by K. Gorman
The closest person shifted, one hand dropping to rest beside his thigh as he rocked back and forth. Further in, others made similar movements.
None seemed to notice her and Marc.
Her heart pounded hard against her ribs. Every single hair lifted on her skin. For a second, she swayed, her knees suddenly weak.
“What are the chances the kid’s behind that door?” Marc said softly.
She took a moment, steadying her breath against the sudden surge of adrenaline pounding her system. All of her instincts told her to go—to run fast and far—but she forced herself to stay put.
“You’re the one who doesn’t believe in coincidences,” she said, muttering a swear under her breath. “What are they doing?”
He narrowed his eyes. “They look like they just got out of bed.”
She hadn’t taken her attention off the group since she’d first come around the corner, but her brain was in flight mode, searching for danger, for sudden movements and immediate, actionable threats. She forced herself to look closer, to examine them. Most wore the same, standard shipboard cotton garments in a similar gray tone to the ship’s walls and ceiling, but, as her stare picked through the crowd, she found oddities. People missing pants, or socks, or pajama tops that had come undone. One woman was almost completely nude, with only a ratty pair of underwear keeping her from the air.
She seemed unconcerned by the fact.
Actually, no one in the group seemed to be concerned about anything. They simply stood, facing the door, as if waiting for it to open.
“Karin,” Marc said. “Their eyes.”
What? She took a step, leaning forward to squint against the glare.
One man turned toward her movement, face plain to see.
She jerked back with a yelp. Marc gripped her elbow, pulling her steady.
Panicked breath choked her throat. “What the fuck?”
His eyes were black as obsidian. Everything—pupil, iris, sclera—black.
“The Shadows, do you think?” he said. “Is this what they do to people?”
She swallowed hard, staring, muscles shaking. The man tilted his head, then took a tentative step toward them.
Marc pushed her behind him.
“Hey! Hey, you!” He waved his flashlight, the beam bouncing off the man’s face. “We heard your emergency call. Do you need help?”
The man didn’t answer, only tilted his head back and blinked, staring dully at him.
Others were turning toward them now. Karin’s jaw tensed as their stares pricked at her skin, their dull, black eyes watching her.
They started shuffling forward. The sound of their movements, like whispers, or rustling paper, made every single hair on her body stand up.
Marc pushed her back as the rest of the group joined in.
“Go,” he said. “Run. Run.”
Chapter Eight
They didn’t have to go far. As weird as the black-eyed people were, they didn’t move fast. In fact, by the time she and Marc had reached the stairwell again, most of them had stopped.
She paused with Marc to watch them, a foot in the doorway to keep it open.
“What the hell?” he said. “You ever heard of anything like this?”
She shook her head. “Only in fiction.”
As she stared, some of the people swayed, seeming undecided—like grass caught in the thinnest breeze. Others turned and began to shuffle back the way they’d come.
The corridor remained quiet and lit.
“I bet the kid’s behind that door, too.” He swore under his breath. “What are the chances he’s like them?”
Soo-jin’s voice crackled over the radio. “Hey, guys, you got me on the edge of my seat over here. What the hell’s happening?”
Marc dipped his head to his collar to answer. “We still in range of that relay?”
“Yep.”
“We just found a bunch of black-eyed people acting like zombies. Can you do a search?”
There was a pause.
“Zombies?”
“Yeah. Shuffling, despondent, basic motor reflexes probably. Their eyes are completely black, though. Iris and sclera, too.”
With a jolt, she realized he was right. Whatever the black stuff was, it had affected the entire eye—and evenly, too.
Was this what Shadows did to people?
“Clio’s bounty,” Soo-jin said. “I’m on it. Get a picture if you can. Have you seen any Shadows?”
“Not yet.”
“Good. Keep me informed.”
The radio crackled again as she cut her mic.
Karin leaned back on her heel, watching the loose group of people at the end of the hall. Apart from the ones that headed back, a couple of others shuffled around, but their directions were random. One woman stared at a wall.
Only a couple still paid any kind of attention to her and Marc. And even then, their stares seemed unambitious, without thought.
She narrowed her eyes.
“I don’t think the kid’s like them.”
“Yeah?”
She gestured. “Look at them. They’re completely useless. He managed to flash us a code.”
“True.” Marc put a hand to the doorframe, fingers flexing over the metal edge. “I definitely want to check on him, black-eyed or not.”
“Me, too.”
“And maybe he can tell us about the Shadows. Could help us if we decide to go to the bridge.”
“I want to go to the bridge.” She held up her netlink. “I can download the logs, see if there’s anything off. See what happened.” She paused. “Someone had to have sent that signal.”
“That someone might be the same someone we saw up there before.”
“Might be,” she agreed. “Even if he is, I still want to go. We can get data and change the distress call.”
Marc’s jaw worked for a few seconds. “That risks us getting hit by the Shadows. We saw five up there, but there could be more.”
“There could be Shadows in any part of this ship.”
“All the more reason to get off it.”
“If we don’t change the distress, we could be putting people at risk.”
“That’s assuming people are as nice as us—and assuming some of those people will come before we hit Caishen station. That’s, what, four days out now? We can report the ship to them. Or we can leave a ping in the relay.”
“You think Caishen will send anyone?” She lifted both her eyebrows. “You’re even more optimistic than I am.”
Their radios crackled.
“You’re both idiots,” Soo-jin said. “Stop working from conjecture. Rescue the kid, see what he says, then argue.”
They exchanged a look. Then he leaned out of the door and gestured down the hall. “Do those doors lock?”
“Yes. Both panel and key.”
“Good. I’ve got a bad idea.”
The door felt cool and solid against her head. Pressing an ear against it, she held her breath as she listened hard, the darkness of the locked cabin quiet and still around her. The pad of her thumb felt along the saw-toothed edge of the key she’d found as she strained to hear through the door.
Marc had been right. This was a terrible idea.
It was a common strategy in netlink games. One player, usually the strongest or the fastest, lured an enemy to aggro on themselves and relied on their teammates to kill it. It was particularly effective in areas with allies that could hit the enemy with area spells and attacks.
The real-life version wasn’t quite so smart.
For one, she didn’t have area spells. Well, none that he knew about, anyway, and she was not about to see exactly what her light did to these people. If the Shadows were this widespread, then there was guaranteed to be a witch hunt for anything weird once they got back to civilization.
That was human nature.
Marc’s idea hadn’t involved spells—or attacks, as it happened. He’d simply wanted to attract the mob into following him, which w
ould theoretically clear the space for her to dip in, grab the kid, and get out.
Provided all of them left.
She stepped back from the door and pulled her head away, turning her radio down and moving to the back of the room so the sound wouldn’t carry.
“How’s it going, Pied Piper?”
“I think I got most of them.” He sounded breathless. Metal clanged around him. Was he climbing the stairs? “Some dropped off, but if you’re quick—”
“Got it.” She turned back to the door. The key fumbled through her shaky hands, and she cursed as it stuck in the door before disengaging.
Then she hit the sensor, stepped out into the corridor, and flattened herself against the wall. It was easy to see where Marc had gone. A trail of people lingered in the hall, shuffling toward an open door at the end. One of them paused at its threshold, looked down, then stepped over the lip.
The closest stood about seven meters away.
As the door hissed closed behind her, some of them looked back.
Karin swore inwardly, cut her gaze downward, and pretended to be invisible.
It was something her sister had taught her. Not magic, or some other mutation that the kids at the compound had developed, but psychological. She didn’t know how it worked, exactly, but it was how animals worked in nature.
Be very still. Pretend you’re nothing more than a log, or a leaf—or, in her current circumstance—part of a wall, and wait.
Quiet, not moving a muscle, she watched them out of the corner of her eye.
After a few seconds, they turned away.
She waited a beat longer, then started inching her way along the wall, toward the bend in the hall. Then she was running as quietly as she could.
The hall had clear signs of people. There were dark spots on the floor—the scuffs of shoes, pressed-in dirt from the bare feet she’d seen, a few lost, scattered socks. She crinkled her nose at a couple of dark, reddish-brown splotches that marked the surface. One of the women must have been on her cycle.
Surprisingly, she could find no signs of other bodily functions. Whatever the Shadows had done to the people, they must still have had the wherewithal to find a toilet. Either that, or they didn’t need to go.
She frowned.
Somehow, the latter didn’t seem likely. But then again, these were potentially magical beings they were dealing with.
The door sensor glowed red. Ignoring the grease splotches on the keypad—the black-eyed people must have tried to open it at some point—she pressed her palm against it.
A low-pitched bloop sounded. The screen flashed a brief message.
Denied—External Code Required.
An external code? Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. Did that mean the kid hadn’t locked himself in?
Was there still another coherent person on this ship?
She tapped against the door’s metal. “Hey, can you hear me?”
Her back felt exposed. She kept throwing nervous glances over her shoulder. Now that she was around the bend, she couldn’t see the rest of the hallway, and had no idea whether the stragglers had decided to turn around or not.
They had seemed intent on this door before.
She knocked harder. “Hey—you in there?”
Something shifted on the other side of the door. A muffled noise, like someone crinkling paper.
A second later, the sensor flashed green.
The door hissed open. A boy, lean and twiggy, wide-eyed, and no older than ten, stared up at her. He clutched a stunner hard in his right hand.
They stared at each other, frozen. Then, he moved.
“You’re not one of them?” he asked, peeking out of the door. “Did you see them?”
“I saw them. My… partner led them away.” As the air mixed, the smell of sweat, urine, and feces made her sway back. Whoever this kid was, he must have been holed up in there for days. Maybe even since the attack.
“Can you tell me what happened?” she asked, glancing past him into another bedroom like the others, but with half-occupancy. Only one bed had been folded out from the wall, and the bedding on it looked more like a nest than anything. The only light came from a dim bulb on the wall above the bunk. She spotted food and leftover wrappers, mostly candy, in neat piles on the desk.
Probably the only thing he’d had on hand to eat. Her jaw clenched. That would explain the smell. His stomach must not have been happy.
His face worked, mouth opening and closing. He looked like he was about to cry.
“I know about the Shadows,” she added.
“Then you know what happened.” He threw a skittish look down the corridor. “We should go. They’ll be back.”
She frowned. “Why? Why would they come back?”
“Because they want me. Can we go? Please? You have a ship, right?” He took a hesitant step out, again throwing a fearful look down the corridor.
“Do you need to get anything?” she asked.
“No. I’ve got everything.” He pulled an ID chip pack from his pocket and showed it to her. “Oh—wait.”
He stepped back inside the room. Karin put a foot in the door to keep it from closing, frowning as he vanished around the wall.
When he came back, he held a large flashlight in his hands.
Emotion pulled at her throat. Again, her jaw clenched.
She held out her hand. “Let’s go.”
“Marc? What’s your status? Are the stairs clear?” She leaned around the corner, scanning the hallway. One person milled at the far end. The door she’d seen open earlier lay closed. Everything was quiet.
She dipped her chin down to her mic again. “Marc? I’ve got the kid. What’s happening with you?”
Behind her, the kid—Ethan, she’d since learned—shivered in her grasp. He kept looking behind them, eyes wide and fearful.
Good, she thought. No one will sneak up on me.
“Soo-jin? You there?” she asked.
“Always,” the engineer answered. “I don’t know about Marc. You say you got the kid?”
“Yes.”
“See if you can get to the air bridge. I’ll let him through. If we haven’t heard back from Marc, then—”
“I’m here, I’m here—Sorry.” Heavy breaths came from Marc’s side of the comms, and something gave a creak, as if the mic was pressing against something. “Playing a bit of hide and go seek.”
“You all right?” she asked.
“Had a door that almost trapped me, but otherwise okay. You? How’s the kid?”
“His name’s Ethaniel. Ethan for short.” She glanced back. “He’s shaken, probably in need of some food.”
At the sound of ‘food,’ Ethan looked up. With the threat of Shadows and black-eyed people, he probably hadn’t even thought about a proper meal yet.
“Good thing we pack heavy,” Marc said. “There’s enough rations to make us obese by the time we hit Caishen.”
“Are the stairs clear?” she asked, turning back down the hall again. Ethan followed her line of sight, sticking to her like a strip of tape. “I’d like to make a run for the air bridge.”
“About ten people shuffled by me a minute ago,” he said. “And I’m in a closet on the other side of the ship. I’d say go for it.”
His mic creaked again. She imagined him squatting next to a defunct cleaning robot, craning to see through a crack in the door.
“All right, thanks.”
“Just be careful, Karin.”
“Will do.” She adjusted her grip on Ethan’s hand, feeling him do similar. “Ready?”
He swallowed hard. Then nodded.
They broke cover, striding as quick as they could for the door.
His steps made quiet pitter-patter sounds on the metal. He had to half-jog to keep up with her, but, by the way he pressed close to her side, she doubted he minded. The person at the end of the hall looked up as they moved, and a jolt of fear shot through her nerves. Her heart hammered, blood roaring in her ears.
&
nbsp; She had no idea what would happen if one of the black-eyed people caught them, and she really did not want to find out. In fact, the farther away from them they were, the better. Back ramrod straight, she turned her walk into a half-run as they closed in on the stairs, her legs sweeping across the ground.
The door sensor flashed green before she got there.
She faltered, frowning. Marc?
No—Marc was on the other side of the ship.
The faulty sensor again?
No. Something’s not right.
Cold flooded her body. All of the hairs on her body stood up in a wave.
Eyes wide, she slammed to a stop as the door hissed open, pulling Ethan close to her in a tight grip.
Up ahead, a long, thin leg of shadow stepped through the doorway and into the corridor.
Chapter Nine
Karin’s hands shook as she pushed Ethan behind her, keeping a side profile. The Shadow was taller than any person she’d ever seen—so tall that it had to stoop to get through the door. The top of its head wavered mere inches from the ceiling.
Behind her, Ethan was dissolving.
“No, no, no, no, no, no—you can’t outrun those.” He squirmed in her grip, pulling away.
She held tight. “Shh. I know.”
It hadn’t moved. It seemed to be regarding her, much like the other one had, its head tilted to the side. She found it impossible to look away. All of her senses screamed at her—everything about it was wrong—and yet a part of her, something baseline that acted below her instincts, rooted her to the spot.
Gods, why was it so familiar?
Her fingers itched. She forced herself to breathe.
She’d come on board for a reason.
Slowly, without taking her attention from it, she turned off her comms mic. Then, she slid the crowbar out of her belt and passed it behind her, tapping Ethan’s side to get his attention.
“Hold this,” she said. “Don’t run yet.”
