J. Mitchell: Midnight City

So Holt kept his eyes open. He grimaced, forced himself to look away. “Come on, pal.”

Max barked, grabbed his bone again, and followed him back to the tracks. He found the ones he was looking for again, heading north, back into the trees.

Holt and Max quickly set off into the forest, following the trail.

From the distance came more booming, more staccato drumbeats. They sounded closer now.

HOLT LAY AT THE EDGE OF THE TREE LINE, staring through a pair of small binoculars. Night had fallen, thick and dark over the forest, and the woods were filled with the impatient buzzings of locusts. Max sat next to him, chewing on a piece of cherry-flavored taffy from Holt’s pack. Max had a wicked sweet tooth, and when Holt needed to keep him quiet, he gave him a snack to focus on.

Through the binoculars, Holt spied what was once a farmhouse beyond the trees. For the most part, it was still in one piece, though some of its windows were broken out and there was graffiti on its doors.

Holt watched each window on the bottom floor light up with flickering orange light as something moved through the house. A lantern, Holt guessed, held by the very person he’d been tracking.

He smiled. The bounty on this one would solve a lot of problems for him, but he’d have to be cautious, have to do this strategically. The person in there was supposed to be very clever.

Holt and Max moved for the farmhouse, closing the distance quick and quiet, keeping low. He could see the lantern light from an upstairs window now, which meant the bottom floor should be clear. Unless his target had set up traps or alarms, of course. It was a distinct possibility.

Holt opened the door and slipped in.

The farmhouse was dark, probably hadn’t had electricity since the invasion. It had also been ransacked by looters many times over. What was left of the furniture was smashed on the floor, the cabinets and shelves all turned over and emptied.

Holt and Max moved through it all slowly, careful about tripping or breaking something, all the while scanning for traps. So far, Holt hadn’t seen any.

They moved toward the stairs at the other end of the room. As they did, Holt noticed the walls. There were still a few pictures hanging on them. Family portraits, a picture of a man on a tractor, two boys and a dog, a girl dressed in a high school graduation gown. They were glimpses of a world that no longer existed, and in all of them was something that gave Holt pause.

Images of adults. Parents. Friends of friends. Smiling, standing tall over their children, strong and capable.

Holt couldn’t help but stop and stare. It was almost a decade since he had seen anyone older than twenty-one or twenty-two. To him, the figures within those pictures seemed… alien. And even though they made him uncomfortable, he couldn’t look away.

The ceiling above him groaned as somebody moved upstairs. It was enough to break the spell. Max stared up at the ceiling, sniffing the air curiously and growling low.

Holt silenced him with a gesture, moved away from the pictures, and started up the stairs, taking them nice and easy in case they were squeaky. As he moved, he drew his shotgun from his back, a faded, camouflaged Ithaca 37 he’d found at an old army base and restored back to health. He used it almost as much as the Sig. They were two of his best friends.

At the end of the stairs stretched a dark hallway, wallpaper peeling from it and littering the floor. The hall moved between several different bedroom doors, but only one of them had light spilling out of the doorway onto the floor and wall. The same flickering orange light he’d seen outside.

Holt and Max crept toward the door quietly, and reached it in about six slow steps. Holt pushed himself gently against the edge of the doorframe, listening and waiting. No sounds, no indication of who or what might be waiting.

It was now or never, he figured. Holt took a deep breath, gripped the shotgun, and spun around the side, raising the weapon as he did. He aimed down the barrel and moved quickly into what used to be a bathroom.

The lantern sat on a shelf, bathing everything in wavering hues of orange and yellow. In the center of the room was a large porcelain clawed bathtub, full of water and soap suds that covered a lone figure resting contentedly inside. The person didn’t so much as flinch.

“Get out of the tub,” Holt ordered firmly, keeping the shotgun aimed at the figure. “No quick movements, I know who you are.”

Inside the tub was a girl, a little younger than Holt, eighteen or so. A cucumber slice covered each eye, and her hair was tied behind her head as she lay relaxed against the opposite end.

“I said out,” Holt demanded louder when she still failed to move. Max growled low beside him, as if he were eager to leap in after the girl. He probably was, Holt guessed. The dog loved it when people resisted.

With a frown, the girl slowly plucked one of the cucumbers off an eye and leveled an annoyed look at Holt. “Do you have any idea how long it took to make this bath?” she asked in agitation. “Here’s a clue: I had to use a teakettle for the hot water, so, yeah, it took me a long time.”

“I’m not sure it would be possible for me to care less,” Holt said, growing impatient. “The only thing I care about is the price on your head.” He kept the gun raised. She seemed remarkably calm for her predicament, which in his experience was a bad sign.

The girl removed the second cucumber and stared at him evenly. Unlike his eyes, hers were laced with the black veins of the Tone, and the ratio of white to black had shifted dramatically to the darker side. They were pretty eyes nonetheless, Holt noted, flashing green in the candlelight. Up close, they probably sparkled….

Holt quickly shook his head to clear out that thought. He had a job to do; he needed to stay focused.

“Another bounty hunter,” she said, making no move to exit the water. “I’ve already left three of your friends in my dust—what makes you think you’ll be any different?”

“Because I’m better than them,” Holt said. “And I doubt they were my friends. Get out of the water, or I’ll have my actual friend here pull you out.” Max barked in anticipation.

“He looks like he could use a bath, too,” she said. “No reason to be grumpy. Mind turning around while I find my clothes?”

Now, that was a new one. “You’re… naked?”

The girl smiled. “That’s typically how a bath works.”

Holt hesitated, a bevy of images flashing through his mind as he looked at the bubbles lying like a blanket on top of her. But he forced those away, too, and concentrated on the issue at hand. She had a point, he had to admit. What was the harm? She was too far away to reach him even if she tried. Besides, Max had no qualms about looking away—it was all the same to the dog.

“Fine,” he said gruffly, turning around but keeping the shotgun close. “But make it quick.”

“Totally quick,” the girl pleasantly assured him.

Behind him, she stood up in the water, keeping her eyes on Holt as she did so. Max growled as she stepped out, but she paid the dog no notice. Several necklaces hung from her neck, one of them a thin gold chain with a pendant made of a very odd combination of objects. Two dimes, a glass vial full of dark gray powder, and a red marble, all tied together with copper wire. The moment she was free of the tub, her hands shot to the pendant and ripped it off. She threw it hard at the floor where Holt stood.

Splinters of light exploded in a sphere all around Holt and Max as the vial shattered. Streaks of light streamed upward and brilliantly burst apart in the air.

Something ripped Holt and Max off the floor like they weighed nothing.