Something Strange and Deadly (Something Strange and Deadly #1)(16)

Joseph flung off his coat and gloves and then turned a hardened face to me. “Stay here.” He knelt at one end, and Daniel crouched at the other. They lifted the apparatus and rushed awkwardly from the room. The door slammed shut behind them.

I scrambled up and clutched my parasol to me like a weapon. The banging of the alarm masked all other sounds. I peered through the lab window to find people fleeing the building.

I stepped to the door and pressed my ear to the wood, straining to detect something—anything—through the alarm. I felt the hum of machinery more than I heard it. No other sounds came through.

How long would the Spirit-Hunters need? Should I help? And what was that machine they’d taken for?

The air in the room shifted suddenly.

The hairs on my neck shot straight up. In the next instant, the damp scent of soil hit my nose, and my heart hurled into my throat.

It was last night all over again, and I forced myself to turn around. To face it. And then there it was: the clot of black oozing in front of the window and consuming all light.

Before fear could paralyze me, I tore open the lab’s door and scrambled into Machinery Hall. For once my legs and skirts worked in concert, and I didn’t trip over hems or lace. I just ran. I knew that the spirit was followed by the icy sheen that formed over the machines I raced past.

I reached the east entrance and pummeled into the door, expecting release, but I was thrown back. The door shook but remained solidly shut. I was locked in!

I twirled around and scanned frantically for an escape. The spirit had blocked my path.

“Go away,” I shrieked, my throat snapping with the words and strength tingling through me. I swung my parasol at it—“Leave!”—and somehow that worked. I didn’t understand how or why, but now was not the time to question my luck.

The spirit slithered away. I forced my feet to run back through the hall, and I had almost reached the center when the reek of decay alerted me to the corpses. I could sense the cold behind me, though, so I didn’t slow. It wasn’t until I reached the giant Corliss engine towering in the hall’s center that I actually saw the first body.

It shambled south, leaving a rain of dirt behind it. Most of its skin was gone, and the tattered remains of bone and muscle barely clung together.

I observed all this in a flash, but I did not pause. The piercing chill that followed gave me no choice but to move forward. Logic told me that following the Dead would lead to the Spirit-Hunters. I veered around the engine in pursuit of the skeleton but then skidded to a halt.

Corpses were everywhere, stumbling like drunks in a thick mass toward... I blinked in surprise. They were heading for the Hydraulic Annex, an extension of Machinery Hall that housed a giant, fountained pool. Even from here I could see the hazy mist that meant the fountain’s pumps and waterfalls still ran. But why would the Spirit-Hunters go there?

The closest corpse, a skeleton of gleaming bone and shredded flesh, tottered to a stop. Its exposed skull rotated toward me, and though its sockets were empty, I knew it sensed me. Four more Dead, each in varying stages of decomposition, slowed and turned to face me. My chest convulsed at movement crawling on a fresher one’s skin. It even wore a dress like my own.

I lifted my parasol defensively before me. The corpse of the woman staggered closer. It was recently dead and more coordinated. When it was only three feet away, it lunged, both hands outstretched.

I swung with all the power I could muster, and the parasol connected with the corpse’s arms. It sent a shock up my limbs but hardly affected the Dead. I stumbled back, the urge to scream rising in my chest, and I swung again.

This time its elbow cracked inward and drove into the other outstretched arm. The corpse was momentarily slowed, but did not stop its attack. And now the other corpses were near and approaching from different angles. With the Corliss engine at my back, I knew I was trapped.

A small figure snaked through my vision. Bones crunched and flesh slapped as the Dead crumpled around me. The corpses continued to grab and claw, but they couldn’t reach me. Their legs were shattered, and they could gain no ground.

An Asian boy stood before me, his fists at the ready and stance low. He was Chinese, judging by his long, black braid and half-shaved head. Yet he wore clothes like an American boy: brown knickerbockers and a waistcoat.

He jerked a thumb toward the Hydraulic Annex, and though his lips moved, his words were lost in the clanging of the alarm.

When I did not move, he reached out and wrenched me along with him. In five long strides, we reached the end of the Dead parade.

The boy reached the closest body, kicked the side of its knee, and pushed it over in a fluid, flat-palmed movement. He was a blur of feet and hands, repeating the same maneuver with each corpse. The key, I saw, was in destroying their legs, so I rushed forward and hurled my parasol at a corpse’s knee. The joint splintered and rolled inward; and before the Dead could grasp at me, I shoved it with my parasol. Down it went.

Then the alarm stopped. Only the vibrations hanging in the air gave any indication that it had sounded. My ears adjusted in moments, only to be filled with the scrape of bone on bone and the rip of straining flesh. Beyond that was the crash of waterfalls.

It was at that moment that I noticed the oppressive weight of summer heat. No more icy air or steaming breath. The spirit had left.

“Jie!” a male voice bellowed. “Hurry!”

It was Daniel, but there were still many Dead blocking our path to him. So we worked faster, a frenzy of attacks. We targeted the corpses directly in our way. My muscles protested and my elbows popped under each impact. Our progress through the rancid Dead was a surreal blur of flesh and bone.