by Sam Sisavath
“Can you take them off?” Chris asked. She was still whispering, but Ana could hear the obvious traces of desperation in her voice.
“No,” Ana said, “but I can cut them off.” She put the shotgun down on the floor and took out the knife from her left jacket sleeve. “Hold still.”
Chris nodded, her eyes leaving Ana to look around the room. Ana could actually hear the girl’s heartbeat as she bent down and began sawing through the first leather cuff and wondered if the kid could hear hers. God knew her chest was pounding at the moment.
“They cut him,” Chris was whispering. “The boy in the cage. Ana, they cut him, and they poured his blood into bowls, and they…”
“I know,” Ana whispered. “I know.”
“That girl’s next. Then it’ll be my turn…”
“No, it’s not.”
Ana sawed through the first cuff and immediately went to work on the second one.
“Ana,” Chris whispered.
“Almost there,” Ana whispered.
“Ana…”
“I’m almost there.”
“No, Ana. Look.”
She was almost through the second restraint, but something in Chris’s voice made Ana stop and turn around. Chris wasn’t looking at her, but behind her. Ana peered over her own shoulder at what the teenager was staring at.
A Raggedy Man had sat up nearby and was looking at them. Ana only knew the man’s face was turned in their direction because the spidery blue veins around his eyes were almost glowing in the darkness.
Ana turned back around and quickly sliced through the last remaining two inches of the cuff.
“Ana…” Chris said, her voice dripping with dread.
I know, I know, Ana thought even as she reached behind her back and took out Sullivan’s handgun.
She turned around while still crouched, and having learned her lesson, gripped the Smith & Wesson with both hands and fired.
The first shot hit the Raggedy Man in the chest—it was an easy shot from a short distance, and the man didn’t seem to be moving at all, as if he was still trying to wake up—but he didn’t fall down.
Instead, he started to get up.
She shot him again at about the same spot, and he stumbled, before collapsing back to the floor in a pile of rags.
The clink-clink of the two brass casings rolling around on the concrete floor hit her like a sledgehammer, but Ana was too busy watching as prone figures around them began stirring. One, then two of them began to sit up and turn their heads to look around the room.
“Ana?” Chris whispered, her voice so low that Ana barely heard it.
And yet she did, but instead of answering, Ana put the handgun away and snatched up the shotgun with one hand while grabbing Chris’s free wrist with the other. She dragged both of them up from the floor and hissed, “Run!”
They ran, passing a Raggedy Man who was turning his head to look after them. Like the first one she had shot, this one seemed almost baffled by what he was seeing and had yet to get up from the floor.
“Wait!” a voice shouted. The girl. The one in the cage. She was shouting as loud as she could now. “Don’t leave me! Please don’t leave me! You promised!”
Ana had no choice. She couldn’t help the girl. She couldn’t even open her cage. But she could save Chris and she could save herself, and shapes were starting to rise all around them and she stopped trying to justify it and just ran.
A Raggedy Man staggered to his feet directly in front of her. He moved slowly, like a groggy drunk, and completely blocked the ajar door on the other side with his massive bulk. He was turning around, responding to the sound of her and Chris’s footsteps, when the boom! of the shotgun seemed to lift him off his feet and throw him sideways.
The blast lit up the room for a brief second, revealing more Raggedy Men rising from the floor around them. There were so many. Way, way more than she had initially thought. And although she couldn’t see their faces, or even their eyes, she had no trouble whatsoever seeing the pulsating veins that crisscrossed their exposed faces.
They were everywhere. Simply all around them.
“The door!” Ana shouted. There was no point in whispering now. “Go to the light! Go to the light!”
Chris ran past Ana, who spun around to confront two shadowy forms moving nearby, even as Sullivan’s words rushed back to her:
“Not just any shotgun, little missy. It’s a Remington 11-87 model. Semiautomatic. That means it loads the shells for you after every shot.”
His words were still echoing in her head when she fired the second shot and another Raggedy Man fell in the darkness, only to have two more figures leaping over his body and charging toward her.
They were awake now. All of them.
Twenty-Five
She couldn’t see them, but she could hear and smell and feel them against the back of her neck. Their presence, whether far or near (she would have had to glance back to find out, and that would have cost her a second or two, and a second or two was something she couldn’t spare right now), made the hairs along her arms stand up.
They were coming. All of them.
They were coming.
So she ran, keeping Chris in sight the entire time. The girl was running as fast as she could, but it wasn’t fast enough. Maybe it was because she was weak from the lack of food and water, or she was hurt from being restrained inside that (lair) nest of the Raggedy Men. Whatever the reason, the teenager began to slow down noticeably. Ana only knew that because she was starting to catch up to her.
“Faster!” Ana shouted. “Run faster, Chris!”
The girl looked over her shoulder at Ana (No, no, don’t do that; it’ll only slow you down!), her face covered in sheens of sweat and fear. Mostly fear. Maybe she knew what was back there or she could actually see it behind Ana’s shoulders, but Ana had never seen anyone look so terrified in her life.
Are you sure about that? Maybe you should try taking a look at your own face right now!
But she didn’t do that, either. Just as she couldn’t waste a single second to check behind her. She didn’t need to anyway, because she could feel them back there. Even if she didn’t believe in gut feelings, there was the heavy thump-thump-thump! of their boots pounding on the hard concrete floor to confirm everything she already knew.
“The stairs!” Ana shouted. “Go up the stairs!”
She probably didn’t have to tell Chris that. The girl was smart and had run through the first room without hesitation, even jumping over the dead body Ana had left behind without missing a beat. Chris all but leaped onto the first steps of the stairs now and shot upward like a cannon. Ana breathed a sigh of relief—
Thump-thump-thump!
No, she thought as she finally gave in and glanced back—
Squinting black eyes peered at her while grayish veins danced across the exposed part of the man’s face. He was less than five feet away.
How? How did he get so close so fast?
Then she remembered the first time she fought the Raggedy Men in the alley and how they had caught up to her and Chris so quickly. It was because they were fast—much faster than a normal man should be. Just like they were bigger than any normal man should have been. How had they gotten that way? She didn’t know. Maybe it had something to do with the blood.
Ana threw her right arm, the same one with Sullivan’s Smith & Wesson gripped tightly in her hand, backward and fired—
—and missed!
No, she didn’t miss. At least, not completely.
The bullet seemed to ricochet off the side of the Raggedy Man’s neck, slicing open pieces of cloth that covered it and sending an arc of blood (and skin) into the dark air.
Not that it slowed the man down even a little bit. If anything, his eyes narrowed back at her, almost as if being shot in the neck only pissed him off.
Ana lowered the gun slightly and squeezed the trigger again—two times as fast as she could—and the Raggedy Man stumbled and sp
illed to the floor. Two other Raggedy Men closing in behind the first (God, how’d they get so close so fast?) tripped over the falling man and they, too, went sprawling headfirst onto the concrete floor.
Then the stairs were there, and Ana was bounding up, up, up, and all she could think was, The gun. It’s lighter than before. It’s lighter than before!
She’d fired too many shots. How many? Her mind spun as she tried to recall.
There was the first Raggedy Man that she had encountered. She’d wasted three bullets on him. Then there was the one in the nesting room. Two more rounds. And now, three more bullets. Eight rounds in all.
Eight bullets gone!
How many were left? How many had been in the magazine even before Sullivan met up with her at the school?
Stop thinking and run, run, run!
Chris had disappeared through the rectangular hole in front of her. There was so much light beyond the opening that it was like staring into the sun. A very welcoming and warm sun that she strived toward with every labored breath and grunt.
Then she was out!
Chris was there, waiting for her, the look of uncertainty over her sweaty face.
Before the teenager could say anything, Ana shouted, “Go, go, go!”
Chris turned and ran up the pathway between the piles of salvaged junk. Ana didn’t have to tell her where to go, because there was only one direction to take.
Ana risked a look back—
A Raggedy Man lunged out of the opening behind her, pale white face reflecting back the bright morning sunlight. He was almost completely out when Ana stopped, spun, and spent a second to aim before she squeezed the trigger.
Pfft! as the Smith & Wesson fired, and she was rewarded with the sight of the Raggedy Man tumbling back and into another Raggedy Man coming up (fast!) behind him. The two forms vanished through the opening in the floor—
And Ana was already turning and running again, even before the bullet casing that had ejected from her gun clinked into a clay bowl perched precariously on top of what looked like the hood of an old car and bounced off it.
Run, run, run!
Chris was still in front of her, arms swinging wildly as she took a turn. Beads of sweat flicked off the teenager’s face and splattered a large cracked mirror. Streams of blonde hair flailed behind her, the way it had yesterday when Ana first saw her running for her life in the streets. It seemed that was all the poor kid was doing these days—running for her life.
The thump-thump-thump of boots behind her, like machine-gun fire, reminded her that she should save some of that pity for herself. She didn’t dare look back this time. She didn’t have to and she didn’t want to. Knowing they were back there, gaining on her with every stride (How are they so fast?), was bad enough.
And the gun. It was so light in her hand. Had she really fired every shot in the magazine? Was there at least one more? Two? Maybe five, if God himself was smiling down on her today. So why did the Smith & Wesson feel so light? That was not a good sign. That was not a good sign at all.
Up ahead, Chris had slowed down and was looking back at her, but before Chris could say anything, Ana shouted, “Run, Chris! Keep running until you can’t run anymore!”
The teenager might have nodded, but all Ana cared about was that she turned back around and resumed running.
“Faster!” Ana shouted. “Faster, faster, faster!”
Chris slowed down a bit as she came up to yet another turn, then went around a stack of shelves filled with rubber and plastic parts. Ana followed in the teenager’s footsteps, taking the opportunity to look back—
—Nothing. There was nothing and no one behind her—
That lasted for half a second before a Raggedy Man appeared, his shredded coat flapping wildly behind him.
Ana stuck her hand back and squeezed the trigger—and her shot went through the Raggedy Man’s coat and pinged! off something metallic behind him.
Shit!
She would have fired again if she could, but the gun’s slide had snapped back and remained that way. It was empty.
It was empty!
She twisted slightly and threw the gun at the charging figure. She didn’t know why she did it. Certainly she didn’t think it was going to stop him or even slow him down, but maybe it was just out of frustration.
Not that the reasons mattered, because the Raggedy Man simply ducked and the Smith & Wesson sailed over his head.
Well, that didn’t work!
She almost laughed out loud. That is, if she could have spared the seconds or the energy to do so.
Run, run, run!
Up ahead, Chris was still running, continuing to lengthen her lead on Ana. The teenager didn’t know how badly off they were now that Ana had run out of bullets. She still had the knife, but that required close proximity to use—
Warm air pushed against the back of her neck, and Ana ducked on instinct, just as the Raggedy Man’s hand flashed over her head. She had avoided being grabbed, but in doing so lost her footing and stumbled, her mind shouting, No, no, no!
Somehow—she didn’t know how—she regained just enough balance to keep from spilling onto the pathway. Instead, she careened toward a pile that appeared in front of her as if by magic—no, not magic; the pathway had curved again, leaving a wall of junk in its wake. She managed to stick out both hands in time, slamming her palms into the smooth (and cold) side of a car door just before the rest of her crashed into it and her body ricocheted off like a bouncing ball.
She struggled with her legs to stay upright, to keep moving, moving, moving—
Crash! as the Raggedy Man, who wasn’t nearly as nimble or agile as her, sailed headfirst into the stack of metal behind her. The same car door that she’d just crashed into dropped to the ground, along with everything else that had been resting precariously on top of it seconds ago. Metal, aluminum, plastic, and one half of a claw-foot tub came tumbling down onto the concrete pathway. One of her pursuers, just turning the corner, slipped on the suddenly moving ground and fell, knocking down another Raggedy Man as he was coming up behind him.
The sight of them fighting against the tide of falling junk would have been funny—a Charlie Chaplin skit come to life—if hers and Chris’s lives weren’t on the line. That, and despite losing three chasers, there were three more—no, four more—that had managed to navigate the disaster and remain on their feet.
And they weren’t the only ones. Even more were coming behind them. She could hear them. She could smell them.
How many of them were there? A dozen? Two? More?
Too many. Too many!
A voice, shouting, “Ana!” from in front of her.
Ana turned around and was going to answer back, “Stop talking and run, kid, run!” But then she saw why Chris had shouted her name.
The teenager was pointing forward at the twin doors. They were as wide open now as when she had first seen them this morning, which might as well be another lifetime ago. In the back of her mind, Ana had expected to find the doors closed, that the Raggedy Men had somehow sealed them in.
But it wasn’t closed. It was wide open.
Wide open!
And there was nothing but open spaces between them and freedom. Or as much freedom as they were going to get before the Raggedy Men eventually caught up to them out there. Even now, as her legs pumped and her arms swung while her right hand gripped onto the handle of the knife (Wait. When did I pull that out?), she could hear them coming behind her.
Thump-thump-thump!
Thump-thump-thump!
There was no telling how many there were back there, but it sounded like a herd of buffalos nipping at her heels.
Catching up to her…
Little by little…
Second by second…
Don’t look back. Don’t look back!
She didn’t, and kept running for all she was worth and praying it was enough, but somehow knowing that it wouldn’t be. They were too fast. They’d proven that in t
he alley yesterday. They’d also proven that when they rushed Sullivan and the others and killed Chris’s friends except her. It was impossible that men so big could be so fast, but they were.
Chris had disappeared into the wall of hot morning sunlight in front of her, and Ana thought, If only she’d really disappeared, because then she might survive the next few minutes.
If only, if only…
But of course the teenager hadn’t simply vanished into the ether. She was outside the warehouse but still there. She hadn’t gone anywhere, and she would still be running for her life a second from now.
A minute from now.
An hour from now…if she was lucky.
Then Ana was through the twin doors as well, sucking in the deep cold morning air.
There, Chris, racing through the graveyard (Wrong choice of words!) of dead (Stop it!) cars between them and the streets of Talico beyond. Not that Ana thought reaching the streets was going to magically save their lives. There was nothing to stop the Raggedy Men from continuing their pursuit. Nothing at all.
THOOM!
The ground shook and Ana almost pitched forward, but somehow she managed to stay upright even as the cars to the left and right and in front of her rattled and threatened to come apart at the seams.
What the hell was that?
Up ahead, Chris did lose her balance and spilled to the ground, but the teenager managed to throw her hands out in time and spared her face the pain of slamming into the yard’s dirt and junk-strewn ground.
Even as Ana’s mind screamed, Earthquake! she knew it couldn’t be true.
Jesus, what was that?
She spun around just in time to see a part of the warehouse coming unglued, as if the hand of God had reached down from the Heavens and smashed a vengeful fist into the front section, crushing it into the ground while, somehow, leaving the rest of the structure intact.
The sight was such a shock to her system that Ana stopped running without realizing it, turning fully around and staring as one, two, three of the Raggedy Men that were almost through the open twin doors were buried under falling warehouse rubble.
