The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [121]
Ahead of me is nothing except dim shadows, but I know the Recruiters are behind me. I have no other option but to press forward. Taking a deep breath, I square my shoulders and start throwing open every door I come across, looking for a stairwell. I desperately want some sort of weapon larger than my little knife—my hands feel useless with out one.
Most everything’s picked clean, though, and I spiral down the staircase at the end of the hall, barely noticing the remnants of the before time—old wallpaper clinging to plaster, a painting tacked up here and there.
Finally, toward the bottom floor I find an apartment that looks like it was lived in not too long ago, the smell of stale food hanging in the air. I bust open the door and it’s a room with a crude table and bench under a window. A machete’s casually propped against the far wall. I step inside and grab it, happy to have the heft and weight of it in my hand.
I’m about to leave when something makes me pause, a tingling on the back of my neck. I tilt my head, listening. From outside I hear only the moans of the dead, the shuffling of their feet. There’s nothing to indicate the Recruiters have made it to this building yet.
“Hello?” I ask the emptiness. I push farther into the flat, knocking open a cracked door. It swings slowly, revealing a sagging bed with a pile of blankets on top, a lump clearly visible. Everything’s coated with dust and a thin layer of grime, the boarded window admitting barely any light at all.
A lantern and flint rest on a crate next to the bed, and carefully I move into the room and reach for them. But I can’t stop staring at the bed and something makes me grasp the edge of the blanket and tug—unveiling the tip of a skull, the remains of hair and tattered clothes.
Two long-dead corpses, more desiccated skeleton than anything else, lie intertwined, the arm of one over the other as if they lay down one night to sleep and never woke up.
My eyes burn and I hold back tears. I toss the blanket back over their bodies, giving them peace. They already gave me what I needed anyway. Shoving the flint into my pocket and taking the lantern in one hand, the machete in the other, I race back down the hallway and start down the stairs to the ground level, wondering what it would be like to die in the arms of the one you love most.
The bottom floor is a chaos of noise: the sound of so many bodies beating against the walls, the wails and moans, the creaking of old wood about to give way. There are thousands of dead surrounding the building now, clawing and beating and shoving—all sensing me. All needing me.
Brick and mortar are only so strong. Already I can feel the vibrations through the building, hear the strain of it trying to stay standing. It’s just a matter of time before they force themselves inside.
I find my way to a huge empty room. Thin streams of light filter through boarded windows, over enormous faded pictures of half-clad boys and girls in sunnier days that crumble from the walls. My only thought as I race past them is how vulnerable they look—how naive to be so unprotected in a world with so much danger.
Frantically, I search for another stairwell leading down, figuring that any access to the tunnels has to be underground.
Against the back wall I find a narrow door blocked by a web of rusted bars. I growl with frustration as I yank at them, the sharp end of one slicing along my forearm when I pull it free. I fling the bars over my shoulder; they make a hollow sound when they clatter to the floor.
I can barely squeeze through into a dark hallway that smells of mold and decay. I fumble with the lantern I took from upstairs, lighting a low flame that sputters and sways.
All around, shadows threaten to swallow me whole, and once again I have to remind myself that I can survive—I can find my way out of this mess.
There are a dozen doors lining the hallway and I throw open each one. Every time my heart freezes, terrified