by Dan Krokos
We fall toward the empty city below. The roaring wind is almost peaceful until the director’s rage-soaked scream rattles my head. She’s ten feet away, drifting farther as we plunge, but even now her fingers are grasping for me. Then she claps her hands together, never taking her eyes off me. A portal opens in the air below her, and she falls through and disappears.
I fall alone, halfway down the building now, a few seconds from a death too early, until I pull the cord on my parachute. It snaps open so hard the Torch almost slips from my grip. The straps around my shoulders and waist pinch as I slow down, and the rushing wind becomes a gentle breeze, quiet enough to hear my pulse. Rhys laughs above me, drifting down on his own chute.
Now that I alone hold the Torch, the eyeless stop trying to make my brain explode. I reach out to them. In snapshots, I see the terrible things they do. A herd of them run down the sidewalk in a quiet, upper-class development, splitting off and running across lawns and throwing themselves through bay windows. A trio of eyeless climb the stairs of an office building, preying on the late workers floor by floor. A fire truck tips over as twenty eyeless barrel into it from the side and swarm over it like ants. They leave blood flowing from the broken windows.
There aren’t words to describe the horror, but my outrage lends me the power I need to control them. In my mind, I gather up the monsters and show them where to go. I scream it at them. I inject all my will into the order. They know the Verge. I tell them to fill it up and wait. I promise more flesh, more screams.
And they listen. They bend to my will. They stop what they’re doing and slink away.
I touch down next to Key Tower, clutching the metal rod to my chest. The globe at the end of the Torch is too bright to look at, a small sun that paints the whole street red.
Now that I have it, it’s real. I never thought I’d get this far, not really. I have the eyeless, and I have to follow through. The world and so many others depend on it. This isn’t your last morning, I tell myself. I have to believe I’m not marching to my death. Peter will see me again, and he’ll kiss me again. I will find a way out.
The others land around me, and our chutes billow in the light breeze. The mood is sour, but it should be victorious. We won the best way we could. And we will continue to fight until those who died today are avenged.
Sophia grins. It might be the first time I’ve really seen her smile.
“We did it,” Peter says, hands on his knees, smiling too. “You got it, Miranda.”
Noble brings the bus around and opens the door. We pile in, and Noble floors it before we sit down.
I make sure to sit closer to the rear than the others.
“We draw straws,” Rhys says after the first block. “Miranda isn’t going back.”
Poor Rhys. He has no idea.
“No,” Peter says, “she isn’t.”
Poor Peter. He has no idea.
Don’t cry; don’t let them see the truth.
“I’ll draw,” Sophia says with steel in her voice.
I wish I could tell them what’s about to happen. I wish I could say good-bye the right way.
“No one is drawing,” I say. Noble’s eyes find mine in the mirror. He gives a slight nod—he’ll follow through. I love him for it.
Peter’s face is as angry as I’ve ever seen it, nose and brow crinkled. “Yes, we are.”
I shake my head. “I will kill anyone who tries to take this from me. I promise you.”
Peter rises out of his seat like an animal and stalks toward me. He grabs the Torch, and his eyes widen as the eyeless fill his mind. I lean forward and kiss him quickly on the lips, then shove him with all the strength I have left. He stumbles down the aisle and lands hard on his back.
“What are you doing?” Rhys says.
What the hell. I kiss him on the cheek too, then nod at Sophia. I would’ve liked to know her. Noble slams on the brakes and the bus skitters to a stop, tires chuffing on the pavement, old brakes squealing. I run to the back, fling open the emergency exit, and jump down into the cool morning air. Peter’s cry of “Miranda!” cuts off when I slam the door.
Noble hits the gas again and leaves me in a cloud of diesel exhaust. I stand in the empty street with the Torch and watch the bus get smaller and smaller until it’s out of sight.
I allow myself to cry in the empty street. This is what you wanted, I tell myself. You never liked this life anyway. But that’s not completely true. I loved my friends. I loved Peter and Rhys and Noah and Olive. I hated our purpose, that’s all. I hated the reason we existed in the first place.
You wanted a different life.
But I didn’t want my life to be over.
Olivia told me the Torch would be able to take me home, but can it take me back to the Verge? What was it she said? It can return me with thought alone. Thought—I can try that.
I close my eyes and focus on the hot metal through my gloves. I feel the eyeless moving toward their doom under my command. I focus hard on the cavern where I first saw the Black, imagining it, but when I open my eyes, I’m still here in the empty street.
“What do I do?” I whisper.
I try again, imaging the inside of Gane’s Verge. With that thought in my mind, I hear a footstep behind me and whirl on the balls of my feet.
The director stands before me, sword raised and gleaming in the early dawn, a Black portal behind her. I was foolish to think she’d let me go that easily. Now there’s no thought, only movement.
I duck under her slash, dropping straight to my knees. Strands of severed hair flutter down around my shoulders.
She screams another wordless scream of frustration, continuing her spin and coming around for a lower strike I won’t be able to dodge. I’m on my knees before her, at her mercy. But it can’t end this way. We came too far, at a cost too high.
So I bend forward, until my shoulder touches the ground and I’m rolling past her, out of the way of her second strike, popping to my feet behind her and falling through the very portal she came through.
At the bottom of the Verge, I think about what I’m going to miss.
Everything. Every moment that was supposed to come.
I sit near the border of the Black with my knees drawn up, clutching the Torch as eyeless surge out of the hole and climb the rough rock walls with their claws. Flakes of rock drift down and ping the metal walkway around me. Some of them bounce off my head like hail. When I went through the portal, I had this place fixed in my mind. And it worked. Just a few minutes ago I was on a bus with the only people I love in this world, and now I’m here, at the end.
I want more time. I keep expecting the director to find me here, but she doesn’t show. Either she doesn’t know where I am, or she’s afraid to come, knowing I’m in control of her monsters.
The eyeless crowd the levels high above me, not making much noise besides the click and scratch of their claws. Some of them are curious about me. They know I’m the Torchbearer. What is she doing all the way down there? they think. Why did she bring us here? What does she want us to eat? When will there be meat for us?
A few of the bored ones wrestle, rolling around on the floor, jaws snapping at soft stomachs.
“You’re not alone, Miranda.”
I look up. Noah stands next to me on the walkway, as real as he’s ever been. I’m not alone. But my death means a second one for him. I did this to him, and it’s too late to free him from my mind.
“I’m sorry I put you in my mind. To make you live like this.”
He just shakes his head, and I know I don’t have to be sorry.
“I’m glad,” he says softly.
The eyeless continue to well from the Black, so many of them that they crawl on one another, a living, moving ladder. They bubble out like boiling water, and there’s no space left. I have to climb before they bury me.
“I wanted to have a job,” I say. “I wanted to have a family.”
Noah doesn’t say anything, for which I’m grateful.
He still doesn’t say anything.
“Funny how that doesn’t make me feel better.”
I stand up and stretch my arms above my head.
“You have to climb now,” he says.
With one hand on the Torch, I climb up the ladder to where the main floor used to be. When I reach the top, my arm burns. The eyeless skitter away from me, wondering what I’m doing. If they only knew.
I speak the words Gane told me—“Give me a path!”—and a narrow bridge extends from the pillar in the middle. I climb from the ladder onto the walkway, then swing my legs up while keeping a careful grip on the Torch. A few of the eyeless follow me onto the walkway, but I push them back with my mind.
They don’t listen. One opens its fanged mouth and hisses at me, saliva dripping from its thin lips. I feel its thoughts. The thoughts spread to the other eyeless roaming the walls and the levels higher above.
They know what I mean to do.
The same eyeless charges me and I raise Beacon and impale it to the hilt. I swing the corpse off and it tumbles toward the Black far below. I step backward into the elevator, and the door shuts as a scream rises up; I feel every eyeless in the Verge turn its attention toward me. Suddenly the Torch is useless. They won’t listen. They must be able to override the commands under certain circumstances. Like when the user means to destroy them. Or maybe the director found a way to shut it down remotely. I guess the reason doesn’t really matter.
“Bummer,” Noah says.
The elevator opens into Commander Gane’s office. I step onto the carpet and speak the second set of words. “Give me the light to seal the way.”
A safe pops open in the floor. I pull the hatch back and pull out the bomb. It’s not such a big thing—it’s roughly the size and shape of a bowling ball, with a cord running from it to a small clear pad. The pad has a red button, a green button, and a small display with a timer. One of my tears falls onto the display.
Noah kneels next to me. “Can you do this?”
“I don’t want to die.…”
Still holding the Torch, I feel the eyeless screaming and churning around the levels, trying to find a way in to stop me. They’re almost all here. All accounted for. Just a few more minutes. I can feel their anger—they’re more interested in killing me than going back to their mission.
“It’s not so bad,” Noah says. “I even think something might come after.”
I almost laugh, but it sounds like a choked cry. “You think we have souls?”
He nods. His dark eyes are heavy with tears. “I do.” He takes my hand.
Metal screeches below me, followed by the buzz of hundreds of claws on metal.
“They’re coming,” Noah says.
My finger hovers over the button, trembling. They’re all here. I feel it. I just have to push the button. The red button, Gane said. Easy enough. I lay my finger on it gently, then lift it again. Such a simple action. What do I want my final thought to be? What should I look at for the last time? This is my final action. I’m going to press a button, and then I’m going to die. That’s it.
Noah’s finger presses on top of mine, softly. He’s going to do it with me. I look at the button under our fingers.
Just push it, Miranda.
I lower my finger and close my eyes.
The floor explodes under my knees. I fall backward as huge chunks of concrete land around me. The Torch rolls from my grasp. The bomb bounces away, pulling the control pad along by its cord. Beacon is off my back and in my hand. The eyeless climb out of the hole, scrambling over the carpet, shrieking in anger. I kneel as they flow around me like oil. I was too slow; I made a mistake. And now the world will pay for it. I grit my teeth and scream in rage and defiance. It can’t end this way. I didn’t come all this way to fail.
They stare at me without eyes. They bare their teeth and flex their claws. They come for me. I spring up and snap my arm out, spinning a full circle, feeling resistance as Beacon slices through their hands and faces and necks and bodies. I don’t stop. Blood flies around me and eyeless fall. One manages to claw through the armor on my leg. It goes deep in the muscle. I feel the claw click off my femur. I scream so hard something tears in my throat and I taste fresh blood. But I keep spinning. For my friends, who will surely die if I fail. For the world, and the people who will die if I fail. I spin and my sword kills monster after monster, even as they kill me. I burst through the line of eyeless, bleeding from a million different places. My armor is breached and blood flows over the scales freely. My heart pounds, driving it out faster. I’m already dizzy from it, and a little cold. My fingers and toes are numb.
I’m losing blood. The bomb has rolled across the room.
A crippled eyeless swipes my leg from the floor and breaks my shin. It snaps and I go down, fingers tearing at the carpet.
Noah crouches next to me. “C’mon, Miranda. You can do it! You have to do it! Don’t give up!”
I pull myself farther along. Noah never leaves my side. “Keep going. Stand up, Miranda. Stand up right now.”
The eyeless behind me are a ragged bunch, flopping on the floor in their blood and guts. More are coming up through the hole. My fingers dig at the floor so hard my hands ache. I wiggle up next to the bomb, weak and swimmy, blinking.
I pick up the remote, too dizzy to see straight. Somehow I stand up, all my weight on one leg. I look down and see the hole in my stomach. My blood-slick armor. The pain isn’t so bad now. I think that’s the blood loss. Can’t feel much of anything.
“You can do it,” Noah says. He stands next to me, how I remember him. Bright and vibrant and alive. “I believe in you.”
He pulls me into a hug and I wrap my arms around him. He isn’t really here, but his arms keep me standing all the same. “You can do it,” he whispers in my ear. “You’re not alone.”
The eyeless regroup and surge toward us, circling around like wolves. The nearest one springs, claws outstretched for my throat.
If I push the button, I will save the world.
If I push the button.
I will save the world.
I push the button.
80 COLUMBUS CIRCLE
I lost the girl I loved one month ago, before the cold winds came. Before the snow started to fall. Miranda liked it when my hair was longer, because it curled, so I grew it out, even though she will never see it.
Miranda’s sacrifice saved us from annihilation. There is no doubt of that. The world should know her name, but they don’t. All they know is fear.
This morning, Noble knocked on my bedroom door. The four of us—Rhys, Sophia, Noble, and me—are living in a fancy New York City apartment. The president, who survived in his bunker, put us here when Noble told him who and what we are. Noble told him it was the most likely location for True Earth to strike next. He promised they’d be back. And they would use eight million people as a meat shield, just like they did in Commander Gane’s world.
In my bedroom, Noble said to me: “Peter, I need your assistance. I need you to help me find something. It’s important.”
“Get Rhys.”
I would wait and then fight, but I wasn’t interested in seeing anyone, or talking to anyone. I did push-ups and stayed hydrated and stared out my window looking over Central Park. I waited for them to come, with ice in my veins.
He said: “I asked you.”
Now I stand amid the wreckage of the Verge. The black sky overhead is endless, a bloated corpse filled with purple worms of lightning. The wind howls between the empty buildings, carrying the scent of rotten meat and dust. The ground is a tumble of boulders and twisted metal. The Verge is a small mountain of broken glass and ash.
No tears come. I save them for the night, when I’m alone. I can picture Miranda’s face and hear her voice.
We’ll talk, she said to me. I love you.
Noble walks through the wreckage, rooting through it with hi
s feet. He has a small data pad in his hand that he references from time to time. I asked him what we were doing out here, but he ignored me. I think about Noah and Miranda and how I didn’t get the chance to say good-bye. Some nights I wake up and forget everything. I sit upright in bed and feel the crush as it all comes back.
I pick up a rock and throw it into what’s left of the Verge’s moat. The black water eats it whole, then stills.
Noble calls to me a few minutes later. I find my way over the rocks, tired and out of patience. I want to go back to my bed.
He’s smiling when I get to him. He leans against a rock taller than himself and laughs.
“Come here.”
“What is it?”
“Come here and I’ll show you.”
He’s got something between his thumb and forefinger. I hold out my hand, and he sets it in my palm, gently.
“Careful with that, boy. That’s your love.”
It’s a metal disk the size of a quarter, stamped with an M.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing sequels is hard, but here are some people who helped make it easier, and whom I am very grateful to know:
Suzie Townsend, Joanna Volpe, Kathleen Ortiz, my high school English teachers (sorry again), Danielle Barthel, Jaida Temperly, Jay Z, Dana Kaye, Catherine Onder, Hayley Wagreich, Laura Kaplan, Dina Sherman, Nellie Kurtzman, Sammy Yuen, Jenn Corcoran, Justin Bieber, Jamie Baker, Pouya Shahbazian, Steve Younger, Kevin Cornish, Tichondrius Horde
Whitney Ross, coffee, Barbara and Travis and Char Char Poelle, Joe Volpe, Susan Dennard, Sarah Maas, Adam “send me your gold” Lastoria, Will “the rectifier” Lyle, Josh Bazell, Janet Reid, Brooks Sherman, Sean Ferrell, Jeff Somers, the cats Jeff Somers lives with, my loving parents, my brothers and sister
DAN KROKOS pumped gas for nine years before he became a full-time writer and the author of False Memory. He enjoys watching TV, playing MMORPGs, and drinking coffee. Currently, he’s hard at work on the next book in Miranda’s journey. Follow his antics on Twitter (@DanKrokos) or visit his Web site, www.dankrokos.com.