The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [132]
“I think we all make choices,” I tell him quietly.
And then he stops breathing.
I scramble for the machete and start running toward him, hoping to end it before he can Return, but when I’m halfway there I realize just how deafening the moaning through the tunnels has become. I recognize the beating under my feet, so constant that I’d grown accustomed to it. The air swells around me, and when I look up I see their eyes first.
They’re coming for me, a wall in the distance. I glance back at Ox, my grip on the machete so tight that my knuckles ache. He’s already twitching; his mouth opens and he screams loud before his vocal cords collapse and he’s struggling to his feet.
Terror wells inside me, as frigid as ice water. It threatens to paralyze me but I break against it, sprinting back to the debris pile.
They come after me, shuffling and stumbling and thundering with their moans. I tear at the rock wall, try again to shove myself through the gap. It’s still too narrow.
I can’t stop glancing back, some sick part of me needing to know just how much time I have left. Ox lumbers toward me, the rest of the horde closing in around him. He raises his arms, reaching for me.
I hack at the stones again with the machete. Anything to make this gap a little wider. For a brief moment I even consider taking the machete to myself—cutting off an arm so that I could fit through the opening—but I know it would be useless. I’d bleed to death before I ever made it outside.
That’s when the last gasping flames of my fire sputter out, plunging me into darkness once again. There’s just a tiny glow of gray light from the gap I’ve made, a shaft of something brighter cutting through the black like a knife.
Something moves next to me and I shout, swinging the machete wildly. At first it only cuts through the air but I swing again and feel it connect with Ox’s flesh.
The moans continue. More bodies stumble along the tracks toward me. They keep coming. There’s no escape. There will never be escape.
They’ll smother me and then I’ll wander aimlessly like them until there’s no flesh left to eat. Trapped here forever.
Screaming in rage at the thought, I slice the machete through the air in a wide arc, feeling it dig into a body. I shove the body back as hard as I can and then I dive through the darkness to the debris.
This time I know it’s my last chance. I either squeeze through the gap or become Unconsecrated. I kick my feet against the ground, not caring about the rocks tearing at my ribs and shredding the skin over my hips.
But I’m still too big. I reach for anything on the other side to hold on to, but all I feel is rock and earth and ice.
Something grabs my foot. Dead fingers wrap around my ankle and I know that any second I’ll feel the hard ridge of teeth and I kick violently, jerking to the side as much as possible.
Around me the rocks shift and give just the tiniest bit. But it’s enough. My hips slide free and I’m pulling myself along the ground. When I get through I run my trembling hands over my body to make sure I wasn’t bitten. To wipe away the feel of those fingers on my cold pricked flesh.
Arms reach after me through the opening—Ox’s arms, with fresh bites still marking the skin—but he’s too big to get out. He’ll be stuck there reaching for me until eventually they all down or the force of so many bodies against the debris shifts it, pushing back the barrier and spilling them out into the world.
I stare at Ox’s hand. Minutes ago he was alive. Three days ago I pressed my palm against his chest to stop him from fighting Catcher. And now this is all that’s left.
Outside the night glimmers, the darkness just before dawn so much brighter than the emptiness of the tunnels that I can see a few shapes stumbling toward me in the shadows.
As much as I’d love to collapse and weep, I’m not safe. Not yet.
Beside me a trestle of the track juts from the ground, and I test my weight on its braces before starting to climb. At