A hand snaked up from the ash beneath her, sapling thin, just two fingers attached to the gnarled palm. It pinched the skin of her leg and she staggered away, the fingernails peeling off like they were dead leaves. One of them stuck to her and she brushed it away.
“No,” she said.
More limbs were breaking free, feeling for her. She stepped in something beneath the ash, felt a toothless jaw gnawing at her heel, two milky eyes watching her. She’d stamped down before she even knew it, feeling the crack of brittle bone.
“No,” she kept on saying, like the word might be powerful enough to wipe it all away.
“Yes,” said the faces. “The answer is always yes, eventually. Because the alternative is him.”
Another hand around her leg and this time she couldn’t hold it in anymore. The scream was a living thing, one that climbed up inside her and clawed its way from her mouth, unleashed with the full force of her terror. It filled the room, it seemed loud enough to shake the building, and even when it dried up its echo chased itself from wall to wall to wall, growing louder, louder, as if it meant to find its way back to her.
No, it wasn’t her scream she was hearing, not anymore. A shriek tore in through the window, followed by a blade of firelight. Something was up there, a knotted lump of tooth and claw that pushed its ugly muzzle inside and sniffed. As one, all of the heads on the wall snatched in a breath, then broke into fits of panic.
“Oh no,” said Marlow as the demon started to claw at the ash, widening the gap and revealing that burning sky above. Another demon appeared in the next window, howling, and before Pan could take another breath they were swarming inside on a wave of fire.
FEEDING TIME
The first demon lost its balance, rolling through the window in a cloud of ash, landing awkwardly. It kicked out with five stunted legs, scattering dust. By the time it was back on its feet the second creature had fallen in after it, this one bounding toward Marlow and Pan—its mouth big enough to swallow them whole.
“Go!” Pan yelled.
Marlow didn’t need to be told twice, but when he turned to bolt his feet slipped on the ash and he crunched onto all fours. Something wormed up from the dune beneath him, a hand as thin as rope, fingers snatching at his T-shirt. He tried to shake it loose but its grip was surprisingly strong, ratcheting him down, down, until he was pressed against the dirt. There was another face there, half hidden, just a mouth that opened and closed like it wanted to kiss him. Marlow twisted his head away, breathed in a lungful of ash and rot. He pounded at the floor, at the arm, at anything he could reach. Behind him he could hear the drum of feet as the demons closed in, a scream razoring into his skull.
He braced himself, but it wasn’t teeth he felt in his flesh, it was fingers—grabbing a fistful of his shirt and skin and hauling him back up. Pan, grunting with the effort of lifting him. She kicked the arm and it snapped in two, dropping limply.
There was another scream right behind them and Marlow looked back to see a demon on their heels. It pounced, teeth glinting in the fire, and Marlow reacted before he could even think about what he was doing—shunting Pan to one side then diving to the other. The demon passed between them, landed, turned, then it was running back with Marlow in its sights.
“Hey!” Pan yelled, tossing him the bone she was carrying. Marlow reached for it, fumbled, the bone cracking off his fingertips and spinning away. The demon was distracted by Pan’s call, reaching her in a heartbeat.
“No!” Marlow shouted, snatching up the femur and running.
He swung the bone, striking the demon on the back of its head just as it was lunging for her. He hit it again, the bone shattering as it made contact. The demon snarled, bucked its body to try to turn. Marlow jumped on it, a shard of bone clasped in his fingers. He jabbed the blade into the demon’s neck, and again, a gout of black blood steaming into the room. By the time he’d stabbed it a third time its movements were starting to slow, its jaw flexing weakly.
He looked up, seeing that the second demon had thrown itself at the wall of people, tearing at the bodies there, at the faces. The air was thick with screams and they were drawing more guests to the party—two more demons clambering over the dunes and tumbling into the building.
“Marlow!”
Pan was still on the floor but there were limbs snaking up on either side of her, wrapping themselves around her chest and stomach like seaweed. They were trying to pull her into the ash, trying to drown her, and it was working, her body sinking fast. Marlow dropped to his knees and grabbed at them, tearing, wrenching, then he took Pan’s hands and pulled. She screamed as one of the faces bit into her leg, teeth gouging through flesh until she kicked herself free.
“Can you make it?” he said.
“Yeah,” she grunted.
He slung her hand over his shoulder and she limped beside him. They were halfway to the elevator, digging a trench through the ash. Behind them was nothing but noise—tearing flesh, gargled shrieks.
Marlow couldn’t stop himself from looking back. There were six demons there now, more still pouring through. They were all attacking the wall, crunching heads, tearing off limbs, gouging stomachs and chests—a feeding frenzy of the dead and the damned. And all the while the room shook and shook and shook with the sound of their screams.
But at least, for now, the demons had forgotten them.
Marlow spilled against the wall of the elevator shaft, drew in a shaky breath of smoke and misted blood. Pan’s face was as gray as old cloth, and for an instant, when she turned to him, her eyes started to roll up in their sockets. He slapped her cheek, bringing her back, carrying her to where the door still stood open.
He pushed her through, looked once more to the chaos behind him. Some of the demons had turned his way, nuzzling the air with their eyeless faces. He stepped into the stairwell, happy to leave the screams behind him, but then he glanced back again, suddenly making sense of what he was hearing.
The people on the wall, the Engineers, they weren’t screaming at all.
They were laughing.
Marlow stumbled through the door, trying to close it behind him. There was too much ash in the way, though. Pan was sitting on the step clutching her leg, her face a rictus of agony. There was a jagged wound in her calf and it was bleeding badly, but nothing was spurting out—which had to be a good thing, right? Marlow pulled off his T-shirt, rolling it into a tourniquet. He ducked down, tying it as tight as he could beneath her knee.
“I hope…” Pan started, clearing her throat. “I hope that’s sterile.”
He doubled the knot, then helped her to her feet.
“We’d better hurry,” she said.
“They’re not interested in us,” he replied, “they’re eating those … whatever they were.”
“Yeah?”
He checked back through the open door, his reply on the tip of his tongue, held there by the sight of three of the demons sniffing at the corpse of the one he had killed. One opened its mouth and howled, then turned to Marlow, its monstrous jaw flexing.
“Actually you’re right,” he said. “We should probably hurry.”
Pan grabbed hold of the banister, looping her other arm tight around his neck as she hopped up the steps. They’d only just made it to the first bend when something threw itself against the door below. The demon had a paw through the gap but fortunately its bulk was in the way and it was too stupid to know that it needed to pull. Another demon hurled itself against the door and the first one squealed, pulling its paw free. Then they both charged, and the door slammed shut.
Thank you, said Marlow to no one, to everyone.
They reached the floor they’d entered through and Marlow pushed open the stairwell door. The fury of heat and movement from outside the windows was so sudden that he’d taken a step before he noticed there was something inside. He only caught a glimpse of it—a lumbering shape of muscle, too tall to be a demon, its face too human, dark eyes blinking wetly—before Pan pulled him
back, gently closing the door.
“You saw that?” he whispered, and she nodded.
“It’s nothing good.”
They struggled up the steps to the next floor, every muscle in Marlow’s body aching like he had hot coals stitched beneath his skin. The sound of hammering from below was growing more urgent—even with the steel plates in the fire doors he didn’t think they’d last long against an onslaught like that.
“You got a plan?” he asked Pan as they rounded the bend. She was so pale she was almost invisible against the wall, and she left bloody footprints on every step.
“Just … keep … moving,” she said, pulling in a desperate breath between each word.
He did just that, reaching the next level and pushing open the door. It was another huge room, only here the floor was free of all but a dusting of ash. The inferno burning in the sky seemed more intense than ever. Marlow hunkered low as he crossed the threshold, Pan peeling away from him and crashing down onto her ass.
“You think—” he started, cut off by a splintering crunch from below. “Oh crap, I think they’re through.”
“You realize,” wheezed Pan, “that oh crap doesn’t really capture the full gravity of this situation?”
“Sorry,” he said, hearing the slap of feet. “Crappity crap.”
“Better,” she said, holding out her hand and letting him pull her up. Marlow closed the door, searching for something to wedge it shut. But there was literally nothing up here. Pan was making her way painfully to the nearest window, and Marlow jogged after her. They looked out onto an upside-down world—the sky like a roiling ocean, the buildings below choked in clouds of smoke. It took Marlow’s breath away. It would have been beautiful, he thought, if it wasn’t so terrifying.
“What now?” he asked.
“We jump.”
“You’re crazy,” he said, “that’s like, I don’t know, forty feet. There’s no way I’m—”
The door behind them exploded open, a frenzied shape of flesh and teeth bursting through. The demon sniffed at them, then unleashed a bellow of rage from the cavern of its mouth. Then it was running, its claws churning up the concrete floor.
Death by falling, or death by mauling. It wasn’t exactly the best—
Pan’s hands connected with his back and suddenly he was out the window. His stomach ejected from his mouth and he couldn’t even pull in a breath to scream with. There was just the ground, then the burning sky, then the ground, rushing toward him like a freight train.
He thumped into the dune headfirst, plunging into a suffocating mattress of ash. There was an instant of relief before he tried to breathe and realized he couldn’t, his lungs locking as they filled with dust. The panic was an atomic blast in the middle of his head and he scrabbled to free himself, pushing his way out of the dune and sucking air. There was a whumph as Pan landed next to him, blood spraying from her leg. She looked up, then began sweeping handfuls of dirt over herself until she was almost completely buried.
Marlow heard a scream from overhead, looked to see the demon halfway out the window. He swore, digging his way back into the dune, covering his body, his head, until there was just his mouth.
Silence, just the muffled thud of his thrashing heart.
Then the ground shook and the demon roared—just feet away. Marlow held his breath, praying, praying, praying, as the demon cried out again. It snorted, so close that Marlow could feel its breath on his stomach. Then, with another scream, it stepped over him—one clawed paw pinching the skin of his arm—and broke into a gallop.
For what felt like forever, Marlow lay there. It was almost peaceful, beneath the blanket of ash, beneath the warmth of the burning sky. He couldn’t even hear the demons anymore. He couldn’t hear much of anything.
He couldn’t hear Pan.
He struggled against the weight of the dune, sitting up. There was no sign of her, and he suddenly knew that the demon had found her, had carried her off to the pack. Then he saw a lump, the ash on top of it crumbling as it rose and fell, rose and fell. He crawled to her, brushing dust from her face. She was alive, but she was out cold.
“Just hang in there, Pan,” he whispered to her, scooping his arms through hers and dragging her down the slope. “I got you.”
And slowly, inch by inch, he pulled her away from the carnage into the burning night.
WAKING THE DEAD
For a blissful moment, she thought it was death. Then she understood that if she was thinking, then she was still alive, and it all came back to her with the brutal force of a guillotine blade—the fire, the demons, the wall of rot and ruin.
I’m in hell, she said to herself, the last, blissful remnants of sleep scattering. Her throat was red raw, and she wondered if she’d been screaming.
“Easy,” said Marlow, confirming it. “Easy, Pan. I thought you were going to wake the dead. And I’m not even joking about that here.”
She finally let her eyes open, squinting against the light. Marlow was there, lifting a hand and waving. She didn’t wave back, just sat up to check her leg. Her jeans were ripped to shreds and the skin beneath was almost as bad, layers of muscle visible in the mess. There was pain, she could feel it as a dull ache, but it didn’t seem anywhere near as bad as it ought to be.
“Cleaned it as best I could,” said Marlow. “Which wasn’t easy given that there’s no water here.”
“Please tell me you didn’t pee on it,” she said, cupping a hand to her brow and looking at him.
The smile he gave her was almost as bright as the sun.
“It’s day,” she said. “How long was I out for?”
He shrugged, sitting down next to her. She looked past him and saw that they were under what might have been an overpass at one point, or a bridge. She was leaning against a vast brick pillar and fifty feet or more overhead grew a stunted arm of concrete and steel. The rest of it had broken off and lay in pieces on the ground around them, halfway to dust.
“It’s hard to tell,” he said. “You’re right, time is weird here, the night comes and goes pretty quick. A few hours, though. You passed out when we hit the ground; I got you here.”
“Here?”
He shrugged, looking out across the ash-strewn wasteland. She thought she could see a familiar shape through the haze, a high-rise.
“Yeah, we’re only a couple hundred yards away,” he said. “You’re heavier than you look.”
“They didn’t follow?” she said, easing herself into a more comfortable position.
“The demons? No, they had plenty to keep them going. By the time I’d dragged you here—”
“Dragged?” she said. “You mean you didn’t even carry me?”
“Like I said, you’re heavy.” He shook his head. “Anyway, by the time we were here the fire, up there, it was going out. The demons kinda just vanished with it. Then it was dark.”
He frowned.
“What?”
“There was something else out there, though. Something big. It was calling your name.”
She bit her bottom lip, trying to make sense of it all.
“The Engineers,” she said. “Marlow, they were hung up there like … Like I don’t even know. What happened to them?”
“This place happened to them,” he said. “Did you hear them, when we were running?”
“Screaming? Yeah, sure, but—”
“Laughing, Pan,” Marlow said, rubbing his eyes with dirty fingers. “They were laughing, like it was some huge joke.”
She tried to swallow, her throat sandpaper dry. The sound of it was still in her head and she understood that Marlow had been right—those had been shrieks of lunatic delight, something right out of bedlam.
But then who could blame them?
“A hundred thousand years,” she said.
“Huh?”
“A hundred millennia. That’s what I heard, when they were talking about how long they’d been here, that’s what one of them said.”
“That’s
impossible,” Marlow said, but he was wrong, wasn’t he? Pan thought about Meridiana, trapped inside time, building an Engine out of her own cloned body. Time had no meaning there, and why would this place be any different? This was hell, after all, and Ostheim had always told her that hell was eternal.
She pressed a hand to her face, pushed into that darkness as if she could hide there. An engine of panic roared inside her, filling her head with noise, and she tightened her grip, pinching her cheeks, the pain grounding her.
“It can’t be,” she said. “It can’t be like this.”
“It isn’t,” said Marlow. “I mean, there has to be a way out, a way back. Meridiana said it herself, she said people have come back.”
Pan looked at him, at that expression of goofy optimism on his stupid face.
“She said that?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, not like actually said it, but her ghost did, or whatever was in our blood right before we died. You know, that voice thing.”
He tried to convince her with another smile but she just scowled at him. Meridiana had been a crazy old witch who’d known enough to get them killed, and get them sent to hell. And it dawned on her, right there, that maybe that had been Ostheim’s plan after all. He’d been one step ahead of them since all this began, he’d known exactly what they were going to do. It was almost more than that, though. It was like they were puppets who’d carried out every last piece of his plan. Why wouldn’t this be exactly what he had wanted? He’d sent them to Meridiana’s lair so that they would destroy her and end themselves in the process.
“Bastard,” she said, wanting to spit but finding no scrap of moisture to do it with.
“Hey, I’m just saying what I heard,” Marlow said, hands held up in defense.
“Not you,” she said. “Not you.”
They sat in silence for a moment, the air perfectly still. It was hot, like NYC summer hot, and it was almost peaceful.
“You see anything else?” she asked after a moment. “When you were dragging me here?”
Marlow shook his head.