Page 47

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

THE CRAWLING HORROR

J oe’s heart thumped out a loud and stifling death knell as he pressed his forehead to the cold wood of the apartment building’s front door. He both heard and felt the bangs and scrapes on the other side.

When he’d looked out the window a few moments earlier, the street was empty of all animated life. What was out there now? How many? How vicious?

It hardly mattered. It wasn’t worth thinking about because he had no choice. He would go through whatever it was and he would survive. And he would get to Percy.

Joe sent a glance up the stairs, to the dark spot on the landing where he’d shut Percy’s apartment door behind him. He could hear voices arguing, and his heart wrung out a thanks at the rich depth of Giordano’s voice that seemed to be smoothing things over. Maybe Giordano couldn’t fight at all—Joe hadn’t asked—but he was tall, and strong, and he loved Percy. Joe could never doubt that, and he trusted it, and so he trusted him to keep Althea and Leo safe.

He faced the entrance, brought his knife up in preparation, took a deep breath, then flicked the latch open. He leapt back from the doors that slammed inwards with a deafening bang. White and damp flesh pressed into him, suffocating him. Claws and teeth and wide, round mouths. He could decipher no more in the mess of hot skin and bad breath and the din of hungry growls. His knife slid into stomachs and necks. Lost in a clamour of legs and arms and sharp, grasping fingers, there wasn’t time to aim. He slit, and he hit, and he kicked, and he was as well satisfied with a broken leg as he was with pierced skin. The beasts let out screeches of agony with every attack. Their blood was warm on his fingers—not like the dead things he’d tangled with in the past.

He fought his way forward, shoving one to the side, cracking a skull on the pavement. His knife ran deep into another’s throat and he slid it free, cracking his elbow into a cheek when one clambered up his back, its nails slitting the skin down his shoulder blade. His boot smacked down piteously on a kneecap, and inch by inch, he made his way into the street, bleeding, gasping for air, denying the pain that already screamed through his body.

The creatures pursued him, some down low and agile, ready for attack, others dragging broken limbs, some breathing hard and already dying from the first onslaught, but they all followed.

Joe’s relief was palpable at the sight of the crawling, clawing things coming for him, leaving the entrance. He needed them away from that door. Away from Althea and Leo. He slowed his pace, waiting in the street for them to close in, backing up, backing up, catching his breath.

They were almost white, their flesh anaemic and translucent. They were humanoid of some sort, but they crawled along the ground. Not zombies, not humans under whatever sort of spell Molly seemed able to cast upon those close to her. These things showed no more intelligence than intent. Intent to destroy Joe and only Joe, their drooling teeth set on his flesh alone, ignoring the bodies that were strewn all over the street.

There were maybe seven of them now, some leaving red pools as they went, bleeding heavily from his knife, their elbows clambering high as their misshapen limbs propelled them forward.

A claw grabbed onto his hurt shoulder from behind, and he heard Althea’s shout somewhere above. He doubled over, flipped the crawler to the rough asphalt, kicked a boot to break its rib, and dropped to his knee to slit the throat wide open. He spun away from the carnage, knocked off his feet by another of the beings. He moved with it, fluid, and his other shoulder hit the ground hard, tearing a rip in his shirt and his skin, but he kept going and rolled over onto his back, kicking two legs up into his assailant, which he knocked back into another. Just as he got halfway up, another flung itself upon him, digging claws into his chest, cutting four vermillion streaks deep into his skin. Joe took two hands to the shoulders of the powerful beast in an attempt to restrain it, but its head flicked and its teeth gnashed all the more violently as it lunged for his neck.

A flash exploded to his left, a shot went off, a splatter of hot gristle painted his cheek and his chest, drenching him in the brains of the thing.

Joe scrabbled to his feet and looked up to find Giordano at the window, gun smoking. He let off a shot to Joe’s left, smashing another’s head open before it could complete its vicious pounce. The final crawler jumped, Joe wrenched his paring knife free from his arm holster, and smashed it deep into the mouth that opened to devour him, stabbing the creature through to the brain, killing it instantly.

It splatted to the ground, he heard a sharp “Mew!” and a second later, tiny claws dug into his already-bleeding shoulder, where Moxie landed with an unsteady thump. His aching fingers ran over her coat as he made his way a few steps back up the street, and slammed the apartment door closed.

“Thanks,” he called up to Giordano.

Giordano gave a sharp nod, wary eyes scanning the road for more of the predators.

A fresh growl sounded some way down the street, in the direction of Montmartre Cemetery. “All right, Moxie,” said Joe, wiping the blood from his knife onto his sleeve. “Let’s go get your master.”