The Dark and Hollow Places

I don’t stop running. If anyone deserved to die it was Ox, but still, to see him there with so many dead—they’d have pulled him apart.



I shake my head, trying to erase the thought, and instead focus on what to do next. I can’t just keep running randomly through the tunnels. The Unconsecrated will continue to pile up behind me, their numbers becoming a tidal wave that will drown me if I don’t stay ahead of them.



If I accidentally hit a dead end or double back … I’ll be in the same situation as Ox. It’s too much of a risk.



At the next station I drag myself up onto the platform, scouring walls for any clue about where I am and where to go. How to make it out of here alive.



I’ve seen maps down here before, back when I used to explore after going to the museum, and I desperately need to find one now. My heart thunders in my chest, panic squeezing my lungs as dingy bare walls stare back at me.



Finally the weak lantern light illuminates dull colors barely visible under layers of dirt and grime. Frantic, I scrub the heel of my hand against the wall until the lines of a map appear. It’s faded, making it almost impossible to distinguish the various twisted lines and tunnels, and my eyes skitter everywhere at once until I see sharp letters stating YOU ARE HERE with an arrow pointing at a white circle.



I place a trembling finger over the spot like it’s an anchor holding me firm. I know where I am, now I just have to figure out where I’m going.



Behind me the moans in the tunnel grow stronger, pushing me to move, to run, but I know I have to think first.



My body shaking from the cold and strain of the day, I start tracing the lines that spread away from where I’m standing, tunnels curving and twisting back under the Dark City or out past the island, sometimes doubling back or just ending.



It’s like a maze, and I keep getting lost and tangled where the lines intersect into knots before untangling and breaking out again. There are too many options. I don’t know where to go. I beat my fist against the wall, pouring out my frustration and forcing myself to focus.



I refuse to die down here alone. I didn’t give up when I fell into a pit of barbed wire and I won’t do it now. There’s always a way to survive. The trick is finding out how. Survivors aren’t always the strongest; sometimes they’re the smartest, but more often simply the luckiest. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, clearing the panic from my mind, and then I open them and start tracing the lines on the map again, knowing there’s something I’m missing.



That’s when I see, at the edge of the map, a picture of a roller coaster, and I almost laugh at the simplicity of the solution. Catcher told me about a roller coaster—he said that was how he found the boat.



Now I just have to find where that is. With the lightness of hope screaming through my body, I rub more of the grime away and uncover an arrow pointing from the picture of the coaster to a round dot at the bottom edge of the map—another station.



My teeth chatter, the cold closing in around me as I track the lines on the map, figuring out how the tunnels connect and how to get there. It’s far away, and my body wants to sag at the thought of covering such distance, but it’s still hope. At least now I know where to go so that I’m not running in aimless circles, waiting for the dead to bury me.



For the briefest moment I allow myself to think about Catcher waiting for me. To think of the boat and the water and my sister and the sky. These are the thoughts that drag me back to the edge of the platform. That propel me down to the tracks and push me to stumble through the tunnels.



The moans wash behind me, almost a physical force that screams at my body to move faster, but I know better. This time I don’t run. It’s a long way to the roller coaster and I can’t exhaust myself. I’m more cautious with my steps, keeping the lantern in front of me so I don’t fall—I can’t afford any more scrapes or cuts. Any more blood.



The only problem is that my body doesn’t generate as much heat walking, and soon I start to lose feeling in my fingers and toes. I pull my new coat tight, try to remember the feel of the fire on the roof earlier, when we were inflating the balloon.



Try to remember the heat of Catcher’s skin against mine.



I shiver just thinking about it.



I feel like a tiny lightning bug lost over the ocean—a tiny bright light surrounded by dark so deep the world might as well not exist. Time and distance become distorted and I find myself counting steps just to know that I’m moving forward.



I can’t remember the last time I ate. I find myself pulling ice from the walls for water. It’s nearly impossible to raise my feet, so I drag them along, the Unconsecrated thundering after me.



Eventually, the ground becomes slick, and I press my hand against the ice-coated wall to keep steady. My footsteps alternately crunch and slip, making it easy to lose my balance. Every time I crash to my knees it takes longer for me to push myself up again, and the dead get closer.



Every time I hesitate, that’s distance lost between me and the dead.



I’m so tired. My body’s exhausted. Spent.



This is the true brutality of the Unconsecrated. My body tires and theirs don’t. My muscles cramp and lock up and theirs don’t. My mind screams to rest for just a moment and they know only the hunger that will keep them stumbling after me forever.



Every heartbeat I’m not moving, the Unconsecrated are.



And eventually I will have to stop. To sleep. To eat. To drink. To catch my breath.



I can’t walk forever. The dead can.



Knowing this should break me. It should have broken all of us long ago.



But it didn’t. Not my mother or my father. Not their parents or the generation before that.



And if I’ve learned anything surviving on my own it’s that I can take another step. That’s all I have to promise myself: one more step, and then I can worry about the one after that.



One more morning: that’s all I have to focus on.



So that’s what I do. Behind me the dead follow, the empty sound of their moaning making me nauseated and dizzy. I begin to hum, a wavering sound as the muscles in my arms and across my chest clench from the cold.



My throat’s sore, mouth parched dry, so I run my hands across the ice on the wall, bringing the drops of water to my lips to keep them from cracking. It tastes old and stale. Metallic, like blood.



A minute or an hour or a day or a week may have passed, for all I know. I just know one foot and then the other. I know the feel of the frozen wall under my half-numbed hands to keep balance. I know the feeling of my feet sliding—that moment I think I’ll catch myself just before I slam to the ground.



And I know pushing myself back up, bruises blooming on bruises. Moans chase me, the sound such a constant that it feels as necessary as breathing.



The tunnel slopes deeper underground, which makes the ice underfoot grow thicker. It starts to fill the tunnel until I’m forced to walk stooped over so I don’t hit my head on the ceiling. Keeping my balance on the slick surface becomes difficult, and finally I fall with a thud that forces the air from my lungs and sends the lantern flying.



As I lie there trying to coax myself to breathe again, shadows whisper at the edge of the feeble light.



I roll to my knees, recognizing the shapes: twisted arms, splayed fingers, gaping mouths. Eyes still open, sightless. Ice burns on my knees and palms. My teeth chatter and I have to clench my jaw hard to make them stop.



Bits of the bodies jut from the ice, frozen in time. Fingers like blades of grass coating a field, an elbow like a broken tree branch. They’re everywhere, surrounding me. My lantern’s trapped in a nook a few arm’s lengths away, and slowly, careful to avoid the snags of protruding bodies, I crawl toward it.



The ceiling grates against my back, the space so narrow I almost have to lie flat on my stomach to reach the lantern. I’m forced to rest my cheek on the ice, facing the bared teeth and clawing hands.



Some of the dead look like they’re asleep—like they collapsed down here, with no more living flesh to tempt them, and have been trapped ever since.



As I crawl I feel the top layer of ice beginning to melt under my touch. A tiny puddle already rests under the divot where the lantern rolled to a stop. Moans from the dead chasing me slip around the narrow space, bathing the frigid air with a sense of intense loneliness.



Stretching my arm as far as possible, I feel my fingers slide over the heated glass bulb of the lantern, knocking it just out of reach. Something brushes my foot and I glance over my shoulder, see fingers wrapping around my ankle. Teeth straining from the ice. All around me ice crystals sparkle and shimmer in the light and then there’s a sputter, a last gasping wheeze from the lantern, and everything goes black.



Chapter XLIV



I scream. I can’t help it. The darkness hits with such a startling intensity that I’m stunned. I clamp a hand over my mouth, silencing myself. Listening for the sound of another body moving.



The image is still imprinted in my mind. The Unconsecrated, half her body trapped in the ice. Reaching for me nonetheless, her movements agonizingly slow.



I kick and kick again, dragging my knees to my chest until I’m wrapped in as tiny a ball as possible. Sound is basically useless in the tunnels. It hits the walls and runs over the ceiling, making it tricky to judge direction or distance. A trace of air whispers up my back and my mind conjures the worst—dead lips against my skin—and I have to force myself to focus.



I listen to my breathing and then I stretch my senses beyond that. I hear water melting down icicles dripping to puddles collecting under my body. And then I hear a body unfolding. The pop of a joint stretching. The wheeze that comes before the moan.



I knew there were pockets of dead trapped in these tunnels. I knew it was only a matter of time. Twisting onto my side, I grab my machete and swing it toward where I last saw the lantern, hearing the blade clank across the metal, the glass rolling over ice.



Panic claws at my senses, desperate to overwhelm me and shut me down, but I refuse to crumble. I feel the tip of the machete hook the lantern, then slide it toward me and fumble in my pocket for the flint.



I strike. A tiny flicker of light that illuminates mouths and eyes a short distance away. I whimper.



Strike again.



Hands stretching toward me.



I lash out with the machete, swinging it wildly around me and finding only air and ice. I kneel, strike the flint again and again, twisting my fingers against the wick of the lantern until there’s a hiss and a sizzle and the flame sputters to life.



The moans are almost whispers, Unconsecrated bodies so close to being frozen that their movements are dulled, as if trapped under thick sludge. But still they come for me.



Clawing at the ice, sliding across its surface, they slither through the narrow gap near the roof of the frozen tunnel.



The few moments I took to light the lantern allowed them to come closer. I see the details now—the curve of cheekbones, angle of jaws, arch of eyebrows. The hollow desire.



When the first one is within range I strike out, piercing her eye with the tip of the machete, bracing my foot against her face for the leverage to pull the blade back and strike again.



I clear a narrow path between them. Feel the trace of their fingers along my leg as I crawl past. But I’m not moving fast enough. There are too many surrounding me.



My movements become frantic as I wave the machete in tight circles, warding off their touch, but it’s not enough. Suddenly I hear a high-pitched keen, and then without warning there’s a loud crack and something shifts underneath me. I roll to the side, digging the tip of the machete into the ice and wrenching myself forward.



It takes both my hands to hold on, and I’m forced to toss the lantern aside. It feels as if the ground’s given way, opened up and swallowed the world. Massive sheets of ice tilt and collapse, dumping the weight of the dead into the depths as a wave of frigid water washes over the bottom of my legs.



Kicking hard, my feet connecting with a body and gaining traction, I scramble forward, sliding on my stomach across the rest of the ice until I can finally stand.



The lantern sputters again, out of my reach on a ledge of ice surrounded by the dead. It throws a guttering light over the thrashing bodies, some of whom still fight toward me, fingers reaching. Their moans warble and fade, swallowed by the water.



I don’t want to leave the comfort of the light. But I know that beyond this pocket of dead there are more—hundreds more, if not thousands, spilling into the tunnel. I turn back to the darkness, stumbling into the abyss.



As my numb feet carry me forward I start feeling like the dead behind me are calling my name. Like instead of moans they’re calling “Aaaaannnaaaahhhh” over and over again, like a choir from the end of the world singing for my death. Sometimes bodies will rise in front of me, their steps staggering toward me, and all I can do is flail at the noise with my machete, slicing through whatever bits of them I can reach until they fall silent and let me pass.



For what feels like hours, days, months, I’m in the darkness. I become the darkness; it seeps into me and tries to eat its way out. It lulls me with promises of sleep and rest. It whispers to just give in. That it will protect me forever.



I ache to believe in it. I’m trembling from exhaustion, unable to feel my fingers or toes or knees or ears or lips from the oppressive cold and ice. There’s nothing inside me anymore. I’m just a body that jerks and shivers as time folds and crumples. For a moment I feel as though I’m on the path as a child with Elias. My sister is behind me, crying and begging me to come home to her.



Elias is reaching out a hand to pull me forward, but his fingers constantly slip through my own. I call out for Catcher. For anyone. For help. But the only response is the moaning. The stench of stale air.



I stumble to a stop and turn around. I wonder if this is it. If this is how the world ends. I wonder about all the other people who have faced this moment. I think of Catcher telling me about the night he climbed the roller coaster, when he lost all fear of heights because death was already eating away at him. He had nothing more to lose.