But as angry as he was at her, there was something really cool about being close to the fifth after all this time. Like some invisible string of energy was pulling them all toward each other. His instincts kept guiding him in David’s direction.
He just hoped he could stay connected to that feeling once they were back out on the streets, fighting for their lives.
Even though Crash was pretty sure they were dangerously close to the day of his vision coming true, there was still a part of him that believed they could make it through this.
That they could still win.
He had to believe.
“We need to keep moving,” Parrish said, handing him a bottle of water and half of a Cliff Bar. “As soon as our barrier falls, they’re going to swarm this place, and we can’t afford to get stuck here.”
He devoured the bar, chugged some water, and put the iPad back in his bag. He was pretty sure he’d worked out a good route for them to take for now.
They just had to hope they didn’t run into any of the super zombies.
“Let’s go,” Parrish said as soon as he gave the go ahead that he was ready.
Everyone stood and held their weapons steady, preparing to face a huge cluster of rotters once they stepped back out, but instead, the street beyond the alley was empty.
“I don’t like this,” Karmen said, rubbing her hands over her arms like she was cold.
“Yeah, why is it so quiet?” Parrish asked.
Crash didn’t like the looks of this, either. Just seconds ago, there had been a small crowd out here on the street. There should have been more piling in, not less.
“Every time this has happened, there’s been a horde waiting for us,” Karmen said.
“This way,” he said, pointing in the direction of Third Avenue.
Crash pulled up the surveillance cameras for the surrounding blocks as they jogged forward. There was definitely something strange going on. Every other street in a ten block radius was teeming with Z's. Why was this alley empty?
‘“I don’t see anything unusual on the cameras,” he said. “Except that we seem to be in a small pocket of emptiness. It’s weird, right?”
Everyone looked around with nervous anticipation, as if waiting for the red eyes to appear at any moment.
“Does anyone see anything strange or out of place?”
“You mean other than the fact that New York City is a zombie playground and mostly destroyed forever?” Karmen asked. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, looking impatient and nervous.
“What the hell is that?” Noah asked, pointing straight ahead to the end of the alley.
Crash didn’t see anything at first except the throng of rotters on the adjacent street, but when he looked closer, at a certain angle, he could see what Noah was talking about.
About ten yards ahead, a white mist formed on the blacktop. It looked similar to fog, which was impossible on a day like today when it was probably more than ninety degrees out.
“Should we just go around it?” Parrish asked. “We’re losing time here.”
“I don’t think we should just be standing around looking at it,” Karmen said. “While we do this, the Dark One is getting her super zombies in play. We’re sitting ducks out here like this.”
Karmen was right, but if they made the wrong call here, they could be walking into something much worse. He wanted to be sure they were thinking this through.
“From the looks of it, the mist extends all the way from one side of the street to the other,” he said.
He toggled through a few nearby video feeds, and he didn’t like what was happening at all.
“It looks like some kind of pattern,” he said, holding out the iPad for the others to see.
The mist snaked around them in all directions, cutting off access to any other streets.
Beside him, Parrish gasped. “She’s blocking us in. We’ve got to run.”
“Looks like there’s one possible path left to us,” Noah said, running his finger along a side street. “Here.”
“We’re like rats in a maze,” Karmen whispered.
Crash realized she was right.
New York City was one giant maze right now, and the Dark One was toying with them. One wrong move, and it would all be over.
So, what was the right move here? There was only one route, but maybe that was just the way she wanted to force them to go.
“I don’t like the idea of going the way she’s sending us. Let’s get closer and see if we can run through it,” Crash said. “It’s just mist, right?”
“Doubtful,” Karmen muttered. “This is a bad plan.”
She was probably right, but were there any good options at this point rather than to face whatever this was head on?
As they approached the mist at the end of the alley, it rose into the air and solidified, turning into a solid block of ice that extended all the way across the street and went up at least three stories high.
“Dammit,” he said, spinning on his heels. “Try this other way.”
They ran that way, too, but the same thing happened. She was boxing them in and only giving one possible route forward.
How were they going to get through this? He was sure that if they went the way that was open, something terrible would be waiting for them there, but what choice did they have?
Maybe they could go up? He had no idea how they’d cross from building to building once they were up there, though. If they went up, their only option would be to fight until David found his way to them, and if he and Zoe got stuck somewhere along the way, they were all screwed.
No, they had to keep moving forward.
It was the only way.
As if to
