Chapter 20: Not Dark Yet, Pt. 1

Something hairy had died in Lily’s mouth. She lay on the floor in a mess of blankets, shirt plastered to her clammy skin. The air had a burnt-rubber smell. Her head pulsed and buzzed.

Michael was dead to the world, face-down, his head pillowed on his folded arms. Inches away. This was new, Lily had no memory of this. Holding her breath, she lifted the blanket.

Both of them were still dressed. She lay back with a muted groan, pressing her knuckles into her eyes as the memories oozed in, whiskey-bright and dreamlike.

She’d told him everything, every single horrible thing, and he’d absolved her. Then he’d held her stupid fucking hand—

Lily groaned, louder this time. The buzzing in her head sounded like a distant alarm. No, it was an alarm.

Burning. Something was burning.

Lily sat up so fast she almost vomited. Smoke filtered in beneath the armory door in thin ribbons. She shook Michael’s shoulder and scrambled to her feet, gathering up their scattered supplies. “Wake up, we have to go right now! Come on!”

When he didn’t move, she wrenched open the door. Oily black smoke crawled up the corridor as a siren shrieked with skull-piercing urgency.

Michael lifted his head, eyes screwed shut. “Turn it off.”

“Get up, get a gun. Something’s happening.” Balance was a constant struggle. Lily grabbed the nearest rifle, checking the magazine and chamber with trembling fingers.

She kicked Michael’s pack at his head, and when it hit him in the face he roused himself enough to stand and help her.

A deep bass note thrummed through the floor, through Lily’s bones. She heard the scream of rending metal. Why hadn’t they just slept upstairs? What was happening—

Everything shuddered.

Lily hauled Michael out into the hallway, pulling her shirt over her nose and mouth. Her body hurt like she’d been rolled downhill in a barrel and her head felt soft and overripe.

They ran anyway, Lily in a humiliating skip-jump fashion, her leg throbbing in chorus with her head.

At the first glass door they stopped so Michael could work the panel. The lights began their glacial cycling.

An explosion sent chunks of ceiling plummeting to the floor. Cracks shot along the walls faster than Lily could register. Then the alarm’s frantic howling died mid-shriek, and in the silence she heard something scraping across the floor, hidden by the smoke.

Something big.

“Hurry,” she said, tucking the butt of the rifle tight into her shoulder and sighting back the way they’d come.

A deep blast of sound sent a fine rain of powder trickling from the ceiling. The scraping continued, underlaid by the sound of grinding metal.

It advanced through the smoke.

Jointed metal legs hauled a listing geometric body that scored the walls and ceiling as it lurched forward. Exposed wires sparked. Thick black liquid oozed down its sides. Clusters of red lights flickered.

It was completely unlike a spider, but Lily’s horrified mind latched onto the image of an arachnid, twelve feet tall, made of interlocking black steel plates.

The light on the panel flashed green.

Michael took his hand away and heaved the grenade launcher onto his shoulder, firing straight at the glowing eyes. The projectile exploded, sending a wall of fire sweeping up the corridor.

Images from the security screens replayed through Lily’s mind as Michael dragged her through the doorway just in time to avoid the swirling blaze: charred bodies and slumped heaps of mechanical waste.

Michael propelled her forward, and Lily willed her leg to carry her weight. Smoke burned her nose.

The ceiling buckled but held as the machine crawled after them, blaring the same reverberating bass tone. It was completely on one side now, remaining legs thunking against the floor as it heaved its bulk along, splintering the doors they’d just passed through.

How many more barriers? Two? Three? Every time they stopped the thing gained terrifying ground. It wasn’t fast, but it didn’t have to be.

Lily imagined one of those stabbing legs reaching out and catching her ankle – that spurred her to move through the pain, rifle thumping at her side.

The last glass barricade came up so fast they nearly crashed into it. Nothing happened when Michael laid his hand against the sensor.

“Michael,” Lily warned, putting her back to him and taking aim again. The rifle felt like a toy. All she could see were the glowing red dots, steadily enlarging. “Michael, open the fucking door—”

It was twenty yards away.

“Take a knee. Here.” Michael took the rifle and settled the launcher into her arms instead, showing her where to put her hands, how to fire. “Wait until the doors open.”

How was he so calm? “What if they don’t?”

Fifty yards.

“They will.” He laid his hand back on the dead sensor.

Lily’s shoulder ached, but she held the weapon in place and sighted the way he’d shown her. Aim at the legs, or the head? The last shot hadn’t done a thing—

Above her, a crack split through the ceiling like a lightning bolt.

Forty yards.

Lily’s arms trembled under the weight. “Give me good news, Michael,” she panted, finger hovering over the trigger.

Twenty yards.

The cool, impersonal voice welcomed Operative Echo 1074. Lily heard the doors swoosh open behind her.

“Lily.” His voice was tight.

“Wait.”

“Lily—"

The monstrosity was close Lily tasted burning oil. She exhaled and fired straight up.

Michael had already pulled her into a headlong run when half a ton of concrete crashed down on the machine’s head.

The whole base shook with its death throes. Cracks shot through the walls and debris rained from the ceiling, but all the fear and determination in the world couldn’t make Lily’s crooked leg whole again.

Michael half-dragged her when it buckled, hauling her up the last stretch of corridor into the atrium and shoving her out the door.

They stumbled into the trees, carrying each other until the momentum died and they collapsed onto the trembling earth. The moss was cool against Lily’s cheek.

"No more going underground,” she wheezed. "Never again. You hear me?"

Michael rolled onto his back, wiping futilely at the grime on his face. "What was that. Why did it have those legs?"

Something exploded. A cloud of dust and smoke erupted from the open door.

Lily clutched her head; the adrenaline was fading and her throbbing migraine had returned with a vengeance. She rolled over and threw up into the underbrush.

"I hated the legs,” he muttered. "I don't like being drunk."

Lily shielded her eyes from the sunlight filtering through the canopy. “We're hungover now.”

"I don't like that either."

There was another explosion, a muffled subterranean thump that rattled her bones. Thick black smoke rose through the trees; something like that would be visible for miles.

“We should go,” she said, shaking Michael’s shoulder. He lay flat on his back, eyes closed. “Hey. Sit up, drink some water. We gotta go.”

He looked as awful as she felt, but Lily wanted to put this place as far behind them as possible. Smoke hung dark against the early morning sky. If anyone was following…

She pushed the worry down deep, and they moved out.