the horizon to the west. No ash rained down, and the air felt cool on my skin, the hot days of September drawing closer to the eventual cold fronts of October. Strange blooms glowed orange, pink, and green on the nearby shore, and crickets sang in the brush nearby. Fireflies danced with happy swoops, and in the trees, winged lizards cawed at one another in the branches, fighting over shiny bits of scrap.
Bringing a trembling hand to my face, I tugged the gas mask free from my skin, and took a long, greedy gulp of sweet, fresh air. My hip no longer hurt, and as I probed my body with tentative fingers, I found new gauze taped over various wounds. A navy-blue wool blanket had been wrapped around me like a cocoon, the pinewood paddle tucked beside it, and at my feet lay the black nylon backpack.
I snatched it up, and unzipped the main compartment.
Hello beautiful.
There it sat, the black polymer box, still stained with Echo Spider goo, the white lettering visible under all the dried mucous.
LDB01106.
I’d done it. The box was mine.
Looking around, I couldn’t see the stranger anywhere, and despite the bandages, blanket, and the fact that Collingswood was nowhere in sight, I wondered if I had in fact seen him at all. Had I hallucinated in shock from my wounds? Had I managed to escape, applied first aid, and passed out in my canoe? But if that was the case, where had the blanket come from?
Bang.
I nearly jumped out of my skin and scanned the horizon.
My eyes fixed on a distant cluster of shapes, long hard lines that stood out against the backdrop of trees. A huge, low-slung square sat in the water, just off the shore a quarter mile from where I floated. I could see the radio antenna atop the old bridge at the stern, the peeling numbers on the side, and the rusted anchor points for tugboats to pull it in for mooring.
The abandoned coal barge. All I had to do was paddle, and I’d be there within fifteen minutes.
Bang, bang, bang . . . boom.
Dread slithered through my veins, and my triumphant smile melted away. They were shooting, shooting a lot, and that last explosion had been big enough to shake the trees.
They were shooting at something . . . or someone.
Grabbing the paddle from the bottom of the canoe, I drove it into the water with furious speed, and headed for the beached ship. My muscles burned, and my lungs itched from the abuse they had taken in Collingswood, but I plunged onward. The air shook with explosions, birds and beasts careened out of the trees onshore in alarm, and smoke began to rise from unseen fires. More gunshots roared into the night, a full-on firefight erupting somewhere up ahead, but I didn’t care.
If Captain Roberts had broken his word, if anyone had so much as laid a finger on Jamie or Chris, I’d spend every bullet I had left to make them pay for it.