by Harrison, S.
As I go, I look down toward the survivors. Most of the Drones have been either shot down or crushed, their artificial corpses littering the ground all around the sand garden. But the danger is far from over as the three fully unfolded mechanoids begin swaying their weapons and opening fire. Missiles launch and curve from their shoulders at people running toward the line of buildings. The air is filled with the haunting scream of rail guns, cries of pain and terror, the brutal thuds of detonations, and the rolling rumble of disintegrating walls—but through all of that noise, I hear something else.
It’s the grinding squeal of metal straining to breaking point. Up ahead, I see the silver tower that the R.A.M. crashed into lean and then topple. A tangle of cables and wires and concrete comes thundering to the ground as another whole section of monorail track collapses onto the promenade. In a crumbling chain reaction, the next section falls, then the next, then the next, and as I look above my head, I’m suddenly filled with a terrifying realization. The track splits off in a three-way junction, and that junction crosses over the promenade . . . directly above me.
I try to break into a run, but my injured leg won’t support me; I stumble and fall as the next section of track loudly slams and breaks apart on the ground. A wave of dust engulfs me. I cough and sputter; I can’t see anything. I hear the next section hit the promenade, and then the next. I panic and stagger to my feet as huge chunks of concrete pound the top of my head and my arms and my body, every impact like a blow from a hammer. The breaking, grating, roaring all around me is deafening, terrifying, overwhelming.
I can’t hear my own thoughts.
I can’t see a way out.
My fear becomes dread.
And that dread becomes my desperate, bloodcurdling scream.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“AAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
Heaving at the air, I wake up lying in pitch-black darkness. I thrash my head from side to side, seeing absolutely nothing as my heart drums in my chest. I can feel a mattress beneath my body. I sit bolt upright and jerk my arms, but my wrists are bound and jolt to a stop. A door flies open, and I wince with pain in the bright flood of light.
All I can see is the silhouette of a man in the doorway. He’s tall and wide—so big, he fills the entire frame. He speaks, and when I hear his voice, a rising panic courses through every inch of my body and grips my very soul.
“It’s alright, sweetheart. You’re safe now . . . Jonah is here.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2014 Lucy Ngata
S. Harrison is from New Zealand, where he often indulges in his love of watching superhero movies and art house films. He frequently escapes to some of the many islands of the South Pacific to focus on his writing. He is the author of Infinity Lost and Infinity Rises, books one and two in the Infinity Trilogy.