by Kyla Stone
Another line of fire trailed from a broken bottle. Several bottles were scattered near the west entrance, flaming rags stuffed inside. Molotov cocktails.
They were under attack.
“Everyone out!” Micah shouted.
“Get up!” Silas cried, charging between the sofas. He gripped Willow by the shoulders, yanking her from her cushions and blankets and weary dreams. “Wake up!”
Celeste and Horne rose, coughing and pulling on their masks. Jericho stumbled toward them from the west entrance, smacking at his sparking, smoking pants with a sofa pillow.
Finn grabbed Benjie with one arm and hauled the boy over his shoulder. Willow grabbed Finn’s hand and dragged them toward the double doors of the south exit, the closest escape.
Ribbons of smoke writhed through the thickening air high over his head. Thank goodness the ceiling was three stories high. It would give them the few precious moments they needed to breathe—though he could already feel a tightness in the back of his throat.
Micah brought his shirt up and covered his mouth, though he already wore a mask. He swung his flashlight, searching frantically for Amelia and Gabriel.
She was slumped against a sofa armrest twenty feet from the bathrooms and office suite. Gabriel leaned over her, his hand on her shoulder. She bent her head, her hands pressed over her ears, her chest heaving.
Something was wrong with her. A migraine or …worse. He staggered toward them. His shin struck the corner of a coffee table, sending pain jolting up his leg. “Amelia! Go, go!”
Then he heard it. A melodious, sing-song voice cut through the coughing and shouting. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
Micah stiffened. Dread solidified in his gut like a block of ice. He exchanged a horrified look with Gabriel.
The Pyros had found them.
“We know you’re in there!” the voice came again.
Micah whirled, raising the muzzle of his rifle. The bulky forms of sofas, chairs, tables, and buffets could hide anything. To his left, the flames danced higher, licking the walls, leaping from object to object, feeding on wood, carpet, stuffing, and fabric, bathing everything in a wicked orange light.
Four shapes materialized out of the smoky shadows, striding into Fieldwell’s from the main mall entrance. They wore fitted respirator masks over their mouths and noses, thin tubes trailing from their masks to cylindrical oxygen tanks hooked to their backs.
The first man stepped onto an ornately carved coffee table. A billowing black trench coat swept to his knees. He wore thigh and hip holsters and gripped a pulse gun in each hand. When he spoke, his voice was lilting and musical, only slightly distorted by the mask. “Little piggies, little piggies, let us in.”
Celeste screamed.
“How’d they get past our watch?” Micah gasped, stunned. It still felt like some horrible dream he could wake up from.
The air to his left shimmered with heat, everything distorted like a desert mirage. Only the leaping flames were no mirage. And this was no dream.
Silas came up beside him, swearing profusely. “I was guarding that entrance, but when I smelled smoke, I ran to warn the others. The bastards were waiting. They snuck in behind me.”
Micah coughed into his arm. “They’re trapping us.”
“What do you want?” Horne yelled. He cowered behind a purple loveseat. “I’m certain we can work something out to our mutual benefit.”
Horne believed he could smooth-talk their way out of everything. But this plan was too well orchestrated. These people wanted something, and they expected to get it. The sickening feeling in Micah’s gut told him he already knew what it was.
The trench-coated man’s face was leathery and well-lined, like the spidery cracks in a window. The part of his nose not hidden by the mask was misshapen from being broken too many times. His eyes were quick and pale, a deadly coldness to them. “You killed the wrong kid, my friends.”
Beside Micah, Silas stiffened.
Micah’s mouth went dry. “That was an accident.” He’d feared consequences for Silas’s rash actions. Violence never occurred in a vacuum. There were always repercussions, like waves rippling out from a rock hurled into a placid river. There was a cost for everything.
The man only laughed. As if he could read Micah’s thoughts, he said, “There’s a pretty price on your heads. And we’re here to collect.”
The second man, a short, heavy Latino wearing a cowboy hat, a gold chain around his neck and fat gold rings adorning his gloveless fingers, gestured at them with his semi-automatic. “Put your weapons down. Make your way in a line toward those doors behind you, nice and easy now.”
“I wouldn’t take too long,” the third one said. She was a muscular black woman with the sides of her head shaved, her mohawk dyed blood-red. “This whole damn place is going up in flames.”
“There’s no need to hurt anyone,” Finn said. “We can explain what happened—”
Mohawk aimed her rifle at his feet and let off a volley of bullets. A glass coffee table shattered. Benjie cried out. Finn leapt back, pressing Benjie to his chest.
Willow’s face contorted in fury. “You could’ve killed my brother! He’s just a kid!”
“A kid’s life for a kid’s life, eh, Sykes?” Cowboy said to the man with the black trench coat.
“Seems fair to me,” said the man called Sykes.
“Moruga gets to decide that, Alvarado,” the fourth attacker said to Cowboy. He was shorter and slender, maybe nineteen, with blonde hair shorn close to his skull, an eyebrow ring, and tattooed stars below each eye. A second tattoo peeked over the collar of his jacket—a flaming skull.
“You’re Pyros,” Micah croaked. He blinked and coughed, the first tendrils of smoke worming into his throat.
Tattoo Boy sneered. “Excellent deduction. What was your first clue?”
Sykes gestured at the boy. “You can handle this, Nicolas.”
Nicolas aimed his gun at Micah’s face. “Now put the guns down or I shoot you first.”
Reluctantly, Micah lowered his rifle. His jacket covered his side holster. He risked keeping it. Slowly, the others did the same. Silas threw his weapon to the floor with a growl.
The fire hissed and sparked. The flames grew larger, more ferocious, smaller fires joining to form a blazing wall. It chewed through furniture like toothpicks. Smoke billowed over their heads, still near the top of the high ceiling, but slowly descending like a black shroud of death.
Heat singed Micah’s skin through his clothes, seared his throat. He prayed silently, his lips moving in a desperate plea.
They were trapped between ruthless killers and a wall of fire. There was no way out. No escape. Only a miracle could save them now.
11
Amelia
“Hands up!” shouted Nicolas, the boy with the tattoos.
Amelia raised her hands. She blinked stinging tears out of her eyes. Pain sank vicious claws into her brain. Her vision blurred, the flames sparking and shimmering like holos.
She took a step and faltered, dizziness spiking through her. Micah grabbed her arm and steadied her. “Cover your mouth with your shirt. Breathe through your nose!”
Amelia obeyed, lifting her thick knit sweater and pressing it to her mouth and nose. She inhaled several frantic, panic-stricken breaths. The smoke intensified her headache until it was a crescendo of agony pulsing against her skull.
She prayed it was only a migraine, that the smoke wouldn’t trigger something worse. A seizure now would be a death sentence.
“I said get in line!” Alvarado shouted as he adjusted his cowboy hat, the semi-automatic still aimed at Amelia. The Pyros jostled them toward the south exit and the parking lot. A black van waited for them in the rain, the rear doors open. Who knew what lay in store for them after that?
These people were going to kill them slowly. She could see it in the vicious set of their faces, the coldness in their eyes. They wanted revenge. Torture. Suffering. Death. And they were goi
ng to enjoy it.
Amelia had to find a way out. They had to escape.
She stumbled past the office doors, the bathrooms. The storage warehouse.
She had only seconds to decide. The fire raged to their left, popping and spitting and roaring like a ravenous dragon. The Pyros were well armed, but if they were distracted, Amelia’s group might have a chance. They could escape the fire and run out the exit, or back into the mall, where a thousand nooks and crannies offered hiding spots, shelter from bullets, and improvised weapons they could use to fight back.
Even if it was only a slim chance, it was better than none. Her vision blurred, shimmering with bright, scintillating colors, then darkened. Pain struck her skull, splitting it open like an axe. She had to act while she still could. She had to move now.
She lunged for the warehouse door and wrenched it open.
A black mass poured from the doorway, a swarming, seething carpet of bristling bodies and slithering pink tails. A thousand tiny nails scrabbled over concrete, the awful sound raising the hairs on her arms.
“Rats!” she shouted in warning.
Chaos erupted. Celeste screamed in horror. The Pyros yelled curses. A gun went off.
Gabriel sprang at the nearest attacker, Nicolas, who stood frozen in shock. Jericho sprinted past her, kicking at the small squirming bodies as he lunged for the armed woman with the mohawk.
A rat skittered up Micah’s ankle.
“Watch out!” Amelia cried.
He slammed his foot against the wall, knocking it off.
Amelia staggered, nearly falling. Micah grabbed her upper arm. “Run!”
The swarming rats blocked the exit. The only way was back through the furniture store, bypassing the fire to reach the mall. She turned and fled, pain exploding inside her skull, her lungs burning.
She faltered, stumbled again. Micah dragged her to her feet.
Silas, Willow, and Finn sprinted beside her, Benjie still in Finn’s arms, Finn holding his shirt over Benjie’s nose. They wove between armchairs and coffee tables. The fire blazed on their left, blasting heat solid as a wall, threatening to cut off their path to the mall entrance.
The boiling cloud of smoke descended over their heads. Amelia struggled to breathe, her throat seared. Stars exploded across her vision.
They should be crawling on their hands and knees, dropping low to escape the smoke, but they couldn’t. If they slowed down even a fraction, death would get them anyway.
Behind them, the rats squealed as the heat blasted their tiny bodies. They shifted like a wave, fleeing the fire and instinctively heading in the same direction as the escaping humans. The rats spread like an oil slick, a writhing mound of bristling fur and lashing claws, gouging jaws and snapping, razor teeth.
Beside her, Silas skidded to a halt. He bent to pick up his discarded rifle. He spun and took aim at the rabid vermin.
“Silas!” Amelia cried. “Come on!”
“Just go!” Silas shouted.
Micah jerked her arm. She had no choice. They raced through the mall entrance into an enormous three-story atrium. She doubled over, coughing and choking, desperate to inhale mouthfuls of precious oxygen.
Her skull felt like it was fracturing, tectonic plates crashing into each other. The pain almost knocked her off her feet. Not now, please not now.
She struggled to stand, wiping her eyes, searching frantically for an escape. The escalators leading to the second and third floors were directly ahead of them. To the right, a bath store and a gift shop. To the left, a corridor lined with designer boutiques.
“Come on!” Micah rasped, pulling her again.
Amelia risked a glance behind them. Her heart seized in her chest.
Silas sprinted toward her, gesturing furiously as hundreds of rats flooded out of Fieldwell’s. The rodents squealed in terror, scrabbling to escape the roaring fire licking at their tails.
“The escalators!” Finn shouted. “Go up!”
Silas sprinted by her. He and Finn raced up the escalator three steps at a time, Benjie still clutched in Finn’s arms. “Come on! Hurry!”
Light blinded her, an aura shimmering before her eyes. A tingling sensation spread from her belly and flooded her body with weakness. Her muscles trembling, turning to water. She slumped to her hands and knees.
Not a migraine. Worse.
No! Not now! But she couldn’t stop what was coming. She was utterly helpless. She didn’t have her auto-injector. She didn’t have her meds. She couldn’t stop this defective, monstrous thing inside her from destroying her body from the inside out.
“Amelia!” Micah paused at her side. He tried to lift her, but she was dead weight. Her limbs wouldn’t move, wouldn’t obey her commands.
It was too late. The river of rats reached them. Amelia cringed, bracing herself for the pain and horror.
But the rats ignored her. They flowed around Amelia and Micah like a current and swept up the escalator stairs. They dodged Willow, who stiffened a few steps from the bottom, her face a rictus of terror.
The rats feared the fire. Their survival instincts were still stronger than the virus’s compelling urge to spread itself. But it wouldn’t last long. They might only have seconds before the rodents remembered their ravenous, unnatural hunger.
She vomited once, then again. The pain flared, peaking in a shattering explosion of pain. She collapsed. Her brain was melting, her bones breaking, her skin shattering.
Finn and Silas stared down from the second-floor landing. “Help Amelia!” Finn shouted at Willow. “I’ve got Benjie. We’ll find you!”
Willow waved them on, her body racked in a coughing fit. They ran.
“Wait!” Willow cried suddenly. She thrust her hand into her pocket, her expression stricken. “I have Benjie’s inhaler! He needs it. The smoke will—”
“He’ll be fine,” Micah croaked. “We need your help.”
Willow hesitated, torn.
She wouldn’t blame her for leaving, Amelia thought distantly. Willow owed her nothing. She should save herself and her brother. Micah should save himself. She would only slow them down. She forced the words out. “Leave…me…”
“Willow!” Micah cried desperately.
Willow swore. She leapt the last several steps, kicking two rats out of the way as the rodents slithered up the escalator, their tiny claws clicking.
She bent over Amelia. Her shadow sparkled with brilliant colors. “Get up!”
Amelia heard them speaking, but they were very far away. She was underwater, and they were calling to her from a great distance. She worked her mouth, but no sound came out. She couldn’t speak.
Her vision swam with light and dark spots. Her muscles were stiffening, seizing, her jaw rigid, her tongue thick and useless.
Her body was no longer hers. Her mind was no longer hers. It belonged to something else now.
“Seizure,” Micah said from the other side of the world, the other side of the universe.
“Oh, hell,” Willow said.
And then it came: the shaking, trembling, roaring darkness.
12
Gabriel
Gabriel coughed violently, his lungs burning in the smoke-clotted air. He struggled to breathe through his mask. Heat shimmered all around him, oppressive as an oven.
Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Amelia and Micah fleeing through the store, heading for the mall entrance. On his right, Celeste and Horne raced past him toward the parking lot exit.
He had to give them time to escape.
Nicolas, the young tattooed Pyro, was a statue, staring in horror at the writhing horde of rats pouring from the warehouse doorway. Past the rats, the main section of the furniture store erupted into flames. The fire was a crackling, popping cacophony, a pulsing roar in his ears. There was only one way out now.
He took a ragged breath and lunged at Nicolas.
He seized the gleaming pulse gun in the boy’s hands with his right hand. With his left, he ripped off the bo
y’s respiratory mask. If Gabriel was choking to death on smoke, this kid could experience the same pleasure.
Nicolas blinked to life with a growl and jerked back. He coughed, sputtering and hacking, but refused to release his grip. They wrestled for the gun.
“Give it up and I’ll let you go,” Gabriel grunted. The Pyro was just a boy, too young for this. He didn’t want to kill him. “I won’t hurt you.”
Nicolas spat in his face.
Up close, the boy’s skin was mottled with acne, his upper lip filmed with fine blonde hairs. But he had the cold, blank eyes of a killer. There would be no appealing to his better nature.
“Have it your way.” Gabriel headbutted him.
Nicolas stumbled, mouth agape, but he didn’t let go. He managed to regain his feet and tried to force the barrel of the pulse gun into Gabriel’s chest. A single electrified blast from the weapon would melt his heart inside his body.
A squealing rat scurried onto his foot. Another leapt onto his calf, its claws digging into his boot. He kicked them off, almost losing his grip on the gun.
The fire raged behind him, roaring ever closer. He heaved, coughing violently, eyes bleeding tears. He was running out of time.
But he needed the gun. Jericho had gone after Mohawk with nothing but his pulse rod. Celeste and Horne were unarmed. If Gabriel didn’t get this weapon and fast, they were all dead.
He changed tactics. Instead of yanking back as the Pyro expected, Gabriel shoved, hurling his weight into the boy’s chest. Already pulling back and taken by surprise, Nicolas lost his balance and staggered.
The boy released the weapon. His arms windmilled wildly as he fell, toppling backward onto the wriggling carpet of rats.
The rats swarmed the boy. They scuttled along his arms and legs. Teeth jagged as shards of bone sank into his hands and the exposed skin of his face and neck. He flailed at them, rolling and kicking, knocking a handful off him but two dozen more instantly took their place.
He shrieked in agony.
