Page 110 of Ghosts of the Dead

Mars slams the brother against the wall and presses a blade to his throat.

Lucy turns around and grabs a pipe from the floor with a white-knuckled grip. Her breath is ragged, but the fight finally burns in her eyes. I move toward her, ready to pull her back and protect her, but she shoves past me and swingsat the brother named Richy. The pipe connects with Richy’s knees, sending him sprawling with a grunt.

He laughs. “You’re gonna turn on us, Luce? After everything?”

She swings again and misses, but the message is clear.

Caspian breaks away from me and disappears into the shadows toward where Jace stands by the cages with his gun raised. In the faint flickering light of the single lightbulb above, I can now see why. Some of the cages are open, but what’s emerging isn’t only the living women we thought were in there. There are rotters mixed among them, their movements jerky and hungry. My mind flashes back to the papers Jace found. They’ve already been experimented on.

Jace fires his gun, the muzzle briefly illuminating the grotesque faces, but in the dim light, it’s almost impossible to tell who’s living and who’s turned. Women are screaming and huddling in corners or behind whatever cover they can find.

“Get away from the cages,” I shout out, loud enough for my voice to cut through the chaos. “Everyone alive, move away now.”

The living scramble back, but the rotters keep coming, immune to orders. I reach into my pocket and pull out one of the chemical explosives I fashioned from the arcade supplies. It’s crude but effective. A glass bottle filled with chemicals that explode on impact, wrapped in a rag. All I have to do is light it.

I pull out the lighter and ignite the rag on the second try. Now all I need is a clear shot. The rotters are too mixed with the living, and I can’t risk?—

A movement to my right. The gum-chewing brother appears from behind a stack of crates. His mouth is empty now, so I guess he’s now the auburn-haired brother, which doesn’t have as much of a ring to it. His eyes fill with malicewhen he lunges toward me with a serrated blade in his hand.

I throw the explosive, aiming for his chest, but he dodges at the last second. The bottle sails past him and smashes against the far wall.

For a moment, nothing happens. Then the chemicals ignite.

The blast knocks me off my feet, sending me sprawling across the floor. Heat washes over my face. My ears ring, and the world spins.

When I push myself up onto my elbows, what I see makes my blood run cold.

Fire. Not a small like I anticipated, but a growing wall of it, spreading rapidly across the debris-laden floor. The chemicals were more potent than I expected, or maybe they ignited something else. Either way, we now have a new, immediate problem.

“Fuck,” I breathe out, scrambling to my feet.

I scan the cages. Not all of them are open yet. Women are still trapped. Their faces press against the bars with terror in their eyes while they watch the flames grow.

There’s so much going on, it’s getting hard to tell between rotter and the living. We need something to help us with that. Noise. Rotters love noise, but there’s plenty of that going on everywhere, so they need something different. Music.

I pull out Summer’s small music box, and run my fingers along the smooth exterior, remembering all the times she held it with care and danced around our bedroom to the tune while humming into her hairbrush. I open the music box and set it down on the floor before stepping away. Rotters stop going after the living, and stumble to the new and enticing sound instead. At least Summer gets to be a part of this one final thing.

Lucy breaks away from her brothers, snatching the keyring from one of their belts in one swift movement. She runs toward me. “We need to get them out. I need to make this right.”

I take the keys from her and jam them into the nearest lock. It doesn’t fit. Fuck. I try another. Then another. The heat at my back grows more intense with each passing second.

“Hurry!” someone screams from inside a cage.

Mars takes down the sandy-haired brother with a brutal strike to the neck, who collapses against the wall. Then Mars runs over to help us with the locks. Jace and Caspian are still dealing with the rotters, their grotesque silhouettes visible through the growing smoke.

“Got it.” The lock clicks and I throw the door open. Two women stumble out, clinging to each other. I move to the next cage.

The fire is spreading faster now, feeding on old papers and wooden furniture. Black smoke curls toward the ceiling, which won’t hold up for long. The basement has no windows, no ventilation, and walls made of concrete. It’s only a matter of time before there’s no air left to breathe.

“Everyone out,” Jace shouts from across the room with his hands cupping around his mouth. “Get to the stairs!”

I work feverishly, unlocking cage after cage, not even checking if the occupants are living or turned. Everyone deserves a chance. No one deserves to burn.

A rotter lunges out of one cage with its jaws snapping at my face. I duck back and drive my knife up into its skull before moving to the next lock.

Glancing around through the thickening smoke, I see Lucy leading women toward the exit. Mars covers their retreat, using his knife to fell any rotter getting in their way. He doesn’t see one rotter until it’s sinking its teeth into a woman’s neck, her screams mingling with the crackling of the flames. Caspian pulls people from cages I’ve alreadyunlocked, half-carrying those too weak to walk on their own.

The gum-chewing brother is nowhere to be seen.

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