![]() I wonder if these are the only words he knows-stand, walk, up, down. The people on the platforms have stopped now. I get a glimpse of strong arms and delicate, tapered wrists. The hunchback moves with surprising grace. Two of the larger men on the platform come forward and grab him under the armpits, help haul him up out of the tracks. Julian’s hands are still tied behind his back. “Up,” the rat-man says, jerking his chin toward the platform. Many of them are missing limbs, or have other kinds of defects: shriveled infant-hands, strange tumor-growths on their faces, curved spines or crippled knees. They are all withered or damaged in some way. The walls are tiled, and papered with faded advertisements and graffiti.Īs we advance along the tracks, people turn and stare. The ceiling above us is vaulted, and we emerge from the darkness into a space with tall platforms on either side of us on them, more monsters-tattered, ragged, dirty people, all of them bloodless and pale, squinting and hobbled-move among metal trash cans where several fires are burning, so the air is clotted with smoke and an old, oily smell. The light breaks, expands, and becomes a cavernous room filled with fire and people. I try to wrench away from his grasp, but he keeps one hand firmly on my elbow, walking beside me now. Rat-man steps forward and seizes one of my arms. I trip and barely manage to right myself. My neck is wet with sweat, and the dizziness is worse than ever. For a minute I imagine that we are tunneling toward the center of the earth.įrom up ahead, there is light and movement: a fiery glow, and sounds of banging and babbling. The tunnel we are following slopes downward. This is, of course, how they want us: panicked, weak, and separated. ![]() ![]() I open my mouth to say so, but in that exact second everything explodes: Scavengers appear from all around us, shaking off their cloaks and furs-trees becoming people becoming arms and knives and spears-and we are scattering, running, screaming in all directions. Then, as I am watching, one of the logs-from a distance, just a mass of gray and brown-twitches.Īnd I know that something is very, very wrong. The woods are stark-still, brushstrokes of straight black leafless trees, expanses of white, collapsed logs and rotten tree trunks hunched in the snow. As I look around at us-all of our faces still and listening, anxious-I’m reminded of the deer we saw two days ago in the woods, the way it froze, and tensed, just before bounding away. We all heard it-the crack of a twig in the woods, sharp as a rifle report. I break off as Bram says, “Shhh.” Sarah scrambles to her feet again. ![]()
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