When everything did happen though, it happened so quickly that the pain of it was not known until later. Until the eleventh hour, Rhyme did not a strange thing. But on this one hour the most bizarre and fatal of all of his insanities became evident, and he played it off with a speech of the most horrible kind. He raised a glass and the group followed suit but for me, the Outlanders, Chess, and Foot.
“Let us all raise our cups to you, Myth Fisher.”
I looked up at the loudness of my name and the wind caught my nostrils. There was a sick smell of unpleasantness. Undeath. I stood as he spoke the words and the rest of my friends followed suit.
“They’re here,” I whispered, nodding to the Skyway.
I crumpled a little bit, and Chess leaned in, close to me. His lips grazed my ears as he whispered,
“Myth, you should just go inside now.”
“I won’t leave you,” I whispered back.
“You’re injured,” he said. “Let us protect you. Protect them.”
“I know you smell it,” I whispered back, looking at him. “Please, Chess, you go inside! I am the only one here who will not die. Let me face this alone.”
I looked at all of them, and they’d watched me closely for the duration of this conversation.
“Let me do this by myself,” I pleaded with them.
None of them moved.
“You know how dangerous this is, Chess, please.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said vaguely, looking back at Rhyme.
“Sure,” I whispered, squeezing his hand for strength.
It was the first time I actually drew strength from a man successfully, and I held his hand tighter. I never wanted to let go.
Rhyme continued, toasting me, and a few people laughed appreciatively, glancing at me. They thought it was all a joke. But when I looked into Rhyme’s eyes, I saw something sinister. Something evil.
“Ready your weapons,” I whispered, ignoring him.
Rhyme’s eyes shifted to the gate. And then, I made the connection. He knew they’d come. He saw them and heard them and smelled them too.
“He’s going to open the Skyway!” I breathed.
“What?” Chess asked. “That’s impossible! There are two levers.”
We searched frantically around for the first lever. Rhyme was closing in on it, drinking deeply from his cup. The second lever was…
“There!” Chess said, pointing.
The second lever was at the top, near the mouth of the Skyway, and there was a woman standing by it. A mousy haired girl who suddenly seemed a lot older than she ever had.
“Fade?” I whispered. “What is she doing there?”
“I’ll get her,” Foot whispered, and he moved forward.
I grabbed his hand.
“If they do it, you run inside, you hear me?” I ordered.
He flashed me the same roguish smile that had melted my heart years before, and, while I was glad to see it, it didn’t bring me the same magic it once had.
“Yes, boss,” he said, squeezing my hand back.
He then began to push his way through the crowd. It suddenly seemed a lot thicker than it had.
“Why would they open the gate together?” I whispered to Chess, Ollie, Paige, and Pierce.
I looked around for Ali. She was whispering something to Iris in the throng of the crowd.
“You better tell your little friend to move inside,” I said to Pierce, nodding towards Ali.
He complied too, but not before he grabbed Paige’s hand, dragging her along with him. She seemed willing to go. If they were to die, it was to be together. But I saw the way he held her hand. Even as old as he was, he would never let her die. Not like that. And she knew it.
Chess and Ollie were left.
The smell became prominent, and I saw the first flash of eyes. Desperation became the deepest emotion as I realized how thinly spread out my friends had become. They were all over. There was no way Foot would reach the rooms in time before he was bitten. And there was no way I’d lose Chess and Foot.
“Hey,” I whispered to the former, tears in my eyes.
For some reason, this end felt more absolute than any situation I’d yet faced. I was injured, and it was as if I could see the imminent doom unfolding like one of Ollie’s pieces of paper.
“Can we just go inside?” I whispered to him. “Just you and me. Let’s both go inside.”
“You know I can’t let these people die,” Chess whispered back.
“Please…” I begged, turning to him. “You’ll die.”
“No, you’ll die,” he said back. “I’ll stay here. You go inside.”
“What is this to you?” I asked him, suddenly angry. “Some kind of game? Those things will kill you!”
“No!” he said back louder. “But I –”
“Is this some proving for you? This isn’t a game! You may be the male, but I am the stronger and wiser in fighting! You can’t do this alone!”
“Just let me though. I’m not good enough to –”
“This doesn’t win you any favors with me, Chess, if we –”
“I can’t lose you!” he nearly shouted, grabbing my shoulders.
I winced away with the pain, but I kissed his cheek.
“Then, let us do this together. You and me. It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
“I’m glad it’s a risk you’re willing to take,” he whispered.
He hesitated only a moment before he moved his own face closer to mine and made hard, fierce contact with my own lips, his sweeter and softer and calmer than the first kiss we’d just shared hours before. He pulled away softly, more gently than I could have guessed, sucking in a breath as he did, like the touch of me gave him a pleasant shock. And I felt empty and lonely at their absence as tears entered my eyes. I knew a goodbye when there was one. I’d had my fair share.
“But it’s not one I’m willing to take.”
“But I –”
“I love you,” he whispered in my ear, taking my gun from around my shoulder.
In the fervor, with all my nerves, I was hardly aware of what was happening.
“And I love you,” I replied.
His face hardened as he disentangled himself from me, and he looked to the man over my shoulder, the man I remembered dumbly later to be named Ollie.
“You get her inside now,” he ordered, with authority I never knew he’d had.
And he turned away. I fought to follow him, but hands with strength that had never resisted me held me back. I began to struggle. I cried out, trying to pull forward, but Chess didn’t turn back to me. Ollie’s hands were strong. I pushed at him and flailed, but he didn’t listen to me, his hands or his heart.
The gate above the town opened with the ear shattering noise I was familiar with and immediately dark figures began to pour in like parasites. Unearthly wails filled the clearing. The Undead came from the ground. From the corners. From the roof of the gate. The darkness spilled into the light of the festivities almost comically, and the consuming nature of the beasts overwhelmed the revelers so fast it was impossible to react.
The first scream started it all. Then, there was light in the darkness. Flashes that revealed the beasts. Gunfire. A lamp spilled and a fire started. Pale light lit up the carnage.
Ollie, of course, was at my side. He needed to be inside more than I did as he was not immune to the disease. I felt an intensity of adrenaline and shot several all around us with the pistol he’d given me.
Tears filled my eyes as a monster ripped a woman’s arm from her body right before my eyes. The Undead bit into it, shrieking with pleasure, and then began to play with the severed limb, beating the shrieking woman with it. A flash of gunfire showed me who it was. She’d been a baker when she was young. She made sweets for my father.
Another beast lunged at a child beside us, biting at his throat. He was faceless, his cheek torn from his mouth, revealing a set of bloody, white teeth. His soft flesh from his throat and
face began to spurt blood outwards in an arch, and he gurgled, screaming silently, reaching for us, but there were hundreds between him and us. His intestines were torn from his stomach, and they were unwoven from his insides like a piece of fraying cloth.
Ollie’s hands yanked me backwards, away. Eventually, they lifted me up, hoisting me, and he pushed my head into his shoulder, to keep me from seeing. The screams faded. The yowling of an infant overcame everything. The moans and wails of the Undead rang in my ears like a horrible symphony of death. Hand was finished. Everything was over. Nothing was real anymore. Only the Undead ran free.
I buried my face in Ollie’s shirt willingly then as I heard a door slam.
Then, there was breathing. And then, worst, there was silence.