DEAD HORIZON — CHAPTER 18: NOISE ABOVE

Shhk. Shhk. Shhk.

The scraping didn’t stop. It got worse. The fingers under SPENCER’S gate weren’t just scraping now. They were pulling. The metal rattled in its track. One inch. Then two. The employee wasn’t breathing. The freshman, who’d run to the stairwell and come back five minutes ago with his face wet and muttering “sorry,” stared at the gate like it was a test he’d already failed. The janitor shifted his weight from left foot to right. Like he’d heard that rhythm before and didn’t like the song.

Arthur’s hands were shaking. He looked down at them. They were actually shaking. He made a fist. The tremor didn’t stop. It ran up his forearms, into his elbows. “Keep going,” he said. His voice cracked on the second word. He hated that. He didn’t wait to see if anyone followed. He just walked. Past the gate. Past the fingers. The scraping got louder for three steps, then quieter, then stopped. That was worse than the noise. Silence meant it was listening.

Sophia used the glass railing. Then the wall. Then the railing again. Step. Drag. Step. Her ankle was a battery now, hot and pulsing, sending shocks up her calf every time her toe brushed tile. “Okay,” she said. The word came out too loud. Too General Evans. “We need structure. We need to— we need to find a—” She stopped. Because there was no end to that sentence. Find a what. Security office? Davis was chewing on an old man’s throat. Manager? MACY’S doors were open and nobody was coming out. Police? Her phone said all circuits are busy ten minutes ago. Binder? On the food court floor with a shoe print on it. She tried to put weight on her left foot just to prove she could. Just to prove the rules still worked. Her knee buckled. She hit the wall hard with her palm. A sound escaped her throat. The start of a scream. She swallowed it. Arthur saw. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t move to her. He just slowed down half a step so the gap between them closed. Not enough to offer help. Just enough that if she fell, she wouldn’t hit alone. She didn’t fall. She kept moving.

“We should go back,” the freshman said. He’d been quiet since the stairwell. Since he ran and came back. Now the quiet was breaking. “My sister— she was at Hot Topic. Maybe she got out. Maybe she’s at the entrance. Maybe if we go back to Level 1 we can—”

“Level 1 is gone,” the janitor said. It wasn’t cruel. It was flat. Like reading a weather report. “Seen it from the stairs. Ain’t nothing to go back to.”

“We can’t—” The freshman’s voice jumped an octave. “We can’t just leave her! We can’t just—” He ran. Not toward the stairwell. The other way. Back past SPENCER’S. Back toward the atrium, toward the escalators, toward the blood. “Hey!” the employee yelled. The freshman hit a trash can. Metal, round, swing-lid type. It went over. CLANG. The sound was huge in the empty corridor. It bounced once, twice, rolled, and hit the glass railing with a ping that echoed. Then silence. For three seconds the whole mall held its breath. Then from inside SPENCER’S came a thump. Not scraping. A body hitting the gate. Once. Twice. The gate bent out another inch. “Shit,” the janitor muttered. Not loud. Not scared. Just mad at the math. “Shit, shit, shit.” The freshman was back already. He hadn’t made it ten feet. He stared at the trash can like it had jumped in front of him. “I didn’t mean to— I didn’t—” “Keep moving,” Arthur said. His hands still wouldn’t stop shaking.

The corridor turned. Another balcony, smaller than the last. Below them, Level 1 spread out like a crime scene photo. The main entrance was fifty yards off. It was open now. Not broken. Open. People were still coming in. A woman in nurse scrubs, running, looking back every two steps. A kid on a bike who hit a body and flipped over the handlebars and didn’t get up. Two men in suits carrying a third man between them, his legs dragging. And behind them, walking in. Four of them. Not running. Walking. The mailman was still there from before, his bag gone, his face gone from the nose down. The others were new. One wore a FOOT LOCKER polo. One was a kid, maybe ten, his shirt torn open. They didn’t chase the nurse. They saw her, turned their heads at the same time, and started walking. Not fast. But they didn’t stop. Didn’t trip. Didn’t hesitate. “People stop being people when they stop hesitating,” the janitor said. He wasn’t looking at the infected. He was looking at the freshman. “Seen it in fires. Seen it in fights. People get scared, they run. That’s normal.” He pointed with his chin at the mailman. “That ain’t scared. That’s hungry. And hungry don’t wait.” He didn’t sound like a philosopher. He sounded like a guy who’d mopped up too many bad nights.

The corridor kept going. SEPHORA. Dark inside. GAMESTOP. Gate down. AUNTIE ANNE’S kiosk. Abandoned, pretzels still in the warmer making the air smell like fake butter and salt. The smell made the employee make a noise in his throat. Sophia stopped walking. “We need to check,” she said. Her voice tried to be General Evans. It failed. It was thin. “Check what?” Arthur said. It came out flatter than he meant. Sophia flinched, but not from the tone. From the question. “Other survivors,” she said. “We can’t just— if there are people in the stores, we need to— we need to regroup. Get a headcount. Find—” “There’s no headcount,” Arthur said. He said it before he could think. Sophia looked at him. Really looked. Not past him, not through him, not at A. Johnson, Bag Check. At him. Her mouth opened. Closed. “We can’t leave people,” she said. It wasn’t an order anymore. It was a rule she was reciting because if she stopped saying it, it might stop being true. Arthur looked at GAMESTOP. Gate down. He looked at SEPHORA. Dark. He looked at the corridor ahead. Straight. Twenty yards of open tile. No doors. No cover. No choke points. Just a kill box if something came around the corner. “We keep moving,” Arthur said. Sophia didn’t answer. But she started walking again. Step. Drag. Step.

The sound started behind them. Not the SPENCER’S gate. Farther back, at the balcony they’d left. Footsteps. Not running. Walking. One set. Then two. Then three. Even. Measured. Like they knew the corridor had only one way to go. The employee froze. “Don’t,” the janitor said. The employee turned anyway. Looked back. There was nothing there. Yet. But the footsteps kept coming. Arthur’s chest got tight. Not panic. Not yet. Just tight, like someone had wrapped a belt around his ribs and pulled. His vision tunneled. The edges went dark. The corridor got narrower than it was. His hands were shaking so bad he couldn’t make a fist anymore. This is not like games. The thought was loud. Louder than the footsteps. In games you respawn. In games you have health bars. In games you can pause and check a wiki. I can die here. The thought hit his stomach cold and heavy. He couldn’t get a full breath. The freshman made a high tea-kettle noise. Sophia was looking at Arthur. She saw his face. Saw the shaking. Saw the way his eyes were too wide. She opened her mouth. Closed it. “We go right,” she said. There was no right. The corridor only went straight. “Right,” she said again, louder. She pointed at SEPHORA. Dark store. Glass door. Closed. “We check for survivors,” she said. “There could be—” Arthur grabbed her arm. He didn’t decide to. His body just did it. His fingers closed around her bicep, above the elbow. Not hard enough to bruise. Not soft enough to be polite. He pulled. She stumbled. Her bad ankle gave out completely. He caught her before she hit the tile. Didn’t mean to. Didn’t think about it. His arm went around her waist. She was lighter than he expected. She smelled like sweat and boba and the metal tang of blood. She made a sound, angry and scared at once. “Let go—” “Move,” Arthur said. He was already moving. Half-carrying her, half-dragging her. Not heroic. Not smooth. Just moving because the footsteps were closer and his brain was screaming go go go and he was scared. He was really, really scared. But his legs still worked. So he used them.

They hit a service door. EMPLOYEES ONLY. Push bar, no handle. Arthur hit it with his shoulder. It gave into a hallway. Narrow. Pipes on the ceiling. No lights except a red exit sign at the far end making everything look like a darkroom. They went through. The janitor came next. Then the employee, shoving past the freshman. The freshman was last. The door shut behind them with a click that wasn’t reassuring. Arthur let go of Sophia. She didn’t fall. She put her back to the wall and slid down it until she was sitting. Her face was gray. Her ankle was purple up to her calf now, skin shiny. She didn’t say anything. Arthur put his hands on his knees. He was breathing too fast. In. Out. In. Out. Couldn’t slow it down. The hallway was quiet for five seconds. Then the sound started again on the other side of the door. Footsteps. One set. Then two. Then three. They stopped outside the door. No banging. No screaming. No scratching. Just waiting. Then, from the other end of the hallway, the red exit sign end— a sound. Not footsteps. Metal. A gate. Rolling up. Slow. Shhk. Shhk. Shhk.

The employee whispered, “What is that?”

The janitor didn’t answer. He was looking at the ceiling. At the pipes. At the vents.

The freshman said, “Maybe it’s security. Maybe they—”

“It’s not,” Sophia said. Her voice was flat. Dead. She wasn’t looking at the door. She was looking at her hands. They were empty. No binder. No clipboard. No list.

Arthur forced himself to stand straight. His legs wanted to shake. He locked his knees. “We can’t stay here,” he said. His voice still cracked. He hated that. “One way in. One way out. If they come from both sides—”

“They’re not coming,” the janitor said. “They’re already here.”

He nodded at the vent above them. It was big. Two feet by two feet. The screws on one corner were gone. The grate was hanging down a quarter inch.

From inside, something breathed.

Wet. Rattling.

Then a tap.

A fingernail on metal.

Tick.

Then again.

Tick. Tick.

Arthur looked at Sophia. She looked back. No General Evans left. Just a girl with a busted ankle and eyes that finally understood the math.

The footsteps outside the door started again. One step. Two.

And the gate at the end of the hall kept rolling up.

Shhk. Shhk. Shhk.

The corridor behind them wasn’t empty anymore.