Fray (The Ruin Saga Book 3) (27 page)

“Don’t! Go, go all of you. Run!” she howled, scooping them up one by one.

Eddie Petrie wept and after a stutter in his stride, clipped her side and went hurtling off down the street. Sarah’s heart stopped as she watched her pistol spin from her grasp and go wheeling through the air. She made to dive after it, but the children were all moving now, spurred into motion by Eddie’s flight. As one, they rose, more terrified of being left behind than the remaining people loping forwards.

“Keep running. Don’t stop for anything,” Sarah called, waiting for them all to pass before turning in a horror-filled moment in search of the gun. She didn’t have time to spot it. Arms seized her from behind, locking around her midriff and lifting her into the air. Sarah thrust her head back, made contact with flesh with a satisfying
crunch
, and a shriek rang out. A pot-bellied bald man stumbled back holding a nose pouring with blood, and she hit the pavement hard. Her cheek smarting, she rolled onto her haunches and searched for the gun. All she saw were feet sprinting closer, too close, all around her. Sarah watched a booted foot loom up towards her face with unstoppable rapidity, and then pain exploded in her jaw. Jerking back, her head made contact against the curb, and a moment of darkness threatened to swallow her.

With everything she had left, she screamed, “Run. Run, RUN!”

Then everywhere there were creatures laughing, fuzzy and bending over her. A few of them parted, and a figure holding a long curved knife appeared over her. A voice, high and predatory, washed over her as she blacked out: “Take her.”

Allie reached the cathedral and felt she might have passed into another world. Inside, all was silent. For a horrible moment she thought everybody might have fled or been dragged away, but then she caught sight of figures gathered in the pews, their heads bowed, praying. She searched for Agatha, expecting to find her at her podium, but it was empty. Not a single person guarded the door.

Outside, the screams had died down enough to tell her all she needed to know. The roadblocks had been swept aside like dandelion heads in a breeze, and a scourge poured into the city, decanted from the sludgy ocean beyond, sloshing up the streets and cutting down anything that lay in its path.

She hadn’t seen Heather since leaving Main Street. She couldn’t afford to think about her right now.

“Everybody up!” she cried. Her voice returned in magnificent echo, the booming voice of the wizard of Oz addressing Dorothy. Eyes turned upon her in a wave that propagated from the rear pews forwards. Hundreds of eyes popped up into view, most wide-eyed and tearful, some blank, some angry. Children and the elderly lay in the centre of such clusters, surrounded by adults who stood slowly to face her. The entire cathedral stank with the expectation, the acceptance, of death.

Allison Rutherford never expected to stand before this city and be the one to whom it looked.

Harsh, taunting whispers from within:
The gossip. The dead weight. The nobody
.
That’s who I am.

She recoiled under the combined weight of their hopelessness, then caught sight of a slumped figure close to the transept. She was running before anything clicked in her mind, but by the time she leaped up onto the platform, she had started calling Agatha’s name.

A groan answered, and the figure transfigured into Agatha’s lolling body, her head drooping to her chest and her limbs splayed on either side. She sat teetering in a chair as though a diver preparing for a plunge. Allie crouched beside her and lifted her head and turned to those in the closest pews. “What happened?”

Nobody answered, just stared.

She scowled and cupped Agatha’s cold cheeks in her hands. “Aggie, it’s Allie. Come on, now. Look at me.”

Agatha stirred and her milky eyes turned laboriously, but there was no trace of recognition in them.

She’s gone again.

“Oh…,” Allie said, deflating. Suddenly she felt weak, as though gravity had grown stronger tenfold. Somehow, hearing her friends slaughtered outside paled in comparison to this: seeing one so wise and
above all this
, fade away before her very eyes.

No. She wasn’t going to let this happen. Not like this.

Cursing herself, she shook the old woman hard. “Aggie! You hear me, you old bat. I know you do. You’re not checking out that easy. You get your arse in gear, right this instant! You hear? Right this instant!”

Those milky eyes flickered with something, an oil-clogged engine sputtering and choking.

Allie gripped her hard, searching. “Come on, please. They all need you. I need you. One last time,” she breathed.

“Ms Rutherford…” Suddenly those eyes were alive. A human being had dropped into place before her. The tiniest rueful whisper: “Let go o’ me before I clock you one proper.”

Allison laughed, a hysterical and delightful absurdity amongst the pain and woe in terrible oscillation about them. “Everybody’s here now. We’re all together.”

Agatha looked for the source of the racket filtering in from outside. “It’s started…”

“Yes. It’ll be over soon.” Instead of loosening her grip, Allie tightened it to get her point across.

Agatha’s gaze filled with understanding, and she took a breath. “My flock?”

“All here. And more. We need to get out of here, right now.”

Agatha smiled and rubbed her hand, bringing it to her lips and kissing it. “So alive,” she whispered. “I ’member bein’ that way. Like you could do anythin’… Long time ago, that was. Like your heart is on fire.” She winked. “Lemme tell you a secret: we don’t ever get wiser, not a wink. But gettin’ to be an old bat does give you some favours: you get to know when the time for some things has passed. We coulda got out of here before. But listen to that out there, child. There ain’t no runnin’ now. Now’s the time to be together.”

“No, no.” Allie recoiled, pulling her hand away. She stood and turned to the crowd. “Come with me. There’s still time to run. We can get to the forest if we go now. They won’t get all of us, we—”

“Child.” Agatha’s hand gripped her harder than Allie thought possible, yet her voice remained soft as goose down, wafting high above the echoing carnage. “Anybody who wanted to run, ran already. The fighters fought. Us folk here, we got nothing if we don’t have this place or each other. Here we’ll stay.”

Allie fought tears but didn’t pull away. “Don’t give up, please don’t. I can’t just leave you.”

“You go do what you gotta. But right here, we’re happy.” Agatha winked once more, gave a smile so warm that Allie thought it might destroy her, and let go of her arm.

Allie turned slowly to the others as Agatha took once more to her podium and spread her arms. “Sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, I’m done with this bull-crap.” She picked up the bible by her hand and tossed it aside. “It ain’t gonna do us any good now. It’s time to live all the time we got left with our heads in the here and now. We’re all friends here, fam’ly. Whoever you got by your side, take their hand.” She paused and turned to Allie. “Go on, now. You take care.”

Allie bit her lip hard to keep the tears from flowing, backing away. “I’m sorry.”

That smile again, so serene and everlasting, keeper of those who weren’t for this world—those who before had been hopeless and tired of it all, but now seemed only ready. “Don’t you dare be sorry. You take that pain and you use it.”

Allie looked at them afresh as she reached the door. They had turned away from her now, their backs to the destruction, standing hand in hand. As one, they began to sing.

Allison turned and ran without looking back. As soon as she emerged, the sheer force of vibrating air stunned her. Everything was so very loud now, so very close. Her heart pounded painfully as she looked for somebody—something—she might be able to grab.

Sarah. Where was Sarah? If she had mounted a last stand then Allie wanted to be by her side. But there was no sign of anything she recognised. All around people were falling, shadows shifted, fires blazed. Bloody figures fought hand to hand, and bodies were being flung from upper storey windows into the roiling streets. A thin spattering of militia positions remained, but the approaching numbers were so vast that they were but islands in a foaming ocean.

A fresh wave of people breached the roadblocks with torches held aloft and scattered in all directions. They ignored anybody in their path, even those shooting at them, as though intent to penetrate as far behind enemy lines as possible, and lighted rags stuffed into bottles filled with liquid. As soon as these bottles were hurled through windows or through shattered doorways, great conflagrations belched to life, spewing flames into the streets and blowing out windows. New Canterbury began burning in earnest.

A gaggle of kids burst around a corner, sprinting for the cathedral. Allie watched them, frozen, but as soon as their terrified eyes turned on her, she sprang forwards with her arms spread wide. “Stop, stop! Where’s Mrs Strong?”

“They got her!” the closest of the boys wailed.

Allie mouthed wordlessly, then shook herself and waved them away, to the east. “Time to go, everyone.”

“What about my mummy and daddy?” the boy cried. The other kids began babbling at once, and Allie almost crumpled. Marshalling her strength, she clapped her hands, something she had seen Sarah do a thousand times but never thought she would do herself. Now, it might be all that could save them. “Enough! You do as I say. We’re going to stick together, and we’re going to run together and… and your parents are all going to be waiting for us.”

The kids wheeled away from the cathedral once more.

God, don’t let that be the last thing to come out of my mouth
, she thought.

She made to run, but in the corner of her eye a tiny figure tottered into view, tottering along the cobbles. A young red-headed girl wobbled drunkenly up the street, looking at and avoiding things that quite simply weren’t there. One of the kids must have taken a hit to the head.

Allie cast a look after the main herd of kids disappearing up the street. If she left them, they might get lost and run right into the army. But she wasn’t going to leave any more people behind, not one. Cursing under her breath, she ran for the tottering girl, who now seemed to be dancing.

Before she could reach her, the shelling started. The first explosion threw her sideways several paces. As the air unzipped overhead, a rumble fit to outstrip thunder tore its way down the street. Screaming, Allie caught a glimpse of flying shrapnel some fifty feet away, emanating from what had once been a rooftop, showering the street with razor-sharp detritus. Smoke and flame issued forth.

The air came alive with whistling. An instant of silence reigned, then ear-splitting pain thrummed in her head as cacophonous noise and blinding light lanced from all directions. The city seemed to disintegrate as streets overturned and spat cobbles at fighting men and women, houses vanished in puffs of dust, and the city she had known for the past five years suddenly belched death upon those within it.

Somehow Allie kept moving, heading for the girl. The explosions had banished her thinking mind entirely, and now she moved on autopilot, legs pumping and arms working. She swept the girl into her arms and yanked her to the side, collapsing against a wall and skidding to the ground.

“No,” the girl slurred. She stared into the sky and shook her head. “I have to stop the Frost. The Frost is coming.”

“What?” Allie yelled.

“I have to stop it.”

“What are you—?” Allie threw her arms over the girl as a shell landed less than thirty feet away, and a power line twanged loose, slicing a brick wall clean in half.

The girl snapped her head around and looked over Allie’s shoulder. Her face drained of colour. “What’s happening?” she screamed.

God help me
.

“Come on, we’re getting out of here,” Allie said.

The girl looked at her, blinking fast. “Where’s Norm?”

Allie blinked. “N-N-Norman? Did you say Norman?
Where is he
?”

“Here. They’re all here.”

“Now?”

The girl nodded.

Allie cast a furious gaze around as though expecting Norman to emerge from the ether, but she saw only the same medley of destruction. Could they really be here, somewhere? A moment’s indecision wracked her, for every fibre of her wanted to dash senselessly into the city in search of them. Even if just to see Norman one last time—

No. The kids. Get the kids out
.

Allie choked, set the girl down beside her. “We have to get out of here, right now!”

“But I have to—”

“Right now!”

The girl flinched wildly as yet another shell rocked the ground but nodded.

Allie took her hand and tore away down the street. She had no idea where she was going, could make no sense of the streets, a whirling confusion of colours and flying debris. But she couldn’t stop, not for one moment. She just ran.

Norman took Lucian’s hand and hauled him up from the manhole, pushing him aside to join Richard. Robert already perched ahead of them, surveying the city, leaning forwards like a dog poised to spring from its master’s leash.

All of them dripped with tepid sewer water, churned like rats in a spin cycle. The explosions had started just as they had passed under the feet of the invaders, using the same system of tunnels that Jason and his men had first used to get into the city. It seemed absurd that so short a time ago, they had believed the extent of the scourge’s power to be a handful of terrorists sneaking into the city at night, to slaughter watchmen, send warnings, and tie Chosen Ones to chairs.

Norman propped the manhole cover aside, making sure they would be able to dive inside should they need a quick getaway. The others’ faces grew slack and gaunt, looking over his shoulder. He joined them and wanted for all the world to squeeze his eyes shut and block out the terrible sight. It was burning, all of it.

“It’s over already,” Richard whispered.

“Oh no it ain’t,” Lucian said. “We’ve got a job to do, so keep your crap out of your pants.”

They crouched in the lee of a porch and watched a few figures dash across the end of the street. From here it was impossible to tell if they were friend or foe.