Little Apocalypse

by Katherine Sparrow

  Celia glanced behind her and saw the two Bigs less than ten feet away. The monsters took such long strides that they seemed to glide over the ground. Their bones jutted out at sharp, odd angles as they moved.

  “In here!” Ruby turned right, through a doorway. Amber and Celia followed a second later.

  Ruby slammed the door shut and grabbed a long chunk of concrete. She wedged it beneath the door handle. An instant later, the Bigs pounded and pushed on the other side of the door.

  Celia breathed hard. She looked around for where they should run now.

  The room had four tall walls and one door: the one Ruby had just barricaded. There was no way out.

  The pounding on the door increased. The door shook.

  Celia swallowed hard. “You two have some kind of weapon to stop them, right? Or some way to climb out of here, or call the hunters, or . . .”

  “I’m all out of spells. I used them to fight the snakes last night. You?” Ruby asked Amber.

  Amber shook her head. “Marble bombs, half a dozen left, and that’s all. We should have gone to headquarters and grabbed more spells. But . . .” Both girls glanced at Celia and away.

  But they had to follow me and make sure I didn’t get away, Celia thought bitterly. And now we are all going to get attacked by Bigs.

  There were images of monsters spray-painted on every wall. All of them seemed to snarl and glare at the girls who stood in the center of the room.

  The pounding on the door grew louder.

  “Those two out there? They’re called the Splintered,” Ruby told Celia, gesturing to the door. “Even on our best day, even with all our gear and spells, we’d need five good hunters to take them down. There’s only one thing we can do now.” She and Amber exchanged a long look.

  The door shook harder. The piece of concrete wedged beneath the handle wobbled but held. Please let them have a way out of this, Celia thought. Everywhere she looked, leering images of monsters watched her.

  Ruby turned away from Celia and rummaged through her bag. When the purple-haired girl turned back around, she held a penny that was painted bright red. “I’m sorry.” Her lips were set in a thin line. “I didn’t want it to come to this.” Ruby stepped toward Celia.

  Celia moved away from her until she found herself backed up against the hard wall. “What’s that do?” she asked. There was nowhere to run.

  “You have to swallow it.”

  Celia remembered Ruby force-feeding the spelled chewing gum to the Little in the underground. “No I don’t.” Celia looked up. The walls were twenty feet high. Way too tall to climb. She glared at Ruby and Amber.

  The whites all the way around Ruby’s eyes showed as she stalked closer.

  “We can’t let the Bigs take you, doom girl. The Council of Elders said we had to do this if you were about to be caught. For the greater good.” Ruby’s hand started shaking, but she still held the penny out toward Celia. “Eat it.”

  Celia slid along the side of the wall, keeping her distance from Ruby. “What kind of people betray each other like this?” Celia heard her voice rising and felt her hands curl into fists. “What kind of kids pretend to be someone’s friend just to use them? Liars. Traitors.” She glared at both of them. “Not that I care. I never liked either of you.”

  Ruby flinched. “We have to do this.”

  The monsters pounded and shook the door.

  Amber whispered, “It will make you sleep, that’s all.”

  “For how long?” Celia asked.

  “Long enough that you can’t help the Bigs if they take you,” Amber said. The pounding on the door grew louder.

  Ruby moved closer to Celia, cornering her next to a pair of pastel-colored blob monsters.

  “How long?” Celia asked louder. “Days? Months?”

  “We do what we’re told. Open your mouth.” Ruby stood in front of her and held the coin up toward Celia’s face.

  Celia shoved her away, hard.

  The hunter danced back a couple of steps before coming close again. “Just do it, Celia, please. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.” The battering on the door almost drowned out her words.

  “I don’t know how I could have ever thought you were my friends.” Celia pushed her away again.

  “Be quick, Ru.” Amber came to stand next to Ruby.

  Ruby pushed the penny toward her mouth again. Celia punched out at her, but Ruby ducked. Celia used the moment to run to a different corner of the room. “You have no idea how long it will make me sleep for, do you? Do you even care if I ever wake up?”

  Ruby’s mouth dropped open. “Of course we care. But . . .”

  Amber grabbed the penny out of Ruby’s hand. “But if the Bigs take you, they could use you to get everything they want. You’re the one who matters—you’re the doom girl who decides. People could die. The whole city could get destroyed if the monsters take you.” She ran toward Celia and tried to push the coin past Celia’s clenched teeth.

  Celia shoved her away. “How does this make you any better than the monsters? I hate you. Both of you!” How was this happening? She kicked at Amber to keep her away. The hammering on the door, like the hammering of Celia’s heart, grew louder.

  “Grab her,” Amber said. “Do it, Ruby. Fast.”

  Ruby stalked toward Celia, but when she got close, she dropped her hands to her sides and shook her head. “I . . . can’t. I just can’t.”

  Celia moved away from her, scooting along the edge of the wall.

  An explosion of shattering wood and blurred movement filled the room.

  The monsters rushed in on their long, icy legs. They grabbed Amber and threw her against the far side of the room. Ruby followed an instant later. The girls smashed against the hard wall and fell to the ground like rag dolls.

  Cold hands gripped Celia. They yanked her up and threw her over an ice-hard shoulder. The ice man laughed as his freezing arm clamped over her legs and held her in place. Celia kicked and punched, but she was helpless as a numbness spread into her where her body touched his.

  The ice woman walked toward Amber and Ruby on skittering heels. She waved her long, white-blue fingers through the air and stormy gusts swirled off them. “Little girl hunters, how cute you both are. I’d love to see you blue with frostbite. I’d love to see your hands and feet frozen through.” Ribbons of icy air flowed off her, swirling around Ruby and Amber. “Aren’t they adorable, dear Snedron?”

  Ruby raised her swords, but her arms shook so much with the cold that she could barely hold them. Amber threw a handful of exploding marbles at the ice woman.

  The woman laughed as snow and sleet flew from her outstretched palm. The marbles hit the cold and fell to the ground with a frozen thunk.

  Celia punched the man’s shoulder with all her strength. He didn’t seem to notice. “Let us not tarry, my sweet Snedronna,” he said.

  The ice woman ignored him and windmilled her arms, throwing dark clouds into the air. They flew across the room and hovered above Amber’s and Ruby’s heads, raining down a steady stream of ice and sleet on the two hunters.

  “Snedronna, let us leave now,” the ice man said. His voice filled the air with a bitter cold that burned Celia’s skin. “Remember this mission. Remember the big spell, and how our very existence rests upon our success. We must bring the doom girl to Madame Krawl.”

  “Just a moment—it won’t take long for me to freeze them, sweet Snedron. A mere minute or two.”

  Amber and Ruby tried to scramble away from the deluge of freezing water, but the cloud moved where they did. The monsters blocked the door. The hunters gave up and huddled against the wall. Ruby was trying to open her bag, probably to get some new kind of weapon out, but she shook too much from the cold. Both girls gave up and hugged each other instead.

  Snedronna laughed as she wiggled her bony fingers in their direction. Sharp, pointy icicles began to grow out of the wall, jutting out in all directions above the hunters’ heads.

  Celia tried
to tell herself that Amber and Ruby deserved this, but a whispery voice filled her saying she had to find a way to save them. To try. Even if they had lied to her. Even though they’d just tried to hurt her, it didn’t matter.

  “Stay here,” Celia whispered loudly. She closed her eyes and pretended she was saying a prayer out loud. “We have to stay here just a little longer. More hunters will be here any second,” she lied. “Don’t leave before the other hunters come,” she whispered, and hoped the monsters would notice.

  The iceberg arm wrapped tighter around her. “Come now, sister. Snedronna, come! Enough delicious fun. Madame Krawl awaits. We are not safely away yet.”

  The ice woman scowled. She threw gusts of icy air at Amber and Ruby, then swiveled away on her teetering heels and walked out of the painted room. “A pity—a minute more and they would have been Popsicles.”

  The ice man followed in her wake. Celia raised her head and watched Ruby and Amber from the vantage point of the monster’s shoulder. The two girls sat motionless, drenched, shivering, and staring at her like they’d be haunted by the sight forever.

  I saved you, she thought. You lied to me about being my friends. You attacked me, and I saved you anyway. I’m better than you are, she thought, but it held no satisfaction. All it did was make her colder.

  The ice woman walked beside the man and studied Celia with her cruel light-blue eyes. “Madame Krawl sent everyone out looking for you today, doom girl, yet no one could find you. The others were too dumb to think to follow the hunters, but not us. And here you are, wearing a ward.”

  “It’s a good one,” the ice man added. “Clever. My mind cannot make a memory of you. I can’t remember what you look like the moment I look away. But who needs memory when we have your body? Well done, Snedronna.”

  His sister laughed. The white puffs of her breath turned into ice crystals that fell with a tinkling sound to the ground.

  “No, no, no,” Celia whispered through chattering teeth as they stepped outside and carried her out into the street.

  “Help! Someone help me!” Celia cried out.

  They passed four adults who looked right through her. One of them crinkled up his forehead for a moment, squinting as though she was almost visible.

  “Help!” she screamed louder.

  He looked away.

  No one cared. No one even saw her. To see me they’d have to see the monsters, too, Celia thought. She screamed even louder, just in case she could somehow break through their blindness. A kid, no more than eight, stood on the far side of the street and looked right at her. He turned and ran in the other direction.

  “Quiet the doom girl. Her screeching makes my head ache,” the ice woman hissed.

  Bony hands clamped over her mouth. Celia’s mouth went numb.

  She felt her body being carried down stairs and looked up to see they were descending into the subway. Soon enough, darkness enveloped her.

  23

  The Last Bit of Warmth

  The good part about the darkness was Celia didn’t have to see the monsters. She could almost pretend she was somewhere else. Siberia. Antarctica. Outer space.

  The bad part was the way it pressed in around her and felt like that nightmare where you were being chased and were just about to be caught. Except she was already caught, and the nightmare was strong and held on so tight that struggling was useless, begging did nothing, and there was no one to hear her scream. All she could do was wait for it to be over. Would it end soon? Or was this just the beginning of everything being terrible forever?

  The monsters moved through the inky darkness of the subway tunnels with swift forward motion. They shed cold, and the shivering air sank all the way through Celia. Warmth felt like something that used to exist.

  “Where are you t-taking me?” Celia asked through chattering teeth when the silence grew too huge.

  “To Madame Krawl’s domain. She’s been looking forward to meeting you.” Tinkling ice shards fell to the ground as the ice woman spoke.

  “Why?”

  “Orders,” the ice man answered.

  “Why do you t-take orders from her?” Celia asked. Bigs weren’t supposed to get along. The hunters said they never worked together. “You l-let her boss you around?”

  The ice man growled. Ice crystals blew against her numb cheek. “She will lead us to our triumph.”

  “You should be in ch-charge. Not her,” Celia stuttered.

  “Quiet, girl. You are the pawn—don’t act like the queen,” the ice woman snapped. “Perhaps we should maim you as a gift to Madame Krawl. A doom girl has no need for all four limbs, I’ve always thought.”

  A sharp sound echoed through the tunnel.

  “What was that, my dearest Snedronna?” the ice man asked.

  “Nothing, I am sure, yet let us hurry on to our destination and glory, sweet Snedron.”

  They moved swiftly on their long legs. Something else thudded through the tunnels, closer this time. Was the sound coming from up ahead or behind them? The echoing tunnels made it impossible to tell.

  The monsters ran faster.

  Celia stared into the darkness, seeing nothing. She wondered what they might fear. What could be worse down here than them?

  Something hit the back of Celia’s legs where she hung over the ice man’s shoulder. All motion stopped with a lurching halt.

  The ice man snarled. His muscles hardened beneath her as he tried to push through whatever they had hit. It didn’t break but seemed only to tighten around him the more he struggled. He growled and tried to back away, but he couldn’t do that, either. Despite the numbness in her fingers, Celia felt something sticky and warm. Once she touched it, her fingers adhered to it, strong as superglue. The more she moved her fingers, the tighter they bound. Before long, she couldn’t move them at all.

  Blinding white lights turned on, beaming from a subway train not ten feet in front of them. They lit up the white netting that lay stretched across the tunnel in a shimmering, complicated pattern. Celia followed the pattern and realized they were trapped in what looked like a huge spiderweb. Celia and the two monsters hung immobilized in it.

  Celia squinted into the light and saw two figures standing near the train. The light made it impossible to see who or what they were.

  Maybe being attacked by lying friends and kidnapped by ice monsters isn’t going to be the worst thing that happens today, she thought. Celia tried to think of a way to escape, but she was too cold, and her mind felt slow and hopeless.

  “Madame Krawl?” the ice woman called into the bright light. Her voice squeaked with uncertainty. “We were bringing the doom girl to you. We are your obedient servants. Always.”

  “Guess again,” a girl’s voice said with a giggle.

  Celia gasped as the air grew suddenly colder. Sharp ice crystals poked the corners of her eyes.

  The figures walked forward on the far side of the web. The bright lights blurred their features. One of them held an ax.

  “You!” The ice woman hissed, “You’ll suffer for this with unimaginable pain. We’ll destroy you.”

  One of them—Celia thought it was a boy—muttered a couple of words and threw something on the ground. It flared with a brightness that fizzed across the tunnel floor.

  The grip on Celia’s body relaxed as the ice man sagged forward. His limp body was held up by the web. Celia lay trapped on his shoulder. The ice woman drooped and went motionless too. The air grew a tiny bit warmer—still frigid, still arctic, but better.

  “You don’t get to destroy anyone ever again,” the girl whispered. “No more masters!” She ran forward with a serrated kitchen knife and started cutting the netting around the ice man’s frame. The boy used his ax to cut down the ice woman.

  Celia squinted, but the light from the subway glowed behind them, and all she could see were dark silhouettes. They were kids, but that was all she could tell about them. Maybe, just maybe, this would turn out okay. That thought felt like the last bit of warmth, a
nd if it went away, she’d die. She flinched as the girl started sawing through the webbing near her body.

  “Careful,” the boy growled.

  “Chill,” the girl said. “She’s your special human friend, I get it.”

  “Shut up!” the boy snarled.

  He sounded sort of like Demetri, but Celia wanted so badly for it to be him that she didn’t trust herself.

  The girl leaned close enough to Celia that she could finally make out some of her features. The girl’s face was covered in black and white squares in a checkerboard design. She slashed her knife through the net and the ice man fell, along with Celia. She yelped, but her body was so numb with cold she could barely feel it. He lay across her, trapping Celia’s legs beneath him.

  “I’m Daisy,” the girl said, kneeling down beside Celia. “We met before. On the roof. I dreamed about you. Remember? Hi.”

  “Hi,” Celia said to the Little. This girl could destroy her in ten seconds. But if she wanted to do that, it would have already happened, right? Besides, she seemed to be saving Celia, not destroying her.

  “Hold still. The last thing I want to do is touch you by accident,” Daisy said.

  Daisy held a plastic spray bottle up to the net. Wherever she sprayed, the stickiness melted away. In a couple of seconds, Celia was able to scoot out and away from the ice monster.

  Celia got up with shaking legs. She turned to the boy. “Is that . . . are you . . . Demetri?”

  “Of course.” He tugged off his hat, and the outline of his horned head was silhouetted in the light. “We got to you as soon as we could.”

  “You saved me,” Celia whispered. I shouldn’t feel safe. I shouldn’t trust them, she thought, as relief flooded her. The Littles probably just wanted to use her, like the hunters did.

  Demetri finished tying up the ice woman’s hands and feet with thick ropes. “The hearts, and then we get out of here,” he said.

  Celia swayed and shivered where she stood. She wrapped her arms around herself and felt fuzzy from all the cold.