J. Mitchell - Midnight City

“Forsaken,” Holt said, cutting her off.

At the word, Mira felt icy terror grip her insides.

The Tone turned most people who heard it into the Succumbed, the mindless slaves of the Assembly. But for others it had unexpected effects. The Heedless were one: people like Holt who were immune.

Then there were the Forsaken. People who didn’t Succumb to the Tone, but rather were driven completely insane by it, reduced to horribly violent, animal-like monstrosities. They were drawn to one another somehow, lived in commune-like groups in various parts of the world. At least that was what the stories said. Few who found them lived to tell about it.

“Are you… are you sure?” she asked, disbelieving.

The front door exploded open. Two wild-eyed humanoid shapes burst inside, their eyes completely white. Their skin was leathery and black, their bodies covered in cuts and scrapes; what was left of their clothing hung around them in soiled tatters, their hair mangled and wild. They wailed insanely, leapt for the group with curled fingernails.

Holt ripped his shotgun free, blasted the two figures out of the room and back into the hall. “Yeah. Pretty sure,” he said. “Zoey, come on!”

The little girl flung herself into his arms, and he lifted her gingerly through the broken window.

“Why didn’t you just open it?” Holt asked Mira testily.

She glared at him in anger. “I was trying to, but—”

He grabbed her and yanked her through the window, followed quickly by Max.

Behind them, more crazed blackened figures rushed past the door, hissing and jabbering.

The four didn’t wait around: they rushed up the fire escape. The stairs shook and groaned as they ran and Mira could feel them ripping dangerously loose with each step.

Below them, more shadows leapt through the window, chasing after them. The stairs shook and contorted, pulling free from the brick wall.

They reached the roof. Holt ran forward, but Mira stopped short.

“Holt!” she yelled. The top of the fire escape was secured to the building by large rusted bolts, and they were barely holding on. They shook and pulled as the Forsaken rushed up the ladder below.

Mira kicked the top of the fire escape. It separated from the wall. But just a little.

She kicked it again. “Holt!”

He saw what she was thinking, turned and ran back. They both kicked at the fire escape in unison, tearing it loose from the wall. When the top broke away, enough supports were gone below that the whole thing pulled free from the building. Mortar and plaster sprayed everywhere as it ripped off. There was a groaning as the rusted metal contorted and warped and fell in a fury of twisted debris.

The Forsaken screeched as the entire structure crashed down, spraying black water everywhere.

They were safe. For the moment.

“This might be easier than I thought,” Holt said, smiling. Mira smiled back.

They ran for the other edge of the hotel roof, where Zoey and Max stood stock-still, staring out over the breach. When they got there, Mira saw why. The hotel looked out on all of the flooded city, hundreds of buildings illuminated like ghosts in the bright moonlight.

And on every building, shapes moved. Pouring out of windows, climbing up the walls, swimming through the horrid water. Hundreds and hundreds of them, in every direction. Hissings and jabberings filled the air all around them as the Forsaken cried out in their nonsensical, insane voices.

And each one of them was rushing toward the hotel, desperate to reach them, eager to rip their curled fingernails into them.

“Then again… maybe not,” Mira said, instinctively moving closer to Holt. He put his arm around her. All four of them stared in terror at the wave of murderous insanity flowing toward them from all sides in the darkness.

HOLT STARED DOWN AT THE DARK SHAPES of the Forsaken swarming below, hundreds (maybe thousands) of man-shaped shadows that dripped up and over the sunken buildings, surging toward them in the bright moonlight.

“What do we do?” Mira clung to him tightly, her voice strained.

The Tavern Inn was the tallest structure in the ruins, which meant the roofs of most other buildings were too far below to jump. There was only one that was close enough, an old office building. From there, they might have more choices of escape.

But escape seemed almost impossible then. The Forsaken were everywhere. No matter which direction they went, they’d run into them.

“We have to keep moving,” Holt said in spite of the circumstances. “If we stop, we die—they’ll overrun us.”

He moved for the other edge of the roof, staring at the office building next to them. It was maybe ten feet below, and six feet away. They could make it. Maybe.

“We don’t have the bridge anymore,” Mira said.

“Don’t have time to use it if we did.” Holt looked down at Zoey, grabbed her, and flung her up onto his back. Her arms circled his neck. “I’ll get Zoey, you take Max.”

Below, the jittering, gurgling shadows of the Forsaken reached the hotel. They started scaling straight up the walls, from all sides. Hundreds more were right behind them.

“I’m not carrying the dog,” Mira said with a scowl.

Max looked up at her, growled in response, echoing her sentiment.

“You have to take the Max!” Zoey cried.

Holt took a few steps back, stared at the edge of the roof ahead of him, and exhaled a long, slow breath.

“I’m not taking the dog, ” Mira said with emphasis.

“I’m sure you two can work it out,” Holt said, almost smiling. “Close your eyes, kiddo.”

Zoey did.

Holt ran for the edge and leapt forward as hard as he could.

He sailed into the breach, legs kicking under him in the open air. He saw the sunken ground float by below, the squirming shadows.

And then he hit the roof. His knees almost buckled, but he managed to stay up, skidding to a stop in the gravel. When he had his balance back, he quickly let Zoey down. “Still with me?” he asked.

The little girl opened her mouth to respond… then screamed at something behind Holt.

Holt spun, ripped his rifle loose, and fired.

Two Forsaken took slugs in the chest, shuddered, and fell to the roof. Holt spotted a third, just crawling up and over the edge, aimed, fired, missed, but the bullets sparked near it. The man-thing’s hands lost their grip, and it fell gurgling off the roof into the waters waiting below.

Behind him, Mira and Max landed. Max wasn’t a small dog, almost half Mira’s size. He squirmed in her hands, growling and snapping.

Holt caught her before she crashed on her face.

“Get this disgusting thing off me!” Mira shouted.

Max dropped to the ground, barking furiously at her.

She glared back. “Last time I help you !” she yelled down at Max.

“I really think he’s starting to warm to you,” Holt said.

Behind them, the walls of the old hotel were covered in Forsaken: black, dirty shadows that swarmed up its side like giant spiders.

They were running out of time.

Holt ran for the edge of the new roof, scanning the buildings around them, looking for choices, looking for anything that might—

Two more Forsaken appeared in front of them, crawling up the edge, hissing, staring with their sightless, insane white eyes.

Holt fired and dropped them. But he saw the hands of more clawing at the roof, pulling themselves up.

He turned on his heel, ran toward another side of the building. Mira, Zoey, and Max followed after him. They were almost there when more hands appeared, pulling their dirty, less-than-human owners onto the roof.