They charged over the gutted concrete, and into an enormous metal tunnel—it was a huge sewer pipe. Rusting girders and cables held it up, and on the other side of the pipe-bridge was a massive scaffold, surrounded by abandoned construction equipment and digging machines. If they could just get there, they could climb up, and just maybe escape this nightmare. They charged through the metal cylinder, footsteps echoing while the steel swayed and trembled under their feet.
SNAP.
The sound cracked through air like a whip, and the whole pipe jumped and came apart. Their section broke clear off, and they swung away from safety, falling.
Danae charged forward without hesitation, metal tilting and pitching under her feet until she reached the edge, and she launched herself out into space; Evelyn followed a moment later. A horrifying breath of open-air suspension, hurtling through fire in a desperate leap, thoughts of a deadly fall and a fiery end. Then she landed hard, her feet finding solid ground. She let out a sound that was half triumphant whoop, half exhausted groan, and turned to make sure Evelyn landed safely, grinning as they steadied one another.
“Well, making that was a good sign,” Danae panted, actually beginning to hope that they might get out of this alive after all. “Now if we can—”
“Oh no. Danae, look!”
She spun around as Evelyn pointed behind her, just as she heard one of the worst sounds she’d ever heard. Danae turned in time to see what had made it: one of the huge cables supporting the pipe snapped.
❈
There was a horrible crack like every bone in their bodies snapping at once, and the metal pipe lurched—then it broke in half. Screaming, Finn grabbed for Zilch, who snatched him from the air and held him tight, curling around him like a protective cocoon. The pipe dropped, slamming into the rock and flame and metal scaffolding still holding the city up, and inside they were tossed around like rats in a tin can, bashed against walls and licked by flames on all sides. Finally, the pipe came to rest on a lower rock ledge—by some miracle they hadn’t fallen right into the fire.
Finn scrambled for solid footing once the thing stopped pitching, but he could feel the rubber soles of his sneakers melting to the metal, and soon his feet would be exposed to the burning steel. “Oh, God!” Finn clawed desperately at Zilch’s chest with his eyes squeezed shut against the agony, the skin on his arms and exposed legs red and bubbling. “We’re gonna die, right now, we’re gonna—”
“No we’re not!” Zilch shouted. They let go of the tortured Finn with one hand and started stripping off their fireproof suit. They gasped as the white-hot air seared their skin and squeezed their eyes shut.
“No! No, you’ll burn, you’ll—” Finn was scrabbling at the helmet now, trying to take it off, give it back—
“Yes.” Zilch forced the helmet back onto Finn’ spiky orange head, silencing any further arguments. Then they ripped the rest of the protective suit off, wrestling the writhing, tormented Finn into it. “I’ll burn,” they said grimly, tongue drying brittle and cracked in the heat. “But not to death.”
“Zilch, I’ll—” Finn was sobbing behind the helmet’s visor. “I’ll get you out of here, I promise—”
Silently, they turned Finn toward the end of the metal tunnel and the fire beyond it. If they could get to the scaffolds, they could still climb up, they might live through this. Zilch hung tight on Finn’ shoulders, every inch of them burning and smoking, realizing that it was Finn who was keeping them from falling.
“Just hang on!” Zilch whispered as their skin crackled. “Just survive.”
❈
Danae stared at the pipe and tried to decide if they were blessed or screwed. It was only around ten feet down, but still out of easy reach, and right now, every single second was going to count. The thing had landed stopped on a rocky outcropping below the ledge on which she and Evelyn stood, and hung tilted at a deadly angle, thrust up into the air like the bow of a sinking ship. She couldn’t see anyone inside—they had to have fallen out, there was no possible way they could have survived…
But there it was. A helmet poked out, with orange hair sticking out from underneath it. They were alive.
And then there was Zilch—God, she could almost smell the dead skin sizzle from here—raising their flaming arm to wave it like a burning flag. Finn held on just behind, keeping Zilch from falling backward into the inferno, and Danae could see smoke rising from his hastily-donned suit. Even these things weren’t meant to withstand being surrounded on all sides by superheated metal with fire outside. Heat radiated from the scaffolds and abandoned backhoes and bulldozers, long since bent and melted partly out of shape.
“Hang on!” Danae yelled over the furnace roar and the falling rock and bits of metal that battered her helmet. The pipe was rocking now, trembling, the ledge holding it up could crumble any second. “Don’t you dare let go!”
“Can you reach that far?” Evelyn shouted back, trying to gauge the distance. “I don’t—”
“Gotta try!” Danae threw herself to the ground and stretched out over the ledge and into space. “Reach for me!”
Zilch lunged forward with their one good arm, bare skin starting to crackle black. Finn was reaching too now, both arms stretching for Danae. But they fell short. Crashed back down and sent the pipe swinging. Finn muffled his screams in the back of Zilch’s neck and clung with everything he had, while they hung in a tin can over Hell.
“Come on!” Danae screamed, throat raw and burning.
“Danae, it’s too far,” Evelyn said more urgently. “We have to find some other way to—”
“Well, do you have one?”
“No.” They tried again, driving joints and muscles to the breaking point, outstretched, desperate fingers just bare inches from touching, just a little farther and she’d have them, they’d be safe, they were so close—
CRACK.
The terrible sound split through the rushing roar around them. Agony contorted Zilch’s face, and their arm suddenly flopped down to hang, lifeless-
“Oh no, no—”
A falling rock had hit their arm. Their already tenuously-connected shoulder popped out of joint and now they hung ragdoll-limp and helpless. Pain, battery and exhaustion finally overwhelmed them. Skin burned black, hair fallen out and clothes a mess of oily ash, shot and bloodied and broken, Zilch could no longer go on any farther.
“Just reach for her, Finn…” They forced the words out between teeth locked together, unable to even move their jaw. “You can still make it…”
“No, we’re not leaving—” Finn started to protest, but Danae heard too.
“Hang on!” she bellowed, and pushed herself upright. “Don’t you dare let go, Zilch!” Danae struggled to her feet and closed her eyes. The blaze’s roar, crashes of collapsing earth and shrieks of twisting metal receded until she could only hear herself.
And so could the machines.
Wake up, come on, help me, help my friends.
The dead machines twitched. They heard Danae’s call, and answered. Rusted backhoes stretched out their cranes like giraffes with stiff, aching necks. Drills spun again and wheels turned, grinding back to life, moving toward them.
Cables snaked down from above her like Rose’s living vines. Long chains curled and looped around the pipe like octopus tentacles, lifting it slowly up toward her—yes, yes, she could see her friends’ faces clearly now, they were going to be all right. Danae clenched her teeth and stretched out her fingers.
Somehow we are all—going—HOME!
The sky opened up. A brilliant shaft of light washed over her, over them, like the golden rays of Heaven leading the way out of purgatory, and for just a second Danae thought her prayer had been answered in the most literal possible way. But something wasn’t right. That light shouldn’t be there… hadn’t it been night the last time she’d seen the sky?
And then something fell. Not a choir of angels come to save them, not the hand of God; Danae squinted as it fell toward them
, getting larger and larger—
It was a swingset.
“Oh, God…”
It was the swingset, with blue rubber safety-chain and red and yellow plastic bucket seats. It stood outside Jack’s preschool, and she’d walked there to pick him up so many times, stayed a while longer to send him flying through the air in one of those deep seats when he was still too little for a big-boy swing. And now it was falling. So slowly, like it was floating underwater, the long chains flying out as if there were still kids on the swings. Danae stared, transfixed. This wasn’t really happening. It was too surreal, a dream—
Something massive blocked out the light—an avalanche of falling city she realized with horror. Parole toppled on their heads. Pavement and stop signs and trees, telephone poles and power lines and cars came hurtling at her like meteors, and she recognized these things, they were right outside her house, she saw them every day and now her entire neighborhood was rushing toward her—ashes, ashes, everything was falling down.
“Look out!” Evelyn cried, pulling Danae back before she could get crushed by a falling piece of building.
Screams filled their ears. Horrified shrieks cutting through the furnace roar and grind of metal on metal as small, writhing dark shapes fell from the light into this fiery underworld. People. People were falling from the sky. Tumbling and slamming into the rock and metal, arms outstretched—and as they hung in the air in front of Danae, she thought she could almost make eye contact, they were reaching for her.
“Danae! Focus!” Evelyn shouted, hands on Danae’s shoulders and giving her a little shake. “We have to save Zilch and Finn! We save them first, then we try to help everyone else!”
“Okay!” Evelyn was right, she understood, even as her stomach twisted. Danae shook herself out of her awful, shocked reverie and faced the pipe. She took in one great, burning breath, planted her feet, and spread her hands to the sky raining sidewalks and traffic lights down on them. Danae screamed to the living steel things around her to help, please, before everything falls and the pipe began to rise again. She could do this, she could do this.
A massive blunt object hit her. Before she could blink or breathe she was on the ground, crushed by an earth-shattering impact. She couldn’t see Evelyn, or anything at all, she couldn’t breathe—all the life had been bashed from her body, and she could not make her lungs work. None of her worked. A bone-chilling screech of metal filled her ears, and a shape slashed through the air toward her like a sword.
Her ears rang with her own screams. Danae’s world went black, then exploded in white-hot pain. She thrashed on the ground, arms still outstretched like she hoped to catch one of the falling people, save them with her bare hands.
Hand.
Danae thought she was reaching out with both hands, but only saw one, only moved one, only one hand hung out into the infinite space. Her eyes flew to her left shoulder and saw nothing. No arm. Just the ragged edges of her suit and, pouring from it, a torrent of dark blood and overwhelming pain.
Danae lurched upright, screaming, but fell to the ground, gritting her teeth against her own strangled moans. She remained in a sitting position for a full second before her head spun and she fell back down again, sprawled on the ground, screaming for Evelyn—
The concrete was sticky-slick and dark with blood—her own blood. Gagging, she clapped her hand over the terrible stump where her shoulder just ended. But her fingers couldn’t stop the flow, couldn’t stop the darkness at the edges of her vision from getting closer. She had to stop the bleeding or she would die right here, right now—and so would Evelyn and Zilch and Finn and so many others—but she couldn’t, she didn’t have any bandages or a tourniquet or—
She saw a smooth, scorched slab of metal resting beside her; she vaguely remembered it slamming into the ground and nearly crushing her head. And she looked up at it, frayed brain trying to piece together what it was…
A slide. A metal slope that children slid down, she could see the bright yellow plastic steps and the waves of heat coming off the red-hot metal. Danae didn’t think—couldn’t think—about what she was about to do. She just pulled herself closer, army-crawled with only one arm, and pressed the awful stump against the blazing steel.
This time she drowned in the pain. For hours, for years, until she seemed to melt into the molten steel herself. Her entire being was made of searing agony. A little voice in the back of her head told her not to give up, calling her name. She opened her eyes and someone looked back at her. Evelyn. Kneeling over her, hovering with her nervous hands flitting around, not sure where to touch, what would help and what would hurt. And Danae didn’t say anything, she couldn’t—it was just easier to turn her brain off, and not wonder what it meant when Evelyn’s eyes widened in horror.
“Oh, no, oh no, oh no,” Evelyn whispered over and over again, and Danae clung to that sound, made herself focus on Evelyn’s voice, and come back to herself.
Danae gritted her teeth and fought to sit up, letting out an agonized groan—but her head went flying up into the stratosphere and the rest of her was so heavy, she saw rather than felt her body slam heavily back down against the concrete and Evelyn rush to catch her. Screams echoed around them and there were still two people trapped in a red-hot pipe and she could still save them and Evelyn was saying something -
“Please Danae, get up-”
“Finn! Zilch!” Danae gasped, gritting her teeth to keep from blacking out. “They’re still down there!”
“What can I do to help?” Evelyn stared hard into Danae’s pain-slitted eyes.
“Just stand up with me.” Danae dragged the words out through clenched teeth. “Help me—stand me up, don’t let go of me—”
“I’ve got you! I’m right here. Got you.” Evelyn pulled Danae to her feet, bringing her back to lean heavily against her. Evelyn kept her hands on her shoulders, guiding Danae forward and keeping her standing solid and balanced. She would have fallen in a second otherwise.
“Closer!” Danae screamed over the roar of the fire she could swear was getting louder. “Get me to the edge!”
Evelyn gritted her teeth and shut her eyes. “Okay.” She whispered. “One, two—three!”
They stepped forward together. Danae reached out with her one arm, drawing every last bit of strength and power hiding deep inside herself. Eyes stinging from blood and sweat and smoke and tears, Danae peered over the edge.
The pipe was rising.
“Yes—” Danae gasped. “Yes, yes! They’re gonna make it—”
The chains screeched against the pipe’s metal as they raised it up. Every inch of Danae’s body shook, trembled. She thought she’d known pain before. Exhaustion, desperation, trying. Now she knew what trying meant. She raised her hand to the sky like there was a lifeline down from the clouds, and maybe there was, maybe heaven’s help was Evelyn’s voice in her ear.
“You can do this, sweetie, you can do this.”
But it was so hard. They were both sobbing for breath, each one a struggle. Every cell screamed in agony and suddenly the entire night’s trauma hit her like a collapsing city. She was so tired. Beyond exhaustion, beyond pain. This was too much for one person, too much to ask of her, of anyone.
“Come on, honey,” Evelyn whispered, holding her up, holding her close. “Just a little more. Just one more try…”
Danae shut her eyes and threw back her head. Power flowed through her veins, pounding like adrenaline, so hard it hurt, her blood was on fire, her head was exploding, she had to be dying but something in the burning, electric pain made her feel alive.
Then there was a terrible, wonderful, shuddering scrape as the pipe connected with the ground on which they stood—and Danae and Evelyn lurched forward with arms outstretched. They pulled the burned, blackened, half-dead tangle of arms and legs up onto the broken sidewalk, and then they all fell down together. Finn, hurting but safe inside the fireproof suit, sprawled across the ground not knowing whose arms were around him, unable to believe
he was still alive. He couldn’t even speak or cry or even see, all he could do was breathe and try to inch closer to Zilch. The entirely burnt, scorched skeleton looking like they’d been dragged up from Hell.
“Zilch…” Evelyn murmured; as they’d pulled them up, her hand came to rest on the black, ash-coated forehead. Beneath it was a sliver of exposed white bone, and she pulled away. Her gloved hand came away black and oily, and she fought down nausea. “You still with us?”
Zilch slowly let out a wheezing, sick hiss of air between clenched teeth—no words, no tone, but the message was clear. I’m alive. But that’s all.
Evelyn looked around to smile at Danae—but she wasn’t there. Evelyn shivered despite the blistering heat, and rushed to find Danae struggling across the concrete, back toward the inferno. She lay sprawled on the ground, half over the edge, reaching desperately for the few straggling people still falling from above, and God, they were reaching for her. But her machines wouldn’t listen to her anymore. The cables twitched, exhausted, trembling but unable to function. Human lives slipped through her cables and fingers like grains of sand. She was crying.
Someone was picked her up. Many hands touched her, she was supported between two people and they were just holding her, talking to her.
“Miss Danae, it’s time to go…” Finn held her close.
“You can’t save them all!” Evelyn whispered, turning her face from the nightmare, resting her forehead against Danae’s. “I know, baby, you can’t help but try, but… God, look at us. We’re all dying too.”
Danae slowly nodded, then fought to get to her feet. Just a little bit longer and then she could collapse. She could cry uncontrollably in Rose and Evelyn’s arms. She could hug Jack and breathe him in. It would all be over. It had to be over. Everything had an end. Even fires.
“Okay, let’s do this.” Danae heard herself say it, like she was somewhere else, someone else, listening from far away. Like she hadn’t just lost an arm, and almost her life, in a hammerfall of fire and steel and falling swingsets. She didn’t recognize herself anymore. She’d always tried to be her family’s superhero—but hadn’t had any idea that this strength, this resilience was sleeping inside her. This was someone close to the goddess Evelyn found within herself, the heroine who danced with the music of the spheres. Even if all she could see was blood and fire and empty spaces where limbs were supposed to be… This brave stranger, this new person named Danae knew what she was doing.
Chameleon Moon Page 35