J. Mitchell - Midnight City

Holt smiled. “E.T. phone home,” he said.

Something slammed into one of the boys, knocking him to the ground and pinning him at the same time.

Holt had just enough time to see the clawlike contraption, the cable stretching up into the sky… before it yanked the poor kid violently off the bridge. His scream quickly faded to nothing as he disappeared far above.

The others flinched, panicked, looked around the bridge in confusion. It was only the leader, the yellow skull, who knew what was happening. “Vulture!” he shouted, fear in his voice.

Another boy screamed as the claw ripped him upward out of sight. The rest bolted.

Holt rammed his head into the face of the lone boy still holding him, sent him reeling backwards. He was loose; the yellow skull was too shocked to react. Holt’s kick found his knee, crumpled him to the bridge. The other Menagerie were already running, no longer interested in Holt, concerned only with escaping the horror circling above.

Holt didn’t waste the opportunity. He ran with them, toward the edge of the bridge several hundred yards away. Unfortunately, abandoned, rusting cars blocked his path like an obstacle course.

Another boy went down, pinned by the claw of the Vulture scout ship above… and then screamed as it yanked him powerfully up and away.

Holt had seen the Menagerie approaching, knew the Vulture was circling above. The Assembly scout ships’ optics were infamously powerful, so he’d lit the signal flare before the pirates grabbed him, hoping to attract the thing’s attention. A gamble, but it had paid off.

Of course, there was no guarantee it wouldn’t grab him next, but he liked those odds a lot better than the ones he would have gotten with the Menagerie.

As he ran, Holt leapt over the hoods and trunks of cars, sliding over them agilely, hitting the ground at a sprint. Ahead, the two Menagerie who had gone for rope were running back. They weren’t totally aware of their predicament yet. They were still focused on Holt. He saw them raise their guns, and he ducked quickly behind a ruined station wagon.

Gunfire erupted from ahead of him. He flinched as slugs sparked on the hood of the car.

From the other direction, the remaining boys were closing on him, drawing their own weapons.

A scream echoed from in front of him. Another grapling claw yanked one of the two blocking his path into the sky. Immediately after, one of the boys behind him was ripped upward as well.

No Vulture could fire and retract its claw that fast. Holt ripped his gaze back up to the sky. He saw one flash above him. And then another, separate flash several meters to the north.

There were two of them.

“Super,” Holt groaned. His plan had just backfired.

The kid in front of the car, just now figuring out his problems, stared up into the sky with terror.

Holt drove straight into him, sending him crashing to the crumbling concrete of the bridge.

He could hear the shouts of the other Menagerie pirates behind him, chasing after him. Gunfire sparked all around him as he ran, but Holt ignored it.

Only two pirates were left: the heart and the yellow skull leader. They rushed after him, leaping over the cars almost as agilely as Holt, guns drawn.

More gunfire shredded the bridge near his feet, barely missing him.

Holt lost his footing, stumbled forward, crashed into the open rear door of an old van, hit the ground hard. The wind burst from his lungs; he struggled to get up. The kids were almost on him—he could hear their shouts, growing louder, their footsteps.

He got to his feet and ran. He had to keep moving, to get to the tree line on the other side of the bridge. It was his only shot.

The heart grabbed him from behind. Holt lashed out with a foot, managed to connect and sent him spinning away.

Another grapling claw blew the kid to the ground, pinned him… then yanked him with ferocity up into the air.

Holt stumbled to his feet, ran for the edge of the bridge. Above him, sunlight flashed off the metallic fuselages of both Vultures.

He dodged and shimmied past the remaining cars on the bridge, and came out the other side onto solid ground. Holt instantly turned right, down a grassy slope toward a thick line of trees just a few dozen yards ahead.

It was going to be close.

Holt reached and burst through the tree line with a sigh of relief. With the tree canopy above, he was safe, at least from—

Holt groaned as the yellow skull hit him from behind, tackled him to the ground. He tried to roll over, but the boy grabbed his hair, shoved his face into the dirt.

“You cost me my whole crew!” the boy shouted. “You know what that means?” Holt did know. It meant the Menagerie would hang the kid on sight, but right then he was too preoccupied to answer. The pirate pounded Holt’s face into the dirt over and over, and he struggled to get loose, but the boy’s grip was too strong.

Something growled behind them. The yellow skull gasped as a big blue gray shape rammed into him.

Holt rolled onto his back, saw the yellow skull wrestling with a large cattle dog, its mouth clamped down firmly onto the boy’s arm, its eyes intense slits. It growled angrily as it tried to chew the kid’s appendage off. The boy yelled in pain and shock.

Max. One of the few things Holt ever counted on.

Holt leapt for the yellow skull. Max was tough, but he wasn’t a pit bull. The kid would get him off eventually; it wasn’t a fight the dog could win.

Holt punched the yellow skull hard. Max let the pirate loose, barking furiously.

The two kids grappled, but it wasn’t a school yard fight—it was life or death, and they knew it.

They rolled through the dirt, and the yellow skull maneuvered on top of Holt again. His hands circled Holt’s throat, started to squeeze.

But Holt had seen it coming, got his feet underneath the boy when they rolled over. He kicked outward with everything he had… and the pirate went flying.

The yellow skull hit the ground and rolled right out of the tree line and back into the open field beyond.

Max barked after him, but Holt grabbed the dog and held him in place, staring at the open air beyond the trees with trepidation.

The yellow skull looked up in a daze. Then his eyes widened as he realized he was no longer concealed by the trees. The two looked at each other. Holt almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

The grapling claw flashed down from the sky, pinned the pirate to the ground. Then he yelled as it ripped him upward out of sight, back into the deadly blue sky.

It was over. Holt let Max go. The dog brushed against him affectionately, licked his face. Holt smiled, tried to push Max off him, but it wasn’t the easiest task. His fur was a mixture of gray and blue with spots of black, and under it rippled muscles made strong by years of carrying packs full of salvage… and chasing the occasional rabbit. Max was considered only a medium-sized dog, but Holt had seen him readily take on creatures and kids three times his size without any hesitation.

“Thanks, pal,” Holt said, scratching the dog’s ears. “Another one I owe you.”

Holt found his pack and weapons where he’d left them, loaded up, made ready to move. He whistled three short notes. At the signal, Max bounded off into the trees ahead of him to scout.

Before he left, Holt looked to where the last Menagerie kid had been. Other than the scarred ground where the Vulture claw had punctured it, there was no indication anyone had ever been there at all. Here one moment. Gone the next.

Just like everyone else…

Holt set off through the trees, following Max’s trail.

HOLT CROUCHED in front of what was left of the cargo train, absently twisting the thick, black fiber bracelet he always wore on his left wrist. The train had careened off its tracks years ago, and tore a swath of destruction through the ground on either side. Most of the cars were rusting pieces of jagged metal now, overgrown with grass and weeds, stretching for more than half a mile. Some of them were still in one piece, and, even more shocking, one or two were still on the track itself.