Chapters (22)
The sheer number of them took her breath away. She counted twenty-one before stopping; if there were more, she didn’t want to know. The men were ignoring her, passing around at least a dozen chairs in a circle, working rhythmically, mechanically, like pistons in a machine. Something moved in the darkness of the stairwell and Amy swung her flashlight toward it. Four of the shadow people were coming up the stairs. They were not quite as scrawny or filthy as the men in the café. They wore hoods, and from their belts swung truncheons; they advanced on her as inexorably as robots. Amy knew they were the warders, the guards, the ones who chased down escapees and disciplined troublemakers. She knew they were coming for her.
Amy had taken her eyes off the men in the café for only a second, but when she turned back they had placed their chairs on the floor and were all staring at her.
The saliva in her mouth went dry and her stomach filled with acid. If she had been able to gather her wits she would have run, but she felt stunned by the full force of the men’s attention.
Their faces were the worst. They were smeared, obscured, covered in a black veil, as if something had smudged their features with a dirty eraser, leaving nothing behind but indistinct knobs of shadow. No eyes, no mouth, no nose, no humanity; their individuality rubbed out.
Amy looked back at the stairs. The hooded men had reached the landing. Galvanized by their proximity, she turned toward Children’s and ran.
She snapped off the flashlight, hoping the darkness would hide her. She could hear bodies moving behind her, chasing her, but she didn’t risk turning around. She knew exactly where she needed to go. Darting and ducking around furniture, she passed through the dark burrows of Children’s, raced into the shadowy towers of Wardobes, skipped past Bathrooms, at last making her way to a Finnimbrun bedroom display. She dipped her flashlight to the floor and scanned the beam around. The ground was covered with dirt, smears of mud, and clots of black filth forming a trail past the Mesonxic closet organization system. Right back where she started. Opposite the closet, at the end of the narrow rust-colored hallway, a fake wooden door gaped like a clown’s mouth, inviting her inside.
Basil was back there. Maybe Matt and Trinity, too. It was too late for Ruth Anne, but Amy could still save someone. She had to go. Forcing herself to breathe deeply, filling both lungs with the rank marshy stench that came wafting on the cold air spilling from the open door, she ran inside, flicking her flashlight beam around the walls as she entered the heart of the Beehive.
