Page 25 of The Dead of Summer

I can feel where the globs of slime have soaked into my bandanna. I rip the cloth away, just in case.

“I’m good. We’re going to be okay. Just follow me, okay?”

We crawl from the DJ booth on our elbows.

In the dark it’s impossible to tell where the weepers are until, like a slowly rising sun, the coral growths resume their eerie glow.

A bloody-red light that makes it feel like we’re crawling through a giant’s veins.

In a way this is better—we can see a path toward the exit.

But it’s also worse—in their glowing stupor, the weepers cease their chasing and lock into a shivering formation among one another.

They seem agitated. Unwilling to go back to sleep. Except for the occasional twitch, they move slowly, fluidly, dreamily. I realize it’s only a matter of time before they begin to shed their spores, drowning us where we hide. I squeeze Sam’s hand. Time to go.

We take it slow. I lead, trying to both keep my eyes down while also looking where I’m going.

Was the door dead ahead, or to the left?

Sam keeps one hand wrapped around my ankle.

Above us, the weepers sigh and whisper, but most are too transformed to be understood.

Still, the sound of a sigh is utterly human coming from these monsters.

As they make their familiar hum, chills rush down the skin of my back.

I pull us a few more feet, but suddenly I can’t feel Sam.

I twist, but the wobbly legs of a woman peppered in polyps nearly trot over my face.

I roll left, onto my side, and she misses me by inches.

Another weeper crushes my hand, but I force myself not to cry out.

I ball up against a patch of clear wall, cradling my knuckles, aware of the growths hanging directly over me.

I have to keep going, but where is Sam? I scan through the forest of legs.

There! I spot him crawling on his elbows. He’s going in the exact wrong direction. Our eyes meet briefly and he mouths something, but it’s impossible to read his lips beneath his bandanna. He lowers it and tries again.

Go.

I shake my head. Absolutely not. Bit by bit I drag myself toward him until I’m forced against a pillar.

He takes momentary shelter against a curved velvet bench.

We have no choice but to stare at each other, waiting for some miracle to part the crowd enough for us to pass.

Sam waves urgently, then points at his ear.

He’s telling me to listen.

I haven’t known Sam long—only days, only moments—but in those moments he has demonstrated an uncanny ability to hear the music just outside our reality.

At first it was the music in my mind on the ferry, then it was the spontaneous composition I played for him at Singing House.

If he hears something, I trust him. Going against every instinct, I close my eyes.

I listen.

Past the gasping, past the euphoric crying, past the sticky suck of clotted lungs, the weepers have a sound like nothing I’ve ever heard.

From within the library, it sounded like a distant chorus, but within this closed room it’s closer to the howl of wind; dissonant, stark tones rubbing dangerously against one another.

There’s a grittiness to it, too. I feel like if I listen any longer, the abrasive discord will burrow through my brain.

But I stop straining to hear. I stop trying to name the notes, or tune the song, or fix the composition.

Instead, I follow Sam’s instructions. I just listen.

I let the maelstrom of tones lift me up, chaotic and beyond my control, like a glittering wave pulling me from the sand.

At first my mind kicks, like my feet trying to find the ocean floor, and I panic when there’s nothing there— this is just incoherent noise!

No grounding bass, no certain rhythm! —but then I hear something miraculous deep within the voices: the cradle of a chord.

It flits in and out of my ears as the voices creating it drift past one another in their individual é tudes, but suddenly there’s a sense to the song.

And I can hear it. And it’s music after all.

I open my eyes, knowing exactly what to look for.

The chord is based around a lone weeper standing still in the middle of the dance floor, sustaining a long and meandering descant.

The coherence depends on the weepers swirling around the center.

As they drift, they slide through harmonies that briefly align, tangle, drift, and shatter, all in a loop that repeats itself.

Sam hears it, too. He nods at me, counting through the sequence.

Together, we step into the swirl. We stay low.

We go slow. The dance is so intricate that I feel a weeper brush my elbow when I’m only a hair ahead, so I force myself to match their pace perfectly.

Now that we’re moving with them, though, they don’t seem to notice us.

Glee rushes through me, but I shove it down so that I can focus. This isn’t over yet.

And there’s one big problem left. As the weepers have calmed themselves, the air has begun to sparkle.

The lullaby has begged the coral polyps open, and the fog begins to trail after the waltzing weepers.

Sam and I squeeze to the floor, trying to stay within the sequence, but at this rate we won’t make it to the exit.

At most, we have seconds of clean air left before the room is saturated.

By sheer luck I reach the door first, but I don’t run for it.

I stand, scanning for Sam, but the air is blurry as the fog begins to fill up the room.

I take one final breath, begging my brain for an answer.

How can I show him where to go? I need a light of some kind.

My hands dig into my pockets, finding the digital recorder.

That will have to do. I start it up. The red recording light blinks.

I wave it in front of me, hoping the motion catches Sam’s eye.

If he runs for it, I’ll be ready. I’ll take his hand and pull him free, and we’ll be outside in no time.

Safe, with the heavy back door slammed at our backs.

brEATHE.

My lungs are already aching.

brEATHE.

My body fights my brain, but I don’t give up.

I think I see him, rising as a shadow among the glowering red of the weepers. I take the last bit of air in my lungs and whisper, “Sam! This way!”

I squeeze my eyes shut right before the fog wraps around me.

Every second without air is a void spreading in my brain, emptying my thoughts.

My lungs don’t just burn, they blacken in my chest. But I know Sam is close, I can hear him in front of me.

I know that I just have to wait a little longer, and I will feel his hand on my chest, pushing me toward the door, and we will dive toward the future.

Together.

brEATHE.

brEATHE.

brEATHEbrEATHEbrEATHEbrEATHE.

I feel myself blacking out. My thoughts shrink into nothing beneath the rebellion in my chest. Soon, my body will breathe for me, and my throat will thicken with glitter, and I’ll die.

No, I’ll live on, my body bursting apart in a chaos of spines and polyps and tremulous tendrils. I’ll drown, then dance forever.

At last, I turn my back on the dancing weepers and I run.