A noise echoed from deeper in the building. Clare squeezed her eyes closed, praying it was just the metal complaining under the storm’s strain. If Ezra had gotten out of the elevator, they were sitting ducks. The torch at her side gave them a little bubble of light. She could turn it off and let them take shelter in the darkness. But even that would only delay the inevitable. Ezra would be coming up to restore the generator. If they tried to run, they would meet him on the stairs.
The stairs… That’s what it sounds like. Footsteps on stairs. Hundreds of them.
A deep, thrumming echo rose through the building. It was faint, but persistent. Clare squeezed Dorran’s hand, her breath catching. “I think we need to put the generator back on.”
He pushed away from the floor, staggered, and leaned against the generator. “Light, please.”
She turned the torch around to help guide his hands. He’d taken out the fuse and carefully refit it. The machine began to whirr as lights flickered on above them.
Clare looked towards the display panel Ezra had shown them above the generator. Six little lights tracked which windows were locked and which were open. Five of the lights were green. One was red.
Dorran followed Clare’s gaze. He took a slow breath. “We are out of time.”
Clare stepped back from the machine. Her mind ran through every option, searching for some way out. The stairs. The windows. The locked rooms. The elevators.
The elevators…
“Can you run a little more?” she asked.
He nodded, and Clare gripped his hand to keep him at her side.
They moved back down the stairs, this time pushed by a fresh sense of urgency. Each second, the noises echoing from the floors below grew louder.
Clare staggered to a halt on the fifteenth floor. At the opposite end of carpeted hallway, the elevator doors were open. A block of light flowed out. It was a sharp contrast with the shadowed walls and red exit sign. As she watched, the doors slid closed.
“Ezra?” Her voice caught. She squeezed Dorran’s hand, her fingers clammy, and took a step towards the elevator. “Please, listen—just for a moment. We can’t afford to fight each other anymore.”
He couldn’t have gone far. She took the hallway in slow, measured steps, passing rows of closed doors. Her nerves were raw. At the back of her mind, she kept track of the chatter rising from the stairwell. It was closing in on them, already too near.
“We have to work together if we have any chance of surviving.” She was nearly at the elevator, and yet, there was no sign of Ezra. If he was near, he was keeping quiet.
He can’t have gone up; we would have met him on the stairs. Did he go down? Back to the work room, maybe? Or the labs? They were nearly at the elevator. Clare reached a shaking hand towards the buttons.
“Give it back.”
Clare swivelled. Ezra stood at the opposite end of the hall. He stepped out of the stairwell, gun aimed towards them.
“Ezra, please. We don’t have much time.” Clare held her hands up. “The hollows—”
“The USB!” The gun shook. “You can’t take it! Give it back!”
“I—I—” Clare threw her mind back. It felt like an eternity ago that she’d talked to Ezra about the USB containing his code. Do I have it? I don’t remember. When was the last time I saw it?
“Give it to me!” A fleck of spittle flew from between bared teeth. He’d been pushed to his limit, to the point where madness started to seep through the cracks in his composure. Clare had felt what it was like to be pushed to that edge herself. She knew how bitter and frightening it was to teeter on that line, unsure of what was real, unable to trust her own mind.
“You can come with us.” She held out a hand to him.
Ezra didn’t show any awareness of cacophony in the stairwell. His whole attention was directed towards Clare, eyes wild and desperate.
Then the shadows in the red-tinted stairwell suddenly morphed. They began to tremble then dance. Then they exploded in a frenzy of movement. Clare sucked in a sharp breath. “Behind you!”
Ezra turned just as the swell of hollows rose out of the stairwell in a wall of frothing limbs and gaping mouths. The gun fired, spending its final round into the crowd. If it hit any mark, it was quickly swallowed under the frenzy.
Dorran dragged Clare backwards, away from the swarm. They hit the elevator doors. Clare reached out blindly and pressed the button.
Ezra staggered back, but he’d reacted too late. The hollows poured over him. A piercing scream cut through the hallway as he disappeared under the scrabbling, chattering bodies. Clare flinched away. She didn’t want to see. But she had no way to block out the sound.
The scream rose, louder and louder, seemingly endless. It cracked into a raw howl then abruptly fell silent. The noise was replaced by the endless, quiet chattering noise, huffing breaths, and the wet smack of raw flesh between teeth.
The elevator doors slid open. A soft ding echoed through the hallway.
A dozen heads turned to stare at Clare and Dorran. Unblinking eyes shone in the light.
Clare clutched Dorran’s hand. Together, they stepped backwards into the elevator. Most of the hollows were occupied with their feast, but additional heads rose from the heap to stare at them. With a shaking hand, Clare selected a floor on the panel then carefully pushed the Close Doors switch.
The nearest hollows began skittering forward. One of them carried a dripping mouthful of red pulp. The chattering was curious. Eager.
Clare mashed the Close Doors button.
The hollows sped up as they neared. The leader rose out of its crouch, its elongated arms stretched towards them, eighteen fingers reaching for Clare’s face.
The doors
