Without a millisecond’s thought I push the door open and jump inside. There are human remains strewn throughout the large concrete entranceway and up the stairs. It’s hard to believe, but I’ve never been in this stadium before. I always felt that watching sports was pointless, especially football and hockey. They always seemed like bloodfest fights to the death, like the gladiators or something. I suppose martial arts are too, now that I think of it. I wonder if this was why the Nahx kill us. I get that they wanted our planet. They’ve made that pretty clear. But why kill all of us? What kind of threat are we? Maybe it’s a game for them.
I move quickly along the curved hallways around the stadium. If this is anything like I think it should be, it will have exits evenly spaced along the whole curve. I quickly formulate a plan to circumnavigate to the other side of the stadium. If the Nahx think I am trying to get into that tunnel, they will never stop watching it. So I will have to stop trying to get into the tunnel, at least that way.
If I exit the stadium exactly opposite from the entrance that faces the tunnel, I should come out right by the river. I can climb the fence and walk over the ice back to where the tunnel comes off the freeway. It is a pretty good plan. Well, it might get me killed, but it’s all I’ve got.
As I walk I keep a close eye on the glass doors to my left. I can’t see any evidence of the Nahx or their transports. That is a good sign. Maybe there are only those three transports around. It still doesn’t explain what they are doing here, but at least it gives me a feeling that I might have a chance, however remote, of getting out of this alive.
I pass three doorways, four, five. Suddenly, I realize I have no real way of knowing when I am exactly opposite from the tunnel exit, since the stadium is basically round. I curse loudly, then nearly apologize to the dead that surround me. I am trying not to look at them. There are many children among the remains, and babies, deader than dead in their dead parents’ arms.
Two doors later I find what I have been hoping for: a map of the stadium and the surrounding streets. The map shows that the tunnel entrance is due south of the stadium, and that the stadium entrance I came in by was called E. I am now at Entrance J. I need to go out Entrance A. That will take me directly across from where I came in.
The streets west of the stadium are laid out in a neat grid of straight lines. Each of them is labeled with a name or number. I try to commit some of the names to memory. I’ve walked these streets before, but it feels like another life. If there are signs on the streets, that might help me find my way if I have to run that way instead of taking the river. North, then east, then south, I say to myself. Stay close to the buildings. Keep low. Backup plan. I can make it.
I leave the map and continue going around the stadium, keeping the exterior wall to my left. Entrance A appears in front of me. I am seconds away from pushing through the door when something blocks out the gray daylight. I stand there, paralyzed for a second. How did they know? The bottom of a transport begins to descend into the forecourt outside the entrance. I don’t take another instant to think. I turn and run up the stairs.
Tripping over bodies and other debris, I launch myself upward three steps at a time, legs burning with effort. At the top of the stairs I push through another door and am greeted by a wall of darkness. Behind me I hear an explosion. The transport has just blown out the entrance doors. This is clearly not about stealth for them anymore.
I let the door close behind me, and the last of the light disappears. I take a tentative step forward, then another. After five steps I reach a step down, then another. I tuck the pistol under my arm and dig out one of the boxes of matches from my thigh pocket. In my state of mind I can barely fish a match out of the box, much less feel my way to lighting it. Finally, by touch, I feel the hard end of the match and rough striking surface. I try and fail to light five matches before finally one bursts to life.
The tiny flame envelops me in a small circle of light. I can’t see beyond about five feet in front of my face. There are remains in rows of seats to either side of me. I lean down to look more closely at one. They all have the telltale black spiderweb of veins, but there is no sign of a dart, and I wonder how these people were killed. Perhaps it was some kind of gas. There seem to be a lot of them.
The match burns down, singeing my fingers. I drop it. Behind me I hear footsteps coming up the stairs. Without really thinking, I slither along the row past a body and sit down in the first vacant seat I feel. Then I pull up the hood of my jacket and slump forward in the seat. Feeling the remains in the seat next to me, I pull them down on top of me, so the clothed corpse hangs over me like a protective blanket.
Above me, the doors burst open. Through cracked eyes I see the stadium fill with light from a spotlight. Four Nahx begin walking down the stairs. I hold my breath again. I can see the light arcing around the stadium. I can’t believe how large it is, and the hundreds, no thousands, of dead in here. How did they do this?
The heavy Nahx footsteps pound down the concrete stairs, past me and down. From where I rest my head, motionless, I can just see them at the bottom of the long stairway, above the slushy hockey rink. I turn my head to check behind me, slowly and carefully, trying not to let the unfortunate person on top of me slip and clatter to the floor.
There’s a Nahx, standing at the end of the row, looking right at me. I freeze. He doesn’t move, but continues to stare in my direction. His colleagues below are making some banging noises, and from the corner of my eye I can see their light swinging around in the stadium. I hold my breath, willing the Nahx at the end of the row to move on. But he doesn’t.
For a wild, optimistic moment I think that maybe this is the one who spared me in the trailer. Maybe he’ll spare me again. I hold on to this delusion until he simultaneously raises a flashlight, bathing me in bright light, and his rifle beside it.
I crash to the floor as two darts thunk into the corpse above me. The whine of the rifle recharging is all I can hear as I scramble along the row, slithering like a snake. A dart slams into the back of a seat inches from my head. I pull another dead bundle over me and lunge for the stairs, rolling down them and slamming into the barrier at the bottom. I don’t even look where I’m going. As another dart whistles past my ear, I leap over the barrier into the darkness below.
I land badly on my side, my face cracking into the icy concrete floor. Muscles and bones lanced with pain, I yank my pistol from my jacket and fire indiscriminately into the light above me. After four shots I hear a loud ding, and a dart rifle sails down out of the light to land a few feet away. I swing my leg up and kick it, and it goes spiraling into the dark passageway. Then the light itself falls toward me, with the Nahx holding it. He lands above me and effortlessly swipes the gun from my hand. It goes clanking into the darkness.
I scramble for my knife, but the Nahx moves quickly, lunging down and wrenching my arm out. I feel a blaze of pain in my shoulder. With my free hand I grab at his throat, feeling for the weak area under his chin. His grip loosens for a second, and that’s all I need. I swing my legs up and wrap them around his neck, contorting and clenching my abdominal muscles until I manage to flip him off me. His head slams down onto the concrete with a satisfying crack.
Momentarily free, I use my good arm to drag myself away, down into the deep darkness of the passageway. I have no idea what is at the other end, but if I stay at this end, all I will find is death. The pain in my shoulder is strangely empowering, like a hook under my collarbone tugging me away. I look back into the dimly lit stadium and see the Nahx moving again. He turns toward me and without even standing up lunges at least ten feet along the floor to jam a knife into my ankle.
Screaming, I kick out with my other leg, connecting my boot with his armored face. It sends a jarring pain up my leg, but barely seems to touch him. As he yanks the knife out, I kick with that leg and the knife goes sailing away too. He grabs my calf and pulls me along the concrete. Shoulder clenching, I try to raise my own knife, but his fist crack
s my forearm away. Beyond all chance I manage to hold on to the knife, but now my arm is numb and useless.
Suddenly, the lights of the other Nahx in the stadium are focused on me, bathing me and my attacker in light. He has one of my arms clenched in his fist. My other arm lies uselessly at my side. I can feel blood pooling around my feet. With his knees the Nahx pins my body and legs to the floor. I shout obscenities at him and writhe like a trapped cat, but it makes no difference. As he looms above me, I can hear the buzzing of his breath, or whatever it is. Behind him, in the light, I see the other Nahx approaching, sloshing through puddles of dirty water, their rifles raised. Now I really am dead. It’s over.
Then, somewhere in the stadium, there is the distinctive sound of a gunshot. A human gun. One of ours. I hear a voice shouting. Shouting my name.
Topher, don’t do this, I think. Run. Hide.
The other Nahx watching us turn and run, taking their light with them. In the dimness I can see my attacker raise one armored fist above my head, knowing full well he can crush my skull with ease. It’s all I can do to keep my eyes open. All I see is a blur of black. With my last molecule of strength I lurch back, and his fist connects with my rib cage instead of my face. I actually hear my ribs crack, and I scream out with the crushing of my lung. Vision blurring, I vaguely feel my knife still in my hand. My shoulder roars with pain as I try to move my arm. The Nahx above me raises his fist again.
Two things seem to happen at once. I feel my knife swish out of my hand, and at the same moment it appears in the Nahx’s throat, right in the weak spot the videos taught us about. He jolts back, grabbing at his neck. There’s a loud hissing noise, and then his weight sags on me, pushing down on my crushed ribs and forcing my last breath out of me. Despite my best efforts, stars float in my eyes, and I see a shadow above me before I disappear into blissful nothingness.
PART THREE
WINTER
“There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.”
—EDGAR ALLAN POE, “The Black Cat”
EIGHTH
She’s so badly injured. I don’t know what to do. One arm doesn’t seem to fit her anymore, and her blood is draining out, I’m not sure from where.
Precious little human, please don’t die.
I gather her up and run, run with my mind filling up with the idea of the sun on her hair and the smell of pine needles and the rushing river. But now she smells sharp and sour, of blood and fear and other things. Tears. Tears. The smell is powerful, terrifying. I stumble away with her. Halfway down the passageway, I find a dart rifle and snatch it up, slinging it over my shoulder.
Where do I go? Out into the light, out into the city. Away from the others, from my people. They didn’t see me leave. They were distracted by a human with a gun.
At that moment, like my thoughts spilled out of my head and into the world, I hear the human behind me. He is yelling at me. A bullet pings off my back, another one off the top of my skull. I keep running, leaping up a flight of stairs. When I reach the top and turn to look at the human, something slices into my shoulder from front to back, between the armor plates. The pain feels familiar, hot and harsh. I reel back and have to catch my balance. In the dim at the bottom of the stairs I see the human, with his weapon raised. He looks unnervingly familiar, too.
“GIVE HER BACK!” he screams.
He can’t mean this little human. She’s mine, isn’t she?
Please don’t die. You can’t die.
I can run much faster than the human with the weapon, even with his arrow sticking out of my shoulder, even carrying the girl. I run and run and run. Up into the street, away from the human, away from my people, I run until I can no longer hear the human yelling or his footsteps behind me, until the sky grows quiet, until I find a high tower. My mind buzzes again, like there is something I’ve forgotten to do, or something I shouldn’t have done, or something is rattling loose.
Who was that human who was chasing us? I look down at the broken human in my arms. She is the only thing that is keeping my mind tethered inside my head.
Her heart is beating fast now, but strong, too. There is blood on her face and her legs, but it’s not pouring out of her anymore. I cling to her, my hand wrapped around the hole in her calf. Her blood oozes through my fingers. She is curled up in my arms as I find the stairs and start upward.
RAVEN
I sense movement first—upward movement. I feel myself rise, but it’s not a smooth ride. It’s soothing, though, like being rocked, and I drift off again. When I come back, the movement hasn’t changed, but I can now see. There’s a bright light rocking above me and dancing on dark gray walls. I see the number 18, then a few moments later the number 19. Then a shock of pain makes me close my eyes again.
The third time I awake, the rocking continues. This time I am able to distinguish that the numbers, which are now up to 31, are on doors. I blink and my vision clears even more. Someone is carrying me. With horror I realize it is a Nahx.
I try to move, but he clasps me tightly, my arms pinned at my sides. Struggling causes a pain like none I’ve ever felt before, and I feel my eyes roll back into my head as my attempt to scream for help turns into a moan of agony. The Nahx holds me even tighter, and we plod onward, upward . . . 35, 36, 37. The motion is hypnotic, and though I try to resist, I close my eyes again.
A noise wakes me, a blood-chilling, heartbreaking noise, like an animal, a dog who has been beaten half to death. It takes a full minute to realize I’m the one making the noise.
My senses return, one by one. Hearing—over my own inhuman moaning I hear someone moving nearby, clicking, the sounds of doors opening and closing, something tearing, something rattling. Smell—every negative smell imaginable assails me—the tinny metallic smell of blood, sour milk, urine? Have I pissed myself again? And charcoal, faintly, more the memory of a smell than an actual smell.
Taste—there is bile in my mouth, and blood, gurgling through my moaning. I push it out with my tongue and it dribbles down my chin.
Touch—pain, like I’m on fire. A spike in my calf, a knife in my chest, my whole right side feels like it is hanging, dangling by a strip of flesh. My face feels thick and disembodied, as though it is floating over me, throbbing with blood. The moan threatens to turn into a scream. I wrap my mouth around a familiar word, to try to capture the scream before it utterly destroys me. It comes out as a whimper.
“Topher . . . Topher . . . help . . . please. . . .”
Vision. I open my eyes, seeing only dark at first, but gradually the dark dissolves from the edges in, until I can see blurred details of a room. There are golden, glowing windows to one side, and dark shapes, low modern furniture placed far apart. Penthouse, I think. It’s like a word in a foreign and ancient language, so far away from what my life has been for the past months that it almost makes me laugh. It’s a punch line, for the longest joke in the history of humor. I’m in a freaking luxury penthouse. I’m dying in some spoiled bald accountant’s bachelor pad.
With my good hand I feel my face gingerly. It doesn’t feel like a face; my hair is matted to my forehead and my hand comes away bloody. I close one eye, then the other. They both appear to work. Searching with my tongue, I confirm that all my teeth still seem to be in place. I feel beneath me—leather. I’m lying on some kind of leather bench. I think I’m bleeding all over it.
A rivulet of blood drips back in my throat, and I cough, which sends a spasm of pain through my ribs and shoulder.
“Mama . . .” Tears mix with the blood on my face.
A shadow appears above me.
I react instinctively, launching myself somehow off the bench and onto the hard floor, landing with a bolt of pain that shoots from my skull down to my toes.
The Nahx dives over the bench after me, but I drag myself backward with my good arm, my other arm pr
essed into my chest.
“No . . . no . . .”
He’s so large, so tall, like a hideous giant from a fairy tale. The hand that reaches out for me is metallic, segmented and big enough to crush the life out of me. Did he bring me here to kill me in private? That is somehow a million times more terrifying than being beaten to death in the stadium in front of all those corpses.
He kneels on the floor as I slide backward, leaving a trail of blood on the tiles. My shoulder is on fire and doesn’t seem connected to me, like my arm is going to fall off. I stop at the wall, lean back, and clutch myself with my good arm, curling up protectively.
My vision blurs with tears so much that I can barely see him as he crawls after me. He holds his hands up, palms facing me.
“Please . . .” My voice comes out wet with snot and tears and blood. “Please don’t kill me. . . .” I must imagine him shaking his head. One hand reaches forward and presses against my neck. I close my eyes, clutching at his wrist with my one good arm. At least a broken neck is fast, I think.
His hand moves over slightly, until it’s pressing on my useless shoulder. I try to tear it away, but he’s too strong. A nauseating pain shoots from my spine to my fingertips, making me whimper. “No . . . no . . .”
His other hand suddenly grabs my elbow and pulls. The scream of pain that empties my lungs is uncanny, like an army of banshees. It feels like he’s going to tear my arm right off. Just as my eyes start rolling back in my head, I feel a jolt and hear a sickening pop as my arm bone slips back into the shoulder socket. The instant relief is almost hallucinogenic. Streaks of light float behind my eyelids, and I find myself slipping sideways onto the floor.
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