“I think you feel it, too, man,” Cleve continued. “It’s like I’m standing on a sheet of very, very thin fucking ice here. I’m afraid to move, but every instinct I have is telling me that now is the goddamn time to do so.”
Marcton nodded, turned to the creature, stepped backward. Put his gun away, told the other guys to do the same. They did, and everyone took several steps back, up onto the curb.
The beast looked toward the subway tunnels again.
“It’s OK,” Marcton said. “You can go.”
The thing took another step forward, then another, then another. With each step, he kept his eyes glued to the four men. When he was fifty feet beyond them, he turned his head toward his destination and walked faster, the pistons in his legs – and the smaller ones in his arms, Marcton just noticed as his angle changed – puffing vapor out into the crisp winter air.
They watched him go, each lost in their own thoughts, trying to process what they’d seen.
As the creature turned the nearest corner, they saw that its destination was the entrance to the old subway tunnels. It ducked its head to get inside, then disappeared from view.
The first snowflake of yet another storm fell, touched Marcton’s cheek near his jaw, melted, dripped down his neck. He looked up, saw the moon through a break in the clouds.
No one knew it then, but this storm was the main event.
This storm would never stop.
S E V E N T E E N
Milo’s trip to the subway entrance was less eventful than Henry’s, but no less distressing.
He was still trying to get the hang of gravity after floating around for as long as he had been, found it severely limiting to have to move muscles and such. The sensation almost made him wish he were invisible again.
Somehow, Adelina had done this for him. Through whatever power she had, she had essentially brought Milo back to life. And now here he was using that life to try to save someone else’s.
Faye’s head bobbed against his chest while he ran – well, walked quickly. What he was doing as he took the back stairs down to the ground floor – successfully avoiding questions, or even being stopped by police or firemen – couldn’t rightly be called running. His desperation to get Faye away, get her someplace safe, was overwhelming. It sped up certain experiences while slowing others down. But while his newly regained physical limitations were subjected to this effect, his brain had only one speed: overclocked.
Once outside the building, as he struggled to get over curbs and snowbanks, his mind reeled with everything that had just taken place. Images and voices swirled in a maelstrom of confusion. Several times he needed to physically shake his head to make them stop because his vision was blurring.
If he had taken a different route to the old subway tunnels, he would have seen Henry and the four men who’d intercepted him, which would have changed the entire outcome of that situation. He might have seen Palermo, too. But he hadn’t; the route he’d taken was the most direct one, on main streets. Two or three people passed him, but they were all rubberneckers, and each of them had asked if there was anything they could do to help. He had just shaken his head and carried on.
Milo, too, felt the new snowflakes falling down around him, just before he entered the old subway tunnels – not long at all after Henry had gone down. He relished their coldness on his burning skin.
When Milo was safely inside the darkness of the entrance, away from streetlights, sirens, and the eyes and offers of well-meaning strangers, he gently set Faye down on the concrete at his feet. Just to get a momentary breather.
And in that darkness, below him, down the stairs, he heard the hiss of escaping air. Saw two burning coals in the dark, and knew that his friend, Henry, was close.
* * *
Marcton was unable to move for a few minutes after the monster disappeared into the abandoned subway tunnels. He consciously sent instructions to his legs to work, but they would not listen. He wondered dreamily, his mind in a fog, if he was broken. Maybe nothing would work again, and he would just stand here in the street, as snow piled up all around him. He had an intense vision of suffocating under a mountain of white, and that’s what finally got him moving.
Breath caught in his chest, and he hitched in oxygen. He blinked rapidly, looked around. Cleve, Bill, and Melvin had similar expressions, but they seemed steadier than him.
Cleve reached a hand out, said, “You alright, Marcton?”
Marcton’s second and third breaths came easier. “Yeah, um… Yes. We should call the warehouse.”
“Definitely,” said Melvin. Waited a beat. “Any idea what that was, Marcton?”
“Nope.”
“Thought not. Well, whatever it was, I’m glad it didn’t stomp us. ’Cause that would have hurt.”
“Only for a second,” Bill said. Tried to smile. Failed, managing only a weird half-grimace. His hands shook. “I need to sit down.” He moved to the curb, sat down unsteadily.
Melvin looked like he wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, then finally spat it out. “Should we call Kendul? Now that Palermo’s, well… gone.”