\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not human?\u201d Molly muttered.<\/p>\n
Daryl swallowed painfully and glanced at her.\u00a0 He looked back at the grey-green powder.\u00a0 Burnt to the bone.<\/p>\n
\u201cEver see Night of the Comet<\/em>?\u201d Daryl asked.<\/p>\n \u201cDaryl?\u201d A small girl, also badly wounded, leaned against the blasted-out window in the second car\u00a0 The girl\u2019s eyes, as pale as the other beasts, watched him, unblinking.<\/p>\n \u201cAnother one.\u201d He muttered.<\/p>\n The child monster smiled and, in one fluid motion, slipped onto the platform and grabbed one of the human survivors, a middle aged man.\u00a0 Daryl glanced back at the platform and saw the four terrified faces of the other survivors, just as Molly stepped forward with the pipe.\u00a0 She paused, though, when the child easily lifted the survivor into the air.\u00a0 The supernatural strength seemed to give Molly doubt in the power of her weapon.<\/p>\n \u201cYou do not understand what is happening here.\u201d\u00a0 The child said.\u00a0 The wounded man hung like a rag doll at the end of her little arm.\u00a0 He was unconscious, perhaps already dead.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just took out these four bastards, little girl.\u201d Daryl said, \u201cWhat do you think you can do?\u201d\u00a0 He hoped he sounded brave, but he felt like he had left his wits back in the last car, smashed against the warped door.<\/p>\n \u201cEnough!\u201d The child shouted.\u00a0 Turning with a twitchy movement, she twisted her arm slightly to the left and Daryl cringed as, over the fire and the pounding of his own heart, he could hear bones shattering.<\/p>\n Molly handed Daryl the pipe, tears running down her soot stained face.\u00a0 He stepped toward the window in a fluid motion and brought the pipe down hard towards the child, but she danced away into the smoke and shadows.\u00a0 Only her eyes picked up the light as she stood watching Daryl, challenging him to climb into the second car and, just as he was about to step up onto the skeletal seat and leap through the windows and narrow gap between, Molly pulled him back.<\/p>\n \u201cKill it!\u201d One of the remaining survivors, a woman, shouted as she stepped forward from the catwalk.\u00a0 Daryl saw her moving in his periphery while the burnt girl looked over his shoulder.\u00a0 He glanced at the others:\u00a0 A blonde woman, her pale face smudged by ash and blood, the brunette, a little boy and a man.\u00a0 They were all about as rough looking as the creatures he and Molly had just dispatched.\u00a0 \u201cRun!\u201d he barked, \u201cRun towards Wheaton station!\u201d And he pointed towards the smoke ahead of them.<\/p>\n The little girl in the shadows made a gentle sound, audible over the background chaos in the tunnel.\u00a0 She inched towards Daryl, feigned a leap forward, then nodded as Daryl shouted and leapt backwards. The damned thing was toying with him.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re leaving,\u201d he said.\u00a0 Then, over his shoulder, he shouted towards the others,\u00a0 \u201cGo!\u201d\u00a0 With his free hand, he pushed Molly away.\u00a0\u00a0 He didn\u2019t turn to watch them.\u00a0 In his ears, his heart was beating louder than the echoes created in the smoke-filled tunnel.\u00a0 It was fear and exhaustion, each laboring breath full of smoke and ash and poison.\u00a0 The edge of his vision was fuzzy and, no doubt, he was a few minutes away from crumpling to the floor; and the damn creature knew it.\u00a0 It just stood there in the beam of a cracked emergency light, ruined face smiling, watching him.<\/p>\n He started to back away.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t make a move towards him, but it did speak.\u00a0 The voice dry and skittering, a voice without air and, yet, still the voice of a little girl.\u00a0 He could hear it building up inside her small body as if it were being operated by a crank and blown through dry passages.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not alone.\u201d<\/p>\n Daryl braced himself, afraid to look around or behind him.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t listen to her,\u201d Molly said from the platform.\u00a0 Daryl jumped, what the hell was she still doing there?<\/p>\n \u201cGo with the others,\u201d he barked.<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re leaving.\u201d Daryl said to the creature, backing out of the train onto the platform, where Molly stood next to him with her dirty face held high.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you think is up there?\u201d the creature asked, turning lidless eyes to the dark roof of the tunnel.\u00a0 \u201cI can hear them.\u00a0 All of them.\u00a0 There is much confusion but, already, there is a single voice rising.\u00a0 Yet that voice is older than we are.\u00a0 A mystery.\u00a0 A voice that also knows who you are.\u00a0 Daryl Gillette.\u201d<\/p>\n Daryl blinked.\u00a0 His mind was full of smoke, nothing was making sense.\u00a0 The creature stepped forward to, once again, lean against the window frame.<\/p>\n \u201cFall, Daryl.\u00a0 Fall!\u201d she urged.<\/p>\n He felt his legs start to shake, his vision roll and boil.<\/p>\n \u201cDaryl!\u201d Molly screamed, then she was behind him and pulling him along the catwalk.\u00a0 The creature didn\u2019t follow.<\/p>\n Daryl turned and grabbed Molly\u2019s hand.\u00a0 Leading each other, they raced down the walkway until they caught up with the others.\u00a0 They were all blank-faced and panicked, except for the blonde woman.\u00a0 She wore her hair in a ponytail, the dim light catching everything pale about her.\u00a0 Clinging to her leg was a child who looked near catatonic.\u00a0 A wounded man was bent over, leaning on the shoulder of the brunette, and had an arm wrapped around his chest as if he were trying to hold himself together.\u00a0 This crowd wasn\u2019t going to last long if they didn\u2019t get outside.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Daryl leaned in and helped drag the wounded man along, half stumbling, half-running along the narrow walkway.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Molly pulled the child from the blonde and carried him in her arms, nervously looking back over her shoulder.<\/p>\n After a few feet, with the fire behind them and the tunnel full of a rancid, electrical smoke, the walkway widened and a dimly lit opening appeared in the wall which crossed to the southbound tracks.\u00a0 A bank of machines lined one side of the service area, silent and eerie, while a large staircase against the opposite wall folded upwards into darkness.\u00a0 Beside it, a white sign indicated that it was an exit to the street level.<\/p>\n There was no sign of the creature from the train, but that didn\u2019t put Daryl at ease.\u00a0 He could barely focus on the stairwell.\u00a0 The only sounds were the hum and pop of electrical fires and the gentle buzz of the emergency lights.\u00a0 He tried to latch on to any noise.\u00a0 It was too uncomfortable without the sounds of the ordinary day, without a hint as to what the creature in the train was doing.\u00a0 Hell, it wouldn\u2019t just stand there and wait for them to get away.<\/p>\n \u201cShould we \u2013 \u201c One of the women started to ask.\u00a0 She jerked as her voice echoed down the tunnel.<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d Daryl whispered hoarsely, turning towards the steps.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ll go up.\u00a0 We have to.\u201d\u00a0 He leapt onto the first flight of stairs with Molly right behind him.\u00a0 She handed the child back to the woman and hauled herself up the stairs, staying as close to Daryl as possible.\u00a0 At the first landing, he stopped and looked down.\u00a0 The others were moving slowly, helping the wounded man.\u00a0 Then he continued to climb, taking flight after flight without slowing his pace.\u00a0 The last few steps were concrete, coming to an end at a narrow hallway that stretched off to the left into darkness.\u00a0 The sign over an emergency exit glowed softly in front of him.\u00a0\u00a0 He turned to wait for the others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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