“You have to go east—”
“What do you mean, it was always meant to be the two of you?”
For a moment, a wave of regret washes over her face. “I’m sorry. I really am. I lied before. That hang glider was for you and Sissy. Not me. Your father was insistent that you and ‘the girl’ were to fly east. Together.” Her eyes tear up. “I was never ‘the girl.’”
“I thought originally you were going with me. Isn’t that what you said?”
Her eyes shoot down, weighted with regret and shame. “You’re not the only one who wants to go to the Promised Land. I’m sorry. I let my own dreams get in the way of what your father wanted.” She shakes her head. “It was always supposed to be you and Sissy.”
A loud crash from below. Silence. Then screams unfurl up the stairwell.
“This way!” Clair says, knowing we have no choice but to follow. She turns left, tears down another hallway. The clamoring echoes of our boots race ahead, into the cold shadows. From behind, I hear the nattering click-clicks of claws against the floor.
Clair throws open a door and we rush into a room, faintly familiar. Clair is kicking away boxes and containers, then she’s opening another door and pushing us all through. The door slams shut behind us, and I hear Clair moving in the complete darkness, her hand patting the wall. Then a snap, and the corridor breaks into a green glow.
Hang gliders emerge out of the darkness, hanging high above us like mammoth moths. Ben stares at them wide-eyed.
Clair is already grabbing the training model for two. It’s surprisingly light, and Clair has no trouble carrying it herself.
Something pounds the door. Nails start clawing on the other side, nails breaking. Clair ignores the sounds, grabs equipment, GlowBurns, gloves. Another deafening blow that almost takes the door off its hinges.
“We need two more hang gliders!” I shout. “Clair, we—”
“We don’t have time to find the operable ones! Almost all of these are in disrepair and—”
Another loud boom rocks the door.
“Not going to hold much longer,” I yell. “We have to go now! Now!”
“Go first, I’ll catch up with you!” she yells, picking up pairs of goggles, bags. “Down the corridor, out the door!”
“No! We leave now!” Behind us, the door thumps again, then continuously, bodies pounding against it like rain falling. Then the groan of bending metal.
“Clair!” I yell. And now we’re all tearing down the hallway, dropping bags, losing equipment, but no longer caring. Only the hang glider matters.
The door explodes inward and duskers shoot in like pellets out of a gun. They surge toward us on the floor, walls, and ceiling, their screams deafening.
Clair flings open the door at the end of the corridor, and we throw ourselves through. I kick the door shut as I fall, and Sissy is already there, slamming down the latch. Duskers pummel the door from the other side, denting it with thunderous blasts. We gather ourselves, blood racing through our veins, and run up a flight of stairs and through another set of doors.
We’re outside, the air cool and sweet. I stare down the length of the fortress wall—the takeoff strip. It’s empty, not a dusker in sight.
But not for long. We’ve been spotted by duskers roaming the meadows, by duskers sitting like hawks along the fortress wall a stone’s throw over. They’re racing toward us on all fours, legs and arms bounding in a pale blur.
Clair starts trying to buckle me into the duo hang glider.
“No, Clair. Ben goes. With Sissy.”
“No way,” Clair answers. “It’s supposed to be you and Sissy.”
“I’m not going to waste time arguing,” I shout. I pull my face close to hers, leveling our eyes. “I’m staying. Ben and Sissy are getting on.”
“Let me tell you what Sissy’s going to do,” Sissy says. “Sissy’s going back to the train. I’m not abandoning the boys.”
The fortress wall begins to tremor. A wave of duskers screams from the meadows.
“Gene has to go!” Clair shouts. “The Scientist said—”
A ding of metal. Sissy’s unsheathed a dagger and is pressing it into Clair’s neck. “Strap yourself in.”
Clair realizes there’s no point resisting. She latches herself in, Sissy watching closely.
Sissy sheathes the dagger, grabs Ben.
“Sissy!” he cries.
“Ben,” she says, strapping him in, zipping up his jacket. “We’ll find you.” She connects a pair of carabiners. “You’re in good hands; Clair’ll fly you to the Promised Land.”
“Don’t leave me,” Ben says, lips trembling, tears beginning to pour down his cheeks.
A hum rumbles along the fortress wall. “Go now!” I shout. “They’re almost on top of us.”
Sissy gives Ben a quick hug. His tears smear on her face as she pulls away. “Go!” she shouts to Clair.
And then they’re off, charging down the length of the wall, their legs kicking round and round. At the end of the strip, they throw their bodies through a gap in the wall. They plummet out of sight then resurface a second later, soaring into the night sky, the hang glider slanting up and away from the mountain. I see Ben’s hair blowing in the wind, his arms rigid with fear. And then they’re sailing away, smoothly, Clair firmly in control, heading east.
“We’ve got to get to the train,” I say, looking for an escape.
The howls of the duskers screech closer. Across the meadows they pounce, slithering up the fortress walls.
Sissy turns to me, unhurried and deliberate. Something in her eyes slows everything down, and for the first time since I’ve returned to the Mission, we really look at each other. Her eyes pool with wetness even as a sad, brave smile touches her lips.
“I think we both know, Gene. This is the end.”
Duskers—pale and naked as newborn rats—crest the sides of the wall. We’re surrounded. The Hunt, begun so many days ago, is nearly over for them.
Sissy unsheathes two daggers, holds one out to me. “Fight to the finish?” she says.
I take the dagger. “Always.”
Glass shatters behind us. It’s Krugman’s office. Naked duskers are scaling the walls, pouring into his office through the broken window. Like rotten milk down a sink. I can’t hear Krugman screaming above the squall of the duskers, but I don’t need to.
The light haloing out of the office is suddenly snuffed out, lightbulbs inside smashed, throwing everything into an even deeper darkness around us. The power is still running—I see sparks leaping inside the darkened office.
An idea turns on in my head.
My eyes snap to the top of the corner tower. There: the long power cable connecting the office tower to the main generator in the village. It crosses high above the meadows, over the swarms of incoming duskers.
Heart pumping furiously, I grab Sissy’s hand, pull her along. No time to explain.
Behind us, as if enflamed by our attempt to flee, the duskers wail with fury.
We sprint. Our eyeballs bounce wildly in their sockets, mercifully blurring the sight of pale bodies emerging on both sides of the wall, like waves smashing up against the fortress walls. The duskers perch, eyes swiveling around to locate us; as we whisk by they jump onto the strip and bound after us.
“Your dagger belt,” I shout at Sissy.
She hands me the belt as we reach the power line. I loop the belt over the cable, holding one end as the other end swings around. I tug down on the belt. It’ll hold. It has to.
Facing me, Sissy drapes her arms around my shoulders, then leaps onto me, cinching her legs around my waist. I feel her head nod against mine, her lips pressed against my temple.
I leap. Into the night air, the ends of the belt looped around my wrists, Sissy clinging around my shoulders. The jolt of gravity as the belt takes the full brunt of our weight almost rips my arms out of their sockets. We bounce, once, twice, and the double impact causes Sissy to lose her grip; but her legs squeeze tighter around my hips, and she’s able to link her arms around my shoulders again.
And then we’re zip-lining down the cable with greater speed than leather on metal would seem to warrant. Sparks are shooting off like crazy from the belt, and only when I look up do I see why: a dagger is pinched between the belt and metal cable. It’s metal on metal. We’re flying. And sparking.
Far beneath us, duskers sprinting toward the wall stop in their tracks. Their upturned faces glare at us in surprise and fury. We soar safely over their outstretched, leaping arms.
Sissy, facing behind us, gasps. I turn my head to look. A dusker is chasing us down on the cable. Perfectly maintaining its balance on the high-wire, it’s trotting along with surprising speed, its legs and arms working in careful, balanced synchrony, as sure-footed as a stallion on the widest, flattest green meadow.
It is horribly disfigured. Perhaps, desperate to gain an edge over the hundreds of other duskers, it had left the darkness of the caves prematurely and been exposed to lingering dusk light. Whatever the reason, it now has the appearance of a hairless cat on a balance beam. Half its face has melted, giving it a lopsided lunacy. It opens its mouth, jaws separating well beyond the point of dislocation, and screams. And still it widens its mouth, until the corners tear into its cheeks, splitting the skin like stretched cheese and exposing lines of fangs and teeth.
This brutish creature, with cheeks gone and incisors exposed, appears to be smiling at me in wonderment.
A flash of silver light. Sissy’s removed a dagger from the belt and thrown it. At the dusker.
It’s a direct hit. The dagger sinks into the hunter’s chest cavity. Disappears.
Then splatters out the other side of its chest, having met little resistance.
The dusker stops momentarily. It—almost literally—doesn’t know what just hit it. It seems only briefly surprised, as one might be by a sudden, embarrassing burp. And as unaffected. It fixes its eyes on me, continues its pursuit.