The Dark Shore (Atlanteans) (6 page)

“I mean you’re still in my head, or whatever.”

Not in your head
. She raised a finger and pointed at me. The finger neared my chest and flicked through my shirt and skin. I felt a light burning there.
In you
.

“What does that mean?”

The siren just turned back to the body on the flagpole.

I followed her gaze. “Do you know who did this?”

It is a sign
, she said.
A warning
.

“From who?”

“Who” does not matter. “When” is the key. It is the way of things that each cycle comes to an end; order and intention dissolve; Qi and An become estranged, their harmony lost. This discord unleashes horrors. But it is also the way of things that balance returns, and the cycle starts anew
.

“You aren’t making sense,” I said. Then I wondered if the siren might get mad at that, but I was tired of hearing all these cryptic statements.

Yet when she looked at me again she seemed to smile.
When the music of the Terra is lost, they create gods to give voice to the darkness. But these gods know only what humans know. What is of this earth cannot control it, and thus the horrors are unleashed
.

Her voice grew louder in my mind, crowding out my other senses.
You must beware the gods and their horrors
.

The words burned into my brain, and I thought,
I will
. I felt a moment of weightless being, and then realized my eyes were closed. I had become totally still. I’d even stopped breathing. I opened my eyes. The siren was gone.

The moment of stillness seemed to have brushed away a layer of static, as if my senses had been cleaned. As the world bled back in, I felt the breeze between the hairs of my arms, felt the sharp, probing heat of the sun on my head. I smelled the dry baked earth, but something else too. Something slightly sour and metallic . . .

And there was a noise. A low hum that I hadn’t noticed before. Droning, with an occasional dip in pitch. It got louder as a gust of wind billowed against my face. The smell got stronger too. Coming from ahead of me.

I peered at the body, and stepped closer to the edge of the roof. As I neared, I saw a blurry movement around the limbs. The drone increased. Another waft of acrid odor hit me. I knew the sound now, and saw the source.

What I had thought were black stains were flies. Thousands of flies. They were whirling in orbit around the corpse. Its arms and legs were alive with their crawling, a rippling layer of black bodies and vibrating wings.

Tiny flashes caught my eye. Little movements, not the flies, but instead glints of light that seemed to fall away from the body toward the ground.

I peered over the edge of the roof, all the way to the concrete. There was a shimmery light at the base of the flagpole. It was different from the flat light of sun on sand. This was a reflection on liquid. Water? No, beneath the surface sheen, the substance was too dark, too opaque.

I took a deep breath and had a hard time filling my lungs around my galloping heart. I looked back up. Saw a flash and followed another little light trail. It was the reflection off a droplet. It plinked into the puddle below.

A puddle of blood.

And even though I knew exactly what this meant, everything it meant—it was hitting me like blows to the chest—I just kept standing there staring. . . .

Blood means it’s fresh. Fresh means someone just put it there, new since this morning. . . . Someone who’s still—

Until a piercing scream tore me loose.

Lilly.

The scream ended in a distant metallic crash.

I spun and sprinted for the door.

I THREW MYSELF DOWN THE FIRST FLIGHT OF STAIRS, legs moving too fast, losing control and slamming into the cement wall. I spun and headed down the next flight, this time grabbing the rail, taking two steps at a time. The light from the doorway above began to fade. On the third flight, the darkness total, my ankle buckled. Pain surged up my leg.

I limped to the open door at the bottom of the stairs. Faint light spilled in. I caught my breath and ducked out. The stairwell I’d come down was part of a column in the center of the store. There were a couple small lights on in the ceiling. A little more light seeped in around the seams of the plywood on the front doors, but gloomy shadows hung within the maze of aisles in all directions.

I heard a sharp smacking sound, something metal hitting the tiled floor. And then a rush like whispers. I ducked out and started toward it.

I reached a main aisle. Many of the shelves were bare, but then sections like art supplies or dishware looked so full and orderly it was as if the store had just closed for the evening. I passed rows of smashed glass cases, some empty, others still full of now valueless things like perfume and nail polish. In the clothing section, the overturned racks looked like carcasses, their skeletal limbs sticking up, leftover clothes like skin bunched and folded.

Many of the electronics had been spared, things like retinal-fit cameras that you slung over your eye. The small, sleek designs looked newer than things I’d seen at Hub. At first it surprised me that they were still here but then again there’d be no way to recharge batteries, and also probably little desire to record this world for posterity.

I spied another object that would be worthless to most people but that we happened to need: a reader for the video sheet we’d printed in Dr. Maria’s lab. I tore open the plastic package and slipped the thin, cylindrical device in my pocket.

Up ahead there was an eerie blue glow. A sign read
GROCERY
. I heard a hum. Leech had been right: at least some of the freezer cases seemed to be on.

I wanted to call out to Leech and Lilly, but I couldn’t risk revealing myself until I knew what was going on. There was another muffled sound, and then a sharp crack behind me. I ducked into a side aisle. My heart beat so furiously I worried that someone would hear it.

A noise grew, metallic and jangling, like a machine rolling, along with the rhythmic slapping of feet.

“Careful!” someone whispered.

Now I heard laughter.

Lilly sped by. She was kneeling inside a four-wheeled cart made of blue plastic, being pushed by Leech. He got to full speed and jumped up so that his feet were on the back of the cart.

“Woo!” he shouted.

“Look out!” Lilly warned.

They flew by me and there was a huge crash. I saw that they’d collided with a shelf at the end of an aisle, scattering a display of lamps.

Lilly and Leech cracked up, Leech in sandpapery chuckles and Lilly in big, high giggles. I’d never heard her laugh like that before. She got out of the cart. “Okay, that was too fast. Your turn.”

I wanted to scream. But I hung back out of sight for another second because I also had a sudden, deflating feeling. Lilly was actually enjoying herself, so different from how she’d been all day, and I hated that it didn’t include me. I fought off an urge to just turn and head back up to the craft, and ran over to them. “Hey!” I whispered. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be hurrying.”

“We were hurrying,” said Lilly between breaths, her smile fading, like here was no-fun Owen. “That’s why we were going fast. It just happened to also be fun,” she added, looking absently into the space near my shoulder and rubbing at her neck.

“Well, what about supplies?” I asked.

“We got supplies,” said Leech, motioning to the cart.

I saw a strange collection of items: a fuzzy pink blanket and pillow set, decorated with rainbows and horses, a dustcoated clear plastic case labeled
BOCCIE
, with colored balls inside, and even a box of white holiday lights. “What’s all this?”

“They were supposed to be some comforts for our palatial flying machine,” said Lilly.

“Don’t worry, Dad, we got some food,” said Leech, his obnoxious camp voice returning. “What was left of it, anyway.” He held up one can of stew and a box of dry millet noodles. “Which is why we were
hurrying
to the freezers.”

“Fine,” I hissed, hating how Leech had called me Dad. Actually, I sounded more like my mom, the way she always used to get with us when we’d get too loud in the common kitchen. “But we need to get out of here, now.”

“Why are you whispering?” Lilly asked.

“Because there’s someone here!”

This made Lilly whisper too. “What?”

“No there’s not—” Leech began.

“The body!” I hissed. “On the flagpole. It’s fresh. Flies, blood, all of it.”

They both started glancing around.

“We should still check the freezers,” whispered Leech. “It’s worth the risk if there’s food there. Come on.”

“We don’t have time,” I said.

“We haven’t run into anyone down here
yet
,” Leech reasoned. “Whoever put up that body might be in some other part of town. Or maybe they don’t even know how to get in here. I mean, we used the roof.”

“Leech is right,” said Lilly. “We should at least check those cases.”

“It will only take a minute,” Leech added. “And I’d rather not starve out there.”

“Fine,” I said. “Quickly.”

Leech started pushing the cart, its wheels clattering. I grabbed the side. “That’s too loud.”

He nodded and we left the cart, jogging quietly up the aisle, heads darting back and forth at each intersection.

We reached the first aisle of tall glass cases. They were dark, some of the doors hanging open. Packages had spilled out in spots, crushed and crumbled, sometimes coated in a dark layer of dried mold.

The next set of cases was lit in blue. The air tingled with electricity and the scent of moisture. The cases to our right were totally empty, the glass clear, but the set to our left was clouded with condensation and splintery patterns of ice crystals.

We checked the first one. Frozen food boxes were stacked top to bottom. There were box meals, things I’d never heard of like NegaFat, Skinny!Skinny!, and a ridiculous line called Ms. Martina’s Pre-Rise Kitchen, showing a plump woman in an apron inviting you toward a warmly lit oven, like she wanted to stuff you inside and cook you. There were other things, too. Rice waffles, juice concentrate inserts for HydraPak water bottles in more flavors than I’d ever seen . . .

“Oooh man,” said Leech. He popped open the next door down, releasing a cascade of cold fog. He yanked out a small round container. “Ice cream. Greenland Pastures creamery.” He yanked off the lid, shoved his finger in, and devoured a large scoop of dark chocolate. “Mmm . . . tastes kinda old, but not bad.”

Lilly reached past Leech and grabbed a box of frozen burritos. She ripped open the box, pulled one out, and held it to her gills. The cold made her close her eyes and her mouth momentarily settled into a relaxed line.

“Someone’s definitely been here,” said Leech. “Most of this stuff is relatively new. They had Greenland Pastures in EdenWest.”

“Then let’s be fast,” I said.

Lilly stepped past Leech and peered at the third case down. It was frosted opaque. She yanked on the handle. The door popped open in a hiss. Lilly stumbled back, then waved at the icy fog. “We should just get a day or two’s worth, whatever seems like it will keep best since it’s gonna thaw—GAH!”

Lilly launched backward, slamming into the far glass doors with a thud. She slid down, her eyes transfixed. She glanced at me. Went to say something but didn’t. Couldn’t.

The door swung back and forth, its old hinges creaking. Leech peered inside. “Okay . . .”

I looked in.

There was a body stuffed in the freezer case. A man, middle-aged. His skin was icy blue, his eyes frosted shut, hair and beard prickly with crystals, and his body contorted to fit into the rectangular space. He was dressed in a pure white jumpsuit, zippered up the front. Unlike the body outside, he hadn’t yet been soiled by blood or sand or flies. There was something smooth and solid in his mouth.

“Is that wax?” Lilly had gotten up and joined me. “It’s like a seal. You can see his teeth on the other side.”

Leech popped open the next door down. “Here’s another.” He moved to the last door of the aisle. “Annnd, a third.”

I saw a woman’s face, and another man. White jumpsuits, eyes closed, mouths sealed. I felt my nerves ratcheting tighter. Bodies on poles, in freezers. Real people being used as signs, stored like meat . . .

“What’s that symbol on their outfits?” Leech asked.