IAN RUSHED FORWARD BUT ACTUALLY collided with the immovable body of a tall man in a suit — a Panacea clarifier if he’d ever seen one. At first, the man’s presence made no sense, like that of the three feral deadheads headed toward Bridget. But then the clarifier asserted himself, extending a hand to push Ian back and turning his body side-on, the side with his gun holster facing away from Ian and Alice lest they try to grab it. Because that’s what was on Ian’s mind right now: confronting cops.
“Stand back, sir,” the clarifier said.
Ian’s eyes flicked to the side. The man had a partner, a woman with brown hair in a ponytail. Where had they come from? And how had they arrived so fast?
“There’s a group of feral—” Ian blurted, trying to point.
“We’ll handle it, sir. Stay back.”
But the shoppers, from end to end inside Grover’s crowded gallery, had seen them and were now screaming. Those who could, ran. But then Ian realized something horrible: He was in the heart of the Skin District. Uninfected shoppers were few and far between. The mall was a Chinatown market, full of natives.
And deadheads didn’t attack the infected.
“My wife is over there! She’s — ”
“Stay back,” the female clarifier said.
Bridget, across the opening, stutter-stepped backward, away from the ferals. Ian’s panicked eyes could see two mall cops — not clarifiers, both necrotic — creeping toward the scene from the side, seeming to take their time. Grover Mall was multi-floored, open to the overhead glass cube in the middle. Through the center loomed a wide atrium that spanned all levels, each floor’s opening surrounded by a railing. Ian watched Bridget’s back touch the railing, inhaled a sharp breath as if he, not Bridget, had just realized she’d come up short.
They were closing in on her: the closest source of warm, untouched blood.
Bridget wobbled. She was in heels, not dressed for flight. One of her feet canted sideways, twisting on the ankle, unseating her. The shoes were loose; Bridget kicked them away and backed in bare feet. The ferals came, slowly. Those who’d released them — clarifiers too, if Ian had seen right and believed the voice on the phone — were nowhere to be seen.
Where was his phone, anyway? Ian didn’t know. He may have stowed it without thinking. For all he knew, the caller was still on the line, now listening to his pocket.
But no one would keep him from Bridget when she was the only thing the oncoming deadheads cared about.
Ian rushed the blocking clarifiers, lowering his shoulder as if for a tackle. The woman raised a hand again to try and stop him, but Ian was already through and running around the circle with Alice behind him.
The exit was behind, just to the left of the utility doors where the ferals had come from. A crowd, mostly infected, had gathered, those with higher levels of function with their hands over their mouths. But those outside must not have received the message because they were still entering, pushing past the crowd, annoyed that idiots were blocking the entrance.
A couple bullied their way impatiently inside then took a few backward steps to yell at those who were inconsiderate enough to form their human wall. Someone screamed, too close. Then two of the three deadheads turned, seeing a closer target, then ran at their marks.
They ran.
“Jesus Christ, Ian. They’re — ”
Ian didn’t listen for the end of Alice’s sentence. He moved faster, pumping his arms, finding the distance around the atrium railing impossibly far. Bridget was accepting the distraction, now edging away in bare feet, but her eyes hadn’t left the remaining deadhead. She looked as shocked as Alice sounded. Normally, avoiding ferals, if you didn’t get cornered and they weren’t in a horde, was simple. They were animated corpses, sometimes able to spring like decayed jack-in-the-boxes but mostly slow like ancient men. But these weren’t like that. These were something else.
An eighth of the distance between them closed. A quarter.
The uninfected couple who’d entered saw what they faced. Hands raised, the woman’s heavy with a big red purse. One of the ferals was on the man. The other was on the woman, head down, teeth out, hands hooked to straighten their victims’ necks, finding an artery and spraying the floor with an arc of red. There were screams until the shrieking stopped, wet sinew coming away like hungry dogs fighting for a bone.
Bridget turned. Saw Ian. And ran.
Footfalls multiplied behind Ian. He heard the lighter click of Alice’s flats eclipsed by something heavier and faster, then something grabbed his shirt, his collar, the back of his belt. He was wrenched free of his feet, the floor screaming upward toward his face. Ian managed to turn his head and pull his neck back. His chest struck hard, and his head rapped just slightly softer, the blow cold and flat. His vision spun, but fear cleared it, then he felt and smelled breath from behind his neck as someone planted a knee on his spine.
“I said STAY BACK!”
The man was over Ian, now seeming to hold a weapon that his peripheral vision could barely see. Alice, slower on the run, had remained standing but now had her hands up.
“Move, and I’ll shoot you.”
“That’s my wife over there!”
“It’s handled, sir! Stay down!”
Ian disobeyed, trying to rise, and the clarifier kicked him back. Ian rolled instead and watched as the woman went ahead alone, her own weapon out. Not a gun. Guns were for edgy humans, like Ian. The most confrontational parts of a clarifier’s job required something bigger, more direct.
It looked like a small megaphone, its muzzle belled slightly outward like a blunderbuss. She was holding it with two hands, running now, not approaching Bridget because she’d swung too wide. The two making meat from the shredded dead were the more important target, presumably because they’d killed already and might escape through the mall doors.
The ferals saw her coming. One leaped up and again ran — not away, precisely, but toward an old man with a walker. Slow, weak prey for a fast hunter. Natural selection on display.
The second was still kneeling over the woman’s body, its face covered with gore, its banquet surrounded by what looked like a crimson tablecloth. It swiveled toward the clarifier’s approach, baring its teeth. There was a short, sharp whistle, and the thing’s head exploded, spattering the crowd as it pressed against the wall.
Ian’s eyes were on Bridget. She still hadn’t run, probably knowing the stalemate was the only thing keeping her alive. Ferals had usually spent at least six weeks dead and were little more than rotted meat with teeth, barely kept alive by Sherman Pope’s restorative work. They couldn’t run. They could only drag. But these looked younger, healthy by comparison. There were people in Ian’s office that were more decayed than these three (well, two now).
If Bridget ran, it would chase her. And with the other clarifier more concerned about Ian, it might just catch her.
And yet the clarifiers were doing nothing, going so far as to wave the mall cops back. There were only two of them. One was on Ian, ignoring the real problem. And the other was trying not to shoot the old man as the feral stalked him. Bridget was on her own.
In his head, Ian heard the voice on his phone from earlier.
They don’t know you’re here. They’re after her.
They knew now. They knew, and wouldn’t forget — even if it meant letting Bridget die to keep Ian safe and confined, down where he belonged.
Bridget backed away, one hand on the railing. The feral followed. It bared its teeth. Its eyes, decayed around the edges but not at all in the whites, appeared wide and intent.
Another shout. A chorus of screams. The clarifier hadn’t found an angle in time; Ian could now see the thrash of raking red hands from his low position, meaning the old man had seen his last birthday. At least he wouldn’t need to go on as a necrotic, propped up by Necrophage, same as that first couple. Judging by the amount of blood and ropy, flung gore, all were dead beyond Sherman Pope’s ability to resuscitate.
Another whistle. Another dull thump, like a sledgehammer striking a melon. Where the old man had been, the mall’s outer wall was now stained in a crimson starburst.
“HELP HER! Help her, damn you!” Ian shouted.
The idea is to make a problem you can’t ignore, that you’ll take personally.
Ian was yanked roughly upward. His eyes, jostled from Bridget and the finally approaching clarifier, saw Alice Frank and understood why she hadn’t run over herself. Sometime in the last few minutes, while lives had been at stake, the man holding Ian down had cuffed her to the railing.
Bridget’s cool broke. She ran.
The deadhead ran faster.
There was a whistle. Then a thump.
Blood and brain sprayed over the railing to fall onto those below like sticky red rain.
Ian’s breath caught as Bridget stumbled and fell, unharmed, her eyes wide and vacant.
It was over.
The clarifier unfastened Alice from the railing and secured her hands behind her back. Ian’s remained uncuffed, but both, at least for now, were in custody.
“Let’s go,” the clarifier said.