Julia’s head, then slams it back down once more, then looks up and springs away. The cord whips out of my hands, burning my skin.
“Ellis!”
She leaps up at another Unchanged woman who’s running toward her. The woman catches her with surprise and is then slammed back down onto the road, overcome by the unexpected force of the attack. Ellis kills her, then stands up and drags another one down, then another and another, and I’m transfixed until an Unchanged man slams into me from one side. I grab his collar, flip him over, and smash the sole of my boot into his face. The exhilaration is incredible. Suddenly, now that I have Ellis with me, this is all that matters. Another one of them comes at me with a knife. I grab his hand, twist it around with such force that I hear his elbow pop and crack, then plunge the blade into his own chest. I pull the bloody weapon back out and then, without thinking, grab a handful of hair from the head of another, yank it back, and draw the knife quickly across its exposed neck, feeling it slice easily through flesh. Beside me Ellis launches herself at a kid just a little older than she is. The kid fights back, almost getting away, before Ellis forces it over to the side of the road and smashes its head through a low window.
And this, I realize as I kill again and again without resistance, is what I’d always said I’d wanted. I’m fighting freely, without restriction or fear, and Ellis is by my side, doing the same. Except she’s not here. I’ve lost sight of her again. I shout her name, but the chaos around me now is all-consuming. The helicopter circles overhead again, and the panicking crowd pushes me back farther. I try to carve my way through them, but getting through these people is like trying to swim against the strongest current imaginable. Through a momentary gap I see Ellis racing away, moving diagonally across the street, jumping from body to body, from kill to kill, slithering through the crowd. She jumps up onto the back of one unsuspecting man, snaps his neck, then leaps over to her next victim before the first corpse has fallen. Then she’s gone again. Lost in the midst of the madness.
What has she become? She’s a savage, feral monster, a million miles removed from the Ellis I knew and remembered, but she’s still my daughter. Seeing her like this is heartbreakingly sad, but, at the same time, there’s a part of me that’s incredibly proud of what she is now and how bravely and strongly she’s fighting.
Got to get to her.
I’m struggling to keep going. I’m panting with effort, legs heavy and lungs empty, barely able to keep moving, and yet the tide of Unchanged refugees coming toward me is endless. I try to force my way between them, but every time I take a step forward I’m pushed several steps back. Got to keep moving. Can’t stop now…
The roar of another missile fills the air. It hits the side of a building less than a hundred yards ahead, puncturing a hole in the wall, then exploding outward, showering the entire street with debris. When the explosion fades, everything becomes silent and still. I stand motionless as the last few refugees to have escaped the blast continue to push past me. I slowly move closer to the blast zone as the sound gradually begins to return-the screams and moans of the injured and dying, a single car alarm that’s somehow still working, the crackle and pop of flames, the hiss of fractured pipes…
Can’t see Ellis.
I stand alone at the edge of a massive expanse of rubble and fallen bodies. Around me, a few people begin to move again, crawling through the debris, slowly picking themselves up and staggering on. I walk deeper into the madness, slowly at first, then starting to run. I trip and slide over the remains of people under my feet.
Where is she?
I run faster, barely managing to stay upright in the midst of the carnage. The closer I get to the epicenter, the fewer complete bodies there are. I look down and all I can see now is dismembered limbs and other, less recognizable chunks of bloody meat. I can’t move, can’t think straight, the stench of smoke and burning flesh filling my bleeding nostrils. Can’t focus. I can hardly breathe. Have I lost her? Against all the odds, Lizzie kept Ellis safe for weeks on end. Just minutes with me and she’s gone.
Can’t give up.
There are more people moving all around me now, some of them disentangling themselves from the bloody wreckage, others continuing to flood forward from the center of town, picking their way through the gruesome ruins, the explosion just delaying their escape temporarily. I slowly cross what’s left of the street, trying to see through the smoke and haze and line myself up with the buildings close to where I last thought I saw her. As I get nearer I drop to my knees and start to crawl through the bloody mire, pushing away the grabbing hands that reach up at me, desperate for help. My knee sinks down into the open chest cavity of a young Unchanged man, physically forcing his last breath from his lungs. Another one of them catches hold of my coat, and I pry its surprisingly strong fingers away when I see a small, child-sized hand sticking out from under two heavy cadavers. I drag the corpses out of the way, desperate to dig Ellis out from beneath them. She’s facedown on the asphalt, a pool of deep red, almost black blood spilling out around her head. I put my hands under her shoulders, pull her out, and turn her over, but it’s not her. Thank God. I drop the body and keep moving.
There are Unchanged moving all around me again now. Most are injured; all are terrified. I increase my speed, determined to find Ellis, literally throwing wet chunks of human remains over my shoulder as I look for any sign of her. Then I see it-the severed end of the plastic clothesline. As more munitions explode around me, showering me with dust and dirt, I pick up the end of the cord and follow it back, terrified at the thought of what I might find at the other end. I catch sight of a bare ankle that’s smaller and thinner than the rest. I haul another blood-soaked body out of the way and shove it to one side, jumping with surprise when it opens its eyes and screams in pain and grabs hold of me. Underneath another corpse I see Ellis’s shock of untidy brown hair. I push and pull more bodies away until she lies there in front of me, completely uncovered. Her tiny, emaciated body doesn’t move. I shake her shoulder, but there’s still no response. I lean down until my ear’s just a fraction of an inch from her mouth, but it’s impossible to hear or feel anything. I grip her wrist in my hand and check for a pulse, but there’s nothing. I turn her over and pull her up and hold her in my arms. She looks like she’s sleeping, and for the first time since I found her she looks like my Ellis again, like the precious little kid I used to tuck into bed at night and fetch breakfast for in the morning, the noisy little brat who made my life hell but who I loved more than anything else in the world. Bruised, blood-soaked, and beautiful.
I check her neck for a pulse again, not even sure if I’m doing it right. Did I just feel something? I pry her eyelids open. Her pupils are wide, fully dilated, but she doesn’t react to the light. I hold her close, her head next to mine, and for a second I think I hear something. I concentrate on Ellis, shutting out everything else, and then I hear it again. The faintest whisper of a shallow, rasping breath. She’s alive. Got to get her out of here.
39
THE SKIES OVERHEAD ARE filled with movement and noise. Missiles, mortars, and rockets whip across the clouds and detonate around the city center. Helicopters buzz overhead, some observing, most of them attacking, firing into the crowds below.
The bulk of the refugees follow each other like sheep, sticking to the main roads out of town and not even bothering to consider whether those in front know any more or less about the situation than they do. They run blind, finding the illusion of safety in numbers. There are hundreds of them moving down the wide ring road, which, as many of them must know, will eventually swing around and take them straight back into the dying heart of the city.
There’s another way.
Over to my left is an enormous pile of smoldering rubble where there used to be a multiplex cinema. Still carrying Ellis in my arms, I leave the road and run around the edge of the ruins, following the perimeter of a wide, tent- and RV-filled parking lot that has been almost completely abandoned. On the far side of the site is a steep embankment, along which runs one of the train lines out of the city. While thousands of those dumb bastards have stuck to the clogged and overcrowded roads, I can already see that there are just a handful of people up there following the train tracks out of town.
Ellis starts to move. Thank God for that. It was only a small flinch, but it was enough, and I sense she’s going to be okay. I hold her tight as I climb up the embankment, quickly reaching the top and running along the side of the track, still instinctively watching out for trains I know will never come. My feet dig into the gravel as if it’s wet sand, every step taking twice as much effort as it should.
From this relatively high and uninterrupted vantage point, I can see clearly in most directions. I look back over
