I stare out over the alien land, feeling the wind on my skin and the coming heat. Then my gut tightens. Something pulls my gaze upward.

A smudge. Up high in the sky, between the last fading stars and the Earth, it moves—convulses, pulses and throbs. It looks alive, like a murmuration of starlings. But these aren’t starlings.

Malik makes a grunting noise in his throat. His hand flies to his hip and he flicks out his pistol. His face is pale and stern and his jaw clamps tight. He turns and gives Vidhan a sharp kick in the legs. “Vidhan!” he shouts. “Kuji!”

Vidhan’s head pops up over his poncho. He blinks at us, finds his glasses and puts them on. Malik points at the sky and Vidhan follows his gaze.

“Oh crap!” he cries, scrambling upright.

I watch the shape grow and I begin to see individual creatures, pink and bony. They come like buzzards to roadkill. A seething mass, more than I can count.

“That’s a swarm,” I say.

“Actually,” Vidhan counters, “the collective noun for Reapers is pod.”

“The door!” I shout. “We have to shut it.”

A chain hangs on the door and we take hold of this and pull. It yields. Then sticks.

I smell them now. A stink of rot on the air.

“Again!” I yell.

We heave…and it moves. Agonisingly slow. Sliding.

Then sticking.

A shape comes hammering at us out of the sky, claws first.

The door gives—unsticks again—and slams shut just as the Reaper crashes into it from the outside. The sound is violent. A thundering echo, like the pounding of a massive sledgehammer into metal.

BOOM!

We fall back in shock. The boxcar shudders and the metal door warps inward. A wild scream comes from outside.

SKKRAAAAA­AAAAA­AAAAA­AAAK!

Then another hit.

BOOM!

And again.

BOOM!

And twice more.

BOOM! BOOM!

My back hits the opposite wall. I lean into it. It rattles with every blow from the other side.

I wheel around. The wall behind us is another sliding door.

Together, we lunge for the hanging chain, grab and pull.

This time, the door slides open easily. We reel it all the way back and a gust of hot wind slams into us.

Nothing in the sky. Not a single Reaper. They haven’t come around to this side yet. Which gives me a hit of courage…that vaporises when I look down.

Down.

Down.

Into thin air. A void.

We’re crossing a bridge over a ravine so deep the bottom is obscured in murk.

BOOM! BOOM!

“We have to jump!” Malik shouts.

BOOM!

SKKRAAAAA­AAAAA­AAAAA­AAAK!