She waited.
She lived. If only for a few seconds more.
A savage cry echoed off the crumbling buildings and Ocean’s eyes snapped open as her body jolted with shock. The rotters closest to her were turning away, as if the introduction of this new sound held greater promise than the silent girl before them. Through the gaps between their bodies, she could see something moving, nothing more than a dark blur, really. Now that the echoed shout was fading, she was aware of another sound. It was a dull thud and sharp whack merged into a single noise, preceded time and time again by a swish that reminded her, somehow, of the toy Daddy had made her when she was very small.
He’d taken what he’d called fan blades from one of the cars and attached them to a metal rod. When the wind blew hard enough, the flat vanes would start to spin and the sound they made was very similar to this one.
As she watched the rotters move toward the source of the sound, Ocean saw a head tumble into the air. It almost seemed to rotate in slow motion as it arced skyward; she had ample time to notice how the face looked like it had been chewed away at some point in the past.
Then she saw him, spinning like a tornado of rage, kicking back the rotters closest to him with leaps and growls, a whirlwind of constant motion and violence. In either hand, he held the curved blade of a sickle. For the most part, the metal was pitted and flaked with rust, but the inner edges had been honed to perfection and gleamed as brightly as the reflection of the sun on a car’s mirror.
Surrounding him in a vortex of carnage were arms and legs, slabs of flesh cleaved from torsos, splinters of brittle bone, fingers, chins… and, of course, heads. Those heads fell like a grisly rain, trailing the thick, black blood of the rotters in their wake and bouncing across the street like pebbles that had been dropped from the hand of a giant.
Within seconds, there was only this strange man with his dark hair and clothes, standing within a ring of dismembered body parts, breathing heavily as he switched the sickles so that they were both clutched in a single fist. With his other hand, he reached toward her, his blue eyes seemed to flare with passion as he spoke.
“Come with me if you want to live.”
Ocean had been so caught up in the man’s flurry of destruction that she had entirely forgotten the rotters who were creeping up behind her. The man’s gravelly voice seemed to pull her away from the edge of a precipice, as the reality of the situation hit her with an almost physical force and everything around her was thrown back into sharp focus.
She felt a hand tentatively grabbing at the back of her blouse and she leapt forward with a shriek, reaching out at the same time. The man’s hand enveloped her own with it’s roughly calloused palm, and he yanked her forward so hard that pain exploded through her shoulder.
Then they were running. He moved through the rubble of the streets like the deer had before they’d been hunted to extinction—bobbing, weaving, leaping over piles of debris, his long hair fluttering in the displaced air. She stumbled and scrambled, trying her best to match his pace and to keep from tripping over her own feet. In her mind, she saw her hand slipping out of his as she tumbled to the ground, and he just kept running until he was nothing more than a tiny speck in the distance, leaving her panting, waiting for the rotters to claim her as their own.
Her lungs felt as if they were on fire, the muscles in her legs quivered and ached, yet somehow she managed to hang on to that firm hand; somehow she found the fortitude to keep running, to keep up with her savior.
The unfamiliar streets passed in a blur, yet Ocean got the impression that this man’s trajectory wasn’t as random as it first appeared. He moved with the quiet confidence of someone who knew exactly where he was going, precisely were to turn in the circuitous route they were taking.
As if in reply to this thought, his voice boomed out. “Corduroy! I’ve got a breather!”
Ocean, feeling she could barely draw in enough breath to support life, was shocked at how smoothly the words flowed from this stranger. If she hadn’t been with him every step of the way, she never would have guessed that he’d been running for blocks.
In response to his call, the street was filled with a metallic, grating sound. About half a block away, one of the metal disks that were embedded every so often throughout the city, seemed to levitate above the ground. As they drew closer, Ocean was able to make out the hands that lifted it into the air, and shoved it to the side, where it dropped with a loud clang. By then they were standing directly in front of it.
Before her feet, Ocean saw a perfectly round, perfectly dark hole. She could vaguely sense something moving down there and assumed it was who the man had called Corduroy.
“Down, down, down!”
The stranger’s tone left no room for argument. Taking a deep breath, Ocean jumped into the hole feet first and braced herself for the shock of impact. She’d expected something hard and cold, but instead crashed into the warm, fleshy mass of the man who’d removed the manhole cover. He grunted and fell to the ground with a thump.
“What the fuck?”
Ocean scrambled to her feet and tried to apologize, but could only gasp for air. She leaned forward with her hands on her knees, gulping her lungs full of the cool, damp air. She glanced up to see the sickle man descending down the side of the wall, but light streaming in from the hole blinded her with its glare. She was able to squint just enough to make out the metal rings embedded into the concrete. A ladder? There had been a damn ladder?
The man with the dark hair cupped his hand beneath her chin, tilting her head back so she was looking into his eyes. He pursed his lips and raised a finger to them before taking her hand again.
The one called Corduroy glared at her through the semi-darkness; she returned his gaze just long enough to realize that his face was twisted with dark burns. It was so bad that, had she saw him in any other circumstance, she would have assumed he was a rotter. One of his eyebrows looked as if it had melted over his eye, causing a permanent squint, and she thought he looked older than the man who’d come to her rescue.
He climbed up the rungs, the sound of metal scraping over asphalt again assaulted her ears. After that they were plunged into a darkness more complete than any Ocean had ever known.
She felt the man’s now familiar hand take hers again, wondering briefly why it caused her stomach to feel as if every fly she’d ever eaten had suddenly come to life to flutter around in her belly. He was leading her again, deeper into the darkness this time, and at a much slower pace.
She could hear Corduroy behind her, his footsteps light and quick, and a dripping sound from somewhere far away. The entire place smelled old and musty and she began to wonder if she’d really died back there on the streets. Perhaps this man and his companion were actually angels, and even now, were leading her through the lightless void of death. They’d gone underground which of course meant she was going to Hell, but that was exactly what she deserved wasn’t it? After what she’d done to her mother…
She stretched her free hand into the gloom, needing to feel something solid, something real. Her fingers brushed over what felt like coarse stone, damp as the morning dew. Excitement drove away the pangs of remorse and guilt. She wanted to lean out and lick the cool beads of moisture from the wall until her tongue was raw and bloody.
“There’s water where we’re going.” The man’s whisper echoed in the darkness. It was funny how he seemed to know exactly what she was thinking, exactly what she needed… There was that strange fluttery feeling again, and why did her face and chest suddenly feel so warm?
“Food. Clean clothes. It’s not much further. But we have to stay perfectly quiet from here on out. Understand?”