The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [29]
“How are there so many?” I’d asked Elias. I’d never known that such a massive number of people could have ever existed in the world.
His face was white, his fingers cold and shaking. “We have to turn around, Annah. We have to go back. Now.” His voice was low.
I swallow as I remember that feeling, that shock as I realized the scope of the Unconsecrated. Until that moment I’d never comprehended that many in one place. I’d seen them against the fences, pawing against the metal links trying to get into the village. They’d followed us along the path, always moaning and reaching.
But never had there been so many. There were more bodies in that valley than stars in the night sky.
Elias had grabbed my hand, but to comfort me or him I still don’t know. “They’re downed. We can’t let them sense us or they’ll wake up and then I don’t know if we’ll be able to get away.”
I sat, refusing to move. “We can’t go back, Elias,” I had whined. I was tired and hungry and sad and upset. So disappointed. I’d felt like we were close but here was another obstacle that meant we’d be trapped in the Forest forever. My lip began to shake. “We already tried all those other paths. They were locked and you said this was the only way.” I began crying, I couldn’t help it.
Elias sat down next to me. Pulled me to his side, tucking my head to his chest, where I could hear his heart pounding and the way his breathing hitched, so I knew he was crying too.
It was afternoon and dark clouds pushed around the horizon. He sighed. “If it rains hard enough, maybe we can make it without them sensing us and waking up,” he finally said. “We’ll just have to wait here for a few days and see.”
So we’d spent two days on the top of that mountain, trying not to stare down into the sleeping horde. Then on the third evening a storm gathered and started out small but by morning was so furious that we could hear the crack of trees falling and the groan of the metal fences shifting.
The mountain edge was crumbling beneath us as we climbed down to the road. When we got to the bottom, we ran along a brick wall and then sprinted over the bridge that bucked and swayed from the wind howling down the valley. Thunder and lightning raged around us, the rain so heavy we could barely breathe. It felt like the entire world was tearing apart.
The last I’d seen of the horde had been when a crack of lightning struck the bridge, buckling it just as we reached the other side. Cars exploded in sparks and fell into the valley, illuminating the slumbering bodies below before crashing to the ground.
I drop my hands and square my shoulders—shoving the memory from my mind. I’d escaped them once before and now I would have to do it again. “We’re trapped in the tunnels.” Already I can hear the moans filtering down the stairs. “It won’t be long until they’re everywhere.”
“You said you knew where Gabry is and we can’t leave her. We have to make sure she’s okay,” Catcher says, as if he thinks I’m on the verge of giving up.
It takes a heartbeat for me to remember, again, that Gabry is my sister. That she’s no longer Abigail. Thinking about her being out there somewhere with the dead flooding the streets causes my throat to close up. I’ve left her defenseless once before and I won’t do it again.
My mind whirs over what to do next. I pace along the edge of the platform, the fire behind shifting and sending sparks into the air. “Even if we surfaced here we’d still be in the Neverlands, and the bridges don’t connect the entire island anymore,” I think out loud. “We’d have to cross the Palisade wall on foot, and I don’t trust the Recruiters to let us through or for it not to be overrun already.”
“Can we take the