The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [40]
As I’m twisting away from the man’s grasp, Catcher swings at him, fist slamming into his jaw without hesitation. The man stumbles back and Catcher lifts me up as we press forward into the crowd.
In some places children stand motionless, wailing for mothers they can’t find. In others men stand along the edges of roofs and stare at the Neverlands as if they can’t believe what’s coming. As if they can’t fathom so many dead.
People beg for help, wanting to know what they should do and where they should go, but I don’t know what to tell them and so I say nothing. It’s like being caught in a deluge, following the crowd east as the buildings around us grow taller, some of them only rusted-out husks of what they used to be. Old steel beams spire above, their ragged ends sharp and broken.
Midway across the island, the bridges snake erratically around obstacles, weaving several blocks south before turning back east. Most everyone is heading for the docks farther south, but the Sanctuary is on an island directly east of the Dark City, which means we’re forced to shove across the crowds to head in that direction. It’s impossible. People scream at us, one man even swinging at Elias before we give up and descend a fire escape to the street. Down here it’s easier to move faster, fear driving the masses to the air.
A few blocks away I hear the pounding scrape of Unconsecrated feet. There are so many of them that the ground shudders, their moans so many voices that it creates a discordant vibration through the air. It’s louder than the most violent rainstorm, a thundering hissing mass of bodies and need.
Elias tries to run but he’s clearly in pain, his steps more like lurches. I offer to let him lean against me, but he refuses. Even though it’s cold outside, especially in the shadows of the towering buildings, sweat drips down his face and darkens the back of his uniform.
There are fewer people on the streets but still they stream around us, some heading in the same direction we are and others away, making for the docks farther south. Every face is pinched tight, and above I notice frightened eyes watching us from behind tattered curtains gripped tight in white-knuckled hands. People willing to stay and fight, taking their chances in the City rather than running like the rest of us.
There’s only one access point to the Sanctuary—an old cable-car line—and the closer we get, the more crowded the streets become with voices shouting for help.
At the base of the cable car the mob thickens, people shouting and pushing toward the gates blocking access to the platform and the car itself. Recruiters line up along the fence stretching to either side of the gates, indiscriminately shooting bolts or lashing out with wicked-looking blades at anyone who gets too close.
Tension coils in the air, the smell of blood and bodies thick. People pump their fists, scream for access to the Sanctuary or for the Recruiters to do something to stop the tide of dead creeping through the streets.
Elias slips through the gaps in the mass and I follow, pressing between bodies. I try not to think that in a short while all of them will be dead. Most of them turned Unconsecrated. They’ll be husks of what they are now: the same fierce yearning turned sinister. Though a part of me wonders how thin the distinction between living and dead is in this mob—how quickly they’d turn and kill for the chance at survival.
Catcher trails after me through the crowd, the tips of his fingers pressing my lower back lightly so that he doesn’t lose me—a reassurance that he’s still there. Elbows dig into my ribs, and some people hiss as I force my way through, but I ignore them. When we near the front of the pack the Recruiters guarding the gate brandish loaded crossbows and yell for us to step back.
There are already a dozen dead bodies littering the gap between the mob and the fence, and a handful of people hover over the