Olga peered around the corner first. She pulled her head back almost instantly. The colour had drained from her face.
“Drones and robot dogs,” Gracie explained while Max looked next.
“Although we don’t get many soldiers out at night, those things are always on the streets. They’re constantly at war.”
Artan looked next and would have watched for longer had Gracie not pulled him back.
“So who are they fighting now?” Max said.
“Each other.” Gracie pointed one way. “The drones belong to Fear.” She pointed the other. “And the dogs belong to Fury.”
“They seem to be quite an equal match,” Hawk said. “The drones can fly away from the dogs’ flames, and the dogs—”
“Are bulletproof,” Gracie said.
William repeated it back to her. “Bulletproof?”
“The drones fire bullets. They’d tear through you or me, but the dogs have steel shells that the bullets can’t penetrate. At least, not without the drones getting so close they’d get set on fire.”
Finally, his turn to look, William leaned around the corner. The drones’ bright white lights made his head spin as they zipped through the sky, weaving in and out of one another. Small discs about two feet in diameter and a foot thick, their torches looked like noses, and they had small arms hanging down beneath them. Red rings of heat lit up the ends of their little appendages as they sent a spray of metal at the dogs, who stood about a foot tall and two feet long. Built from black steel, they had glowing red eyes. Square heads, they had hinged jaws and belched fire. Even from this distance, the strength of their heat forced William to pull his head back.
“There’s more technology here than you’re used to,” Gracie said.
William snorted a laugh. “You’re telling me! So what’s going to happen here? Who will win?”
Gracie peered around the corner. When she pulled back in, she shrugged. “I’d say neither. The environment doesn’t favour either side. Sometimes the dogs catch the drones in a tight spot and keep them in range. Sometimes the drones get the jump on the dogs and get in so many shots they penetrate even the dogs’ strong shells.”
“So we shouldn’t worry about what’s happening out there?” Dianna said. “I mean, they’re keeping each other busy, right?”
“Exactly,” Gracie said. “It’s only a problem if one of them sees you.”
“Uh, Gracie.”
Matilda’s words sent a shiver through William. He knew her better than anyone. He knew exactly what that, uh, Gracie meant. Reluctant to turn around, yet he still followed Matilda’s pointing finger. An alley across the way. Too tight for the moonlight to penetrate, it sat completely in shadow. Although, piercing the utter darkness was the glow of two red eyes.
“Shit,” Gracie said. “Now we’re screwed.”
Chapter 11
A moment of stillness in a world of chaos. The battle between the drones and the dogs raged on around the corner, but it might as well have been in a different city. There were now more pressing matters at hand. Under the glaring scrutiny of those two red eyes, William reached for Matilda and touched the base of her back. He held the weight of Jezebel in his other hand.
The dog stepped from the alley with stilted movements. The orange and white glow from the fighting machines in the distance caught the edges of its scratched and dented body. Its red eyes glowed brighter for locking onto the enemy with a focus that wouldn’t yield. The squeak of its mandible hinges ended in the clack of its jaw falling loose.
Gracie broke their collective inaction when she said, “Run!”
William took off after Gracie. Olga and Matilda were ahead of him, the others behind. The roar of flames, the heat at their backs.
They turned the bend and ran along the main road. The dog’s metal feet beat a tattoo against the hard asphalt. It gained on them despite its awkward gait.
“Hopefully,” Artan said, “that’s the only—”
The white glow from the drones’ torches cut him off. They’d broken away from the battle with the dogs.
“As much as they will fight one another,” Gracie said, “they’ll take down a human target over a machine all day long. And they’ll take down an enemy soldier over a civilian.”
Another tower block on their left, Gracie darted into it, and Matilda followed.
Olga stopped at the door. She looked back at William and the others, but her attention fixed on Max. She slapped the base of her spear on the ground before tilting the pointy end into the building. “Why should we follow her? She was the one who led us into this mess.”
The large foyer amplified Gracie’s response. “Do what you want, Olga. I’m just trying to survive.”
Much like the entrance to the tall towers, this block had rusting double doors at one end with a single doorway leading to a stairwell beside it. They must have been built from the same blueprint.
Gracie vanished into the stairwell, Matilda behind her. William paused halfway across the foyer and waited for the others. Dianna shot past him, then Hawk, Artan next, and Max, his war hammer gripped with both hands.
“Max!” Olga said. “What are you doing?”
“I’m following the only person who knows this city.” His voice disappeared with him up the stairs, growing quieter as he got farther away. “If nothing else, she’s trying to stay alive. I think we should follow her lead.”
Olga remained outside. Then her eyes widened. She darted into the building, a stream of flames shooting across the block’s entrance where she’d been only seconds before.
William charged into the stairwell, Olga a few feet behind.
The clack of the dog’s strides entered the foyer. William called back to Olga, “I’m glad you decided to join us.”
“Fuck you, William.”
Were it not for the fiery death on their tails, William would have run anywhere but up another flight of stairs. His legs shook with fatigue, and he clamped his jaw as he battled the climb. Jezebel restricted his swinging arms, but he couldn’t leave her. Not after everything they’d been through together.
Crash! Someone kicked open a steel door a few floors above.
The one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turns on the staircase made William’s head spin like they had the last time. But with only two flights to the newly opened door, he pushed on, slamming into the concrete wall on his next turn, the stairwell so dark he had to rely on blind luck to find his footing.
William’s friends gathered in the corridor. He let Olga past and kicked the steel door shut behind him with another crash! A thick bolt on the inside, he slid it home with a clack!
Olga called ahead to Gracie, “This is fucking suicide. And I will remind you of that.”
“I’ll look forward to the I told you so when I’m dead.”
A thunder-crack of a slam hit the locked steel door. William spun around. Drone or dog, whichever one had hit it, they’d dented it on their first attack. Another crack bent it further. The glow of flames seeped through the gaps.
After the third slam, a square muzzle poked through a space beneath the door, the screeching of steel against steel as it tried to force its way in. The door cut a fresh silver groove into the top of its head. Bursts of flames shot from its snout. Crack! Another machine hit the door, bending it further. The inquisitive dog crawled through to its shoulders, its metal feet pawing at the concrete floor.
The others had already vanished around a bend in the corridor. William sprinted to catch up. Olga, at the back of his line of friends, ducked into a room ahead on her right.
If William hadn’t witnessed it, there’s no way he would have followed. But as he entered the room, Olga left it via a window. She stepped up onto the ledge and jumped for the building opposite, landing two-footed on a balcony about six feet away. All the while, she kept a hold of her spear.
The moonlight to guide him, a burst of fire behind, William muttered, “Don’t look down!” Matilda in the hotel room opposite, he step
ped onto the window and jumped, his arms windmilling as he crossed the gap. Several drones appeared on his right, blinding him in mid-air.
The stutter of bullets chewed into the brickwork of the tower he’d jumped from and pinged against the balcony he aimed for.
William’s legs folded beneath him as he landed. Roaring agony slammed through his kneecaps when he hit the concrete floor. Jezebel skittered away.
Several pairs of hands dragged him to his feet and pulled him on. Max, Artan, and Matilda, Matilda holding on longer as she led him away.
The first of the dogs from the building opposite hit the wall above the balcony from where it had made the leap. Its heavy landing shook the floor. Several more of the creatures crashed down on top of it, the sprawling pile slowing all of their progress.
At the back of the line again, Gracie too far ahead to spot, William focused on Matilda directly in front of him. Another long hallway with a steel door at the end. The moonlight couldn’t penetrate the darkness, but the drones obliged. Their dazzling white light peered through the windows into the building.
The hinges on the steel door groaned when Matilda knocked it wider. William shoulder-barged the metal barrier as he went through after her. But the door was lighter than he’d expected. It flew wide and cracked against the wall on the other side. William’s momentum carried him over the first concrete stair leading down, and he fell sideways. He hit the stairs on his right side, giving him an instant dead arm, his legs sailing over his head.
Slamming into a concrete wall at the bottom of the first flight of stairs, William blinked in the windowless stairwell. He only had the steps of his friends to guide him. And they were heading up. “Shit!” His head throbbing, his body aching, his shins on fire, he patted the ground, found Jezebel, reached up for a handrail, and pulled himself to his feet.
The dim moonlight from an open door a floor or two higher up, William climbed the flight of stairs he’d fallen down, acrid smoke in the air from where the dogs’ flames burned anything in their path. He made it up another flight in time for the first of the dogs to appear. They barrelled through the door like he had, tripped on the stairs, and fell down the first flight. At least he wasn’t the only one.
The others had again slowed their pace to allow William to catch up. They waited in a corridor a few floors above, Gracie at the front, Matilda closest to him. Were there time for rest, they probably would have given it to him, but the second he appeared, Gracie nodded and took off again.
Gracie vanished into a room on her left, and instead of jumping for the building opposite, she dropped her spear, leaving it behind as she hung from the balcony, shimmied down so her legs were close to her destination, swung towards the building, and dropped, landing two-footed on the balcony below.
At the back of the line again, William waited in the room while the others followed Gracie’s path, all of them discarding their larger weapons.
The dogs’ clattering ascent in the stairwell spoke of their difficulty with the climb. Hopefully, it would give William and the others the time they needed. And it might have, had the blinding light from the drones not appeared outside. Red rings on the ends of their small arms, they sprayed the building with bullets.
Max, Olga, and Matilda ahead of him, Max jumped back into the room, took shelter behind a wall, and threw his arms wide. “What do we do?”
Matilda picked up what must have once been a table. Now only a frame, the glass was absent from the tabletop, as it had been from most other things in this city. “Move aside.” She launched the frame from the balcony. It drew the drones’ bullets, giving her time to swing over the railing, slide down, and then drop to the balcony below. She’d given them the blueprint to follow.
Olga launched an old chair for Max to go next, and then another one for herself. Max had left his war hammer, Olga her spear.
“Fuck it!” William launched Jezebel. She spun through the air as the first of the dogs charged into the room. The stutter of bullets followed his projectile while he swung around the balcony, slid down the railings so fast the rust-coated metal burned his palms, and dropped to the balcony on the floor below.
The first of the dogs caught up and leaped for the building opposite. It let out a continuous stream of fire as it spun through the air. The flames caught a drone and sent it into a spin that ended with an explosion against a wall to William’s left. The other dogs halted on the balcony above. They spewed flames, but were unable to angle them down.
William, lighter and more mobile without his weapon, chased after the others.
Chapter 12
The dogs weren’t stupid. Where one of them had jumped and fallen, the others halted and turned around. They’d find another way, and they were fast enough to catch up. William reached the stairwell at the same time as the creatures on the floor above. Were it not for their searing ball of flames, he might have fallen again. But they lit his way, even if he ran with the reek of his own singed hair in his nostrils.
Like the dogs before it, the first of the creatures tripped on the stairs. The stairwell shook from where its heavy steel body stumbled and slammed to an abrupt halt against the wall at the end of the first flight.
Matilda held a door open for William two floors down, the number one just visible on the wall beside her.
Gracie led them along another corridor similar to the others. She took them to yet another room. No balcony this time, but the drop from the window was no more than fifteen feet.
Matilda jumped, and as William leaped from the window, the crash of the steel door leading to the stairwell broke open. The clack-clack of the dogs’ uneven gait swarmed in.
William landed on the hard and unforgiving road with a jolt. Had Gracie not led them, he wouldn’t have chosen this route. But thank the heavens they had because a swarm of drones waited for them on the ground floor. They lit up the inside of the derelict building, the focus of their lights on the doorway exiting the stairwell as they waited for William and his friends.
They were through their second abandoned shop when the crash of a dog slammed down on the road behind them. A whoosh of flames, for what good it did. They were too far back for it to have any effect.
Another wide road separated them from another cluster of towers. The buildings were so close together, they were damn near touching. Even closer than the ones they’d leaped between earlier.
The first of the dogs appeared as William entered the next tower. Its awkward bounding gait, its square head, its glowing red eyes. These things didn’t tire, and they wouldn’t quit. So much for the lead they’d gained.
Gracie took them into another stairwell, the snaking concrete stairs like many of the others. William’s legs burned with the effort of the climb. At some point his body would fail him. Until then, he’d have to keep going. Either that or die.
Gracie’s breathless voice echoed in the dark. “First, we lose the dogs, and then we lose the drones.”
At least she had a plan. She’d done this before, right?
Too dark to see the numbers on the wall, if this building even labelled their floors, so William counted instead. Past the door to the third floor, Gracie three to four floors above him and still climbing.
William reached the sixth floor when Gracie kicked a door open several floors above.
He stumbled into the corridor on the tenth floor. Stairs would only give them an advantage over the dogs as long as he could climb them. Stars swam in his vision, every deep inhale failing to sate his need for air.
Matilda jumped through the window at the end of the hallway, the tock of her feet landing on the metal walkway outside.
More stairs. Like the ones running up the side of the stadium. They clung to the tower and mirrored the internal stairwell in their zigzagging path up or down. They went up. Of course they went up!
Rust had claimed several steps, much like the ones outside the arena. It left a gap of about six feet in the next flight of stairs. Six feet wide and three feet higher
up. Horizontal bars ran beneath the stairs directly above them. Matilda copied Gracie, Max, Artan, and Olga. She leaped, caught the bar, and swung across the gap, landing two-footed on the other side. But Dianna had halted, Hawk beside her. “Go! Now!” William screamed as he charged at the girl. “The dogs are coming.”
Dianna screamed, jumped for the horizontal bar, caught it and swung across.
As she let go of the bar, William leaped. Hawk ran back towards the dogs.
William landed on the other side, his stomach lurching as he teetered on the edge of his balance before Max and Artan pulled him towards them. The fall through the gap might have only been ten feet, but it would have been a ten-foot drop onto metal stairs. He’d been lucky so far. No chance he would have managed this fall without breaking something.
Hawk waited by the window they’d escaped from. The first dog jumped out onto the walkway. He caught it and flipped the thing over the railing, his muscles bulging as he launched it away from the stairs. Like the one earlier, it breathed fire as it spun, slamming against the ground over one hundred feet below. Its body lay broken on the asphalt.
The next dog through the window emerged at such a speed it slammed into the railing on the walkway and bent the steel bar. Hawk had already climbed back up the stairs. As he leaped the six-foot gap, the creature breathed fire and leaped after him.
William helped Max catch Hawk, and all three of them dropped into a hunch, the dog’s fire shooting over their heads. But the gap proved too much, and the creature fell, immobilised by its heavy landing.
Dog after dog attempted the jump. Every one of them came up short, falling with the others, an ever-growing pile on the stairs below. Many of them survived the fall, but not a single one attempted to climb the stairs again.
“How did you know you’d be safe?” William said.
Hawk shook his head. “I didn’t. But from how they climbed the stairs, I assumed they’d struggle with the jump.”
Beyond These Walls | Book 8 | Between Fury & Fear Page 7