Will McIntosh - Defenders

None of that was the least bit comforting. And if they came, they would kill everyone, except maybe the children.

“You okay?” Alfe asked.

“No.”

“Yeah, me neither.” He studied his finger, chewed at his cuticle a little more before adding, “I feel like we’re all in a room, and the walls move in a little more each day.”

“I’ve never had so many nightmares. I don’t want to sleep, but being awake is just as bad.”

Pedestrian traffic was growing heavier. Many of them were pushing handcarts, or carrying pails or water skins. Ahead, the crowd was tightly packed. Lila parked on the edge of the cobbled sidewalk, and they followed the crowd down the rough cobblestone to River Street. Between the brick buildings that used to house bars and gift shops for the tourists she caught glimpses of the Savannah River, where hundreds of enormous slate-blue fins jutted from the black water—markers for the portable hydroelectric power generators that filled the river. Along with parking lots filled with solar panels and a few hastily built rooftop windmill farms, it was all that staved off total blackout conditions.

There was no line, only a throng pressing toward an elevated scaffold where half a dozen people were distributing water through spigots that resembled gas pumps. A truck carrying a filtration system was drawing the water out of the river.

There was a rumor circulating that the pumps to Savannah’s houses were working fine, but Luyten had contaminated the city’s underground water supply, so the water had been turned off. It was difficult to separate the rumors from truth.

The crowd swelled, and soon Lila and Alfe were surrounded by people. It was an unpleasant feeling; those on the outside tended to push forward, eager to get closer, as if the river might run dry before they reached the front.

“There should be police here, getting everyone into lines,” Lila said.

“I guess they’re all on the perimeter.”

The honk of a tugboat made Lila’s heart nearly burst through her chest. Several others glanced toward the boat as well, hypersensitized to anything that resembled the emergency siren.

There were shouts from the front of the crowd, jostling that rippled backward until a boot heel sunk down on Lila’s toes. Pain coursed through her foot; she was nearly knocked down as people pushed backward.

“Where? Where is it?” someone closer to the river shouted.

“They’re coming, oh God, they’re coming.”

Suddenly people were stampeding. Jostled and pummeled, Lila turned and struggled to stay on her feet. Someone had spotted Luyten. They must have come down the river, maybe underwater.

She heard Alfe calling her name, spotted him ten feet away, weaving in the tightly packed mob. He shouted something, but she couldn’t make it out.

The crowd carried her across River Street, up a steep cobbled road. When they reached Bay Street there was more space to move. Her heart racing, Lila jogged up Whitaker, watching for starfish, expecting one to appear behind her at any moment.

“Lila!”

It was Alfe, pressed against the First Citizens Bank building up ahead. Lila ran to join him.

“We have to hide,” she said.

“That won’t do any good. They’ll know right where we are.”

She grabbed Alfe’s wrist. “Remember when you saw them by that lake? They’ll know, but two people aren’t worth chasing.”

They ran into the bank. It was deserted, save for three or four employees, one of them armed, and an elderly couple. It was less a bank now, more an exchange center, where people swapped gold, gems, ammo, anything that still had value.

“They’re coming!” Alfe shouted.

“Why didn’t the siren sound?” a woman in a blue and white business tunic asked. She looked to be in charge, was beautiful in a way that made Lila think of mannequins.

“I don’t know,” Alfe said.

Outside, someone shrieked. Crowds were still running past.

Lila looked around for a place to hide. Somewhere tight, where Luyten couldn’t easily reach. An inner room, or better yet, if there were stairs leading down into a cellar… or a vault.

“Does this bank have a vault?” she asked.

“A vault?” the beautiful woman repeated.

“Come on,” Lila said. Alfe followed her behind the row of teller stations, down a wide hallway. It was an old bank—it might have one of those vaults full of safe-deposit boxes.

“There,” Alfe said. She’d been looking for a big, round opening, but it was a narrow, heavy door.

They waited by the entrance to see if the others were following. Two of the employees appeared, the old couple a dozen steps behind them. A moment later, the woman in charge followed.

“It won’t lock,” Alfe said, pointing at the edge of the heavy door, where the bolts had been soldered in place. They pulled the door closed as far as it would go. Despite lacking a lock, being in the small steel room in near darkness gave Lila a sense of safety. She and Alfe sat on the floor with their backs against the far wall. The others sat as well.

They waited, listening.

“Anya, shouldn’t we run?” the armed employee, a muscular guy in his thirties, asked the woman in charge. “We can’t hide from them.”

“They can’t hunt down every person in every building,” Lila answered. “They kill people as fast as they can, so they’ll go after crowds in the streets.” If one of the starfish did want to get to them, Lila had no doubt it could. She’d seen them squeeze through smaller spaces than the double doors of this bank.

“But if they’re here, they won’t ever leave. Once they take over the city they can take their time coming to get us.”

Lila hadn’t thought beyond the next few hours. “Once they move past us, I guess we head out of the city.”

“To where?” the old man asked, trying to control the panic in his voice.

There was a crash, out in the lobby. It sounded like a table of trade goods being upended.

“Shh,” Alfe hissed.

All of them looked toward the door. It knew where they were. In a few seconds that door would fly open, and it would kill them all. Lila pulled her legs to her chest. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Alfe’s Adam’s apple bob.

Muffled shouts erupted outside. The voices sounded surprised, alarmed, angry. Not terrified. They didn’t sound like people being killed.

“What’s going on?” Anya asked, her voice low.

“Maybe it’s more people looking to hide.” Alfe got to his feet, opened the door wider. “This way,” he called.

“Who is that?” It was a woman’s voice. Footsteps clicked down the hall. Alfe stepped back as the door swung open to reveal a small, pudgy woman in her fifties or sixties. “Anya? Carl? What are you doing in here?”

“The starfish are coming,” Anya said.

The woman in the doorway shook her head. “It was a false alarm. Evidently porpoises strayed too far up the river, and someone thought they were a starfish.”

Lila let out a burst of laughter. Porpoises? That stampede was started by some nearsighted putz who’d spotted porpoises.

“The looters were real, though. I walked right in on them—they ran off with armloads of automatic rifles.”

Lila felt incredibly foolish, but compared to what she’d been feeling a few minutes earlier, foolish felt good.

July 12, 2029. Washington, D.C.

Oliver never tired of looking at her, at her dark eyes, the perfect slope of her jawline. That she was his wife never ceased to astonish him.

Noticing his attention, Vanessa glanced at him. “What?”

“Nothing. I’m just looking at you.”

She smiled, dimples forming on either cheek. “Cut it out; it makes me feel self-conscious, like I’ve got something sticking out of my nose.”