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Bodies are fragile.
Noah said that to me once, and now his words are ringing through my mind just as loudly as the gunshot in my ears. For the briefest moment, I find myself genuinely stunned, frozen in place not from the bang, or the flash, or the violence, but the realization that my friend is dead.
Kenny stands in the doorway with tears rolling down his cheeks, his weapon raised. Everything feels as though it’s moving in slow motion as our eyes meet and Kenny swivels toward me.
Marlo screams.
I rush forward, tackling the security guard just moments before I directly stare down the barrel of his shotgun.
There’s another furious blast, this one ripping into the cement ceiling above us and scattering fragments of dust and rock, and suddenly the whole world lurches back into sync, moving at its natural frame rate.
“Get down!” I yell, maternal instinct kicking in as I struggle to locate Marlo in the chaos.
Unfortunately, this moment of distraction allows Kenny to take a swing at me with the barrel of his gun, striking the side of my face and knocking me back into the hallway.
The pain is ten times more vicious than expected, reactivating my self-inflicted wounds, and for a moment it’s so terrible that I can feel my whole body flirt with the idea of giving out.
This wave of discomfort comes with a distinct exhaustion, the lights in my brain momentarily flickering.
Somehow, I power through it, scrambling to my feet and leaping at Kenny in a clawing, shrieking mess. I literally climb his broad frame, then yank him back as hard as I can and drag him to the ground with me.
Kenny tries swinging the barrel of his gun around for another blast, but I manage to get his hand between my teeth and chomp down. There’s an unstoppable fervor to the guard’s aggression, but this bite finally manages to force his fingers open.
The weapon drops and I pounce on it. I somehow get my hands around the gun and immediately roll back to face Kenny, but before I can get a shot off he gives me a hearty kick and sends the gun clattering even farther down the hallway.
He kicks again, a direct hit to my stomach that forces the air from my lungs, and in this moment Kenny uses all of his weight to roll on top of me.
The enormous man straddles my body, reaching down and wrapping his hands around my throat. Even with a full rest, I’d be no match for Kenny’s physical strength, and certainly not with this exhaustion sizzling through every worn-out muscle.
As the man’s fingers tighten, a horrible realization washes over me.
In the movies, strangulation always takes a while, drawn out in these overwrought moments of drama.
The longer you hold the camera on someone’s face, the more emotion you can squeeze from a scene.
Real life, however, isn’t like that at all.
Within a matter of seconds, a large guy like Kenny will crush my windpipe and end it quick. I learned this on MovieTok.
I can see the guard’s shoulders reposition as he prepares to push down.
Crack!
Kenny topples forward, the dead weight of his unconscious body slamming against the concrete floor.
Behind him stands Marlo, Noah’s baseball bat held awkwardly in her grip.
She doesn’t quite know how to choke up, or how to leverage her body and create more power, but she apparently knows enough to knock someone over the head and get the job done.
“Oh my God, sweetie,” I start, struggling to push Kenny off and then scrambling to my feet. “You did so good.”
When I reach Marlo, however, the expression on her face is not at all what I expected. She’s staring at Kenny’s unmoving body, her breathing frantic and her face twisted into a terrible frown that I’ve seen a hundred times before. She’s about to cry.
“Hey, hey, hey,” I coo, wrapping my arms around her and struggling to soothe the impending flood of emotion. “It’s okay. You did a good job. You saved Mommy.”
Her overwhelmed body quakes hard in my arms.
“We can’t do this right now,” I press. “We need to go. Do you understand? We need to get out of here.”
I pull back a bit and look Marlo directly in the eyes, momentarily forgetting to hide my face. Her cheeks are already streaked with tears.
“We’re the ruthless ones, do you understand?” I continue. “We win. You win.”
Marlo pulls in one of her stuttering breaths and holds it, struggling to regain control of herself.
“We need to go,” I repeat, less instruction now and more command.
Marlo swallows, then closes her eyes and nods in confirmation. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a set of keys, handing them over to me.
“What’s this?” I ask, then notice the faint spatter of blood across a few of the little silver blades.
I turn my head, gazing back into the break room where my friend’s hollowed-out corpse rests haphazardly against the back wall, the pool of blood that soaks the floor around him growing larger by the second.
Corpse.
That word feels weird.
Where his hollowed-out body rests haphazardly against the back wall.
That’s not it, either.
Where Noah rests against the back wall.
I can feel a sudden rush of emotion pumping through me, filling me up and then hustling toward the exit of my tear ducts. I act quickly to deflect, clamping my mouth shut and turning away.
Instead of dwelling on Noah, I think about how strong Marlo is, how fast she acted in this situation that would emotionally annihilate anyone else.
It would be too much for most other adults, let alone a five-year-old kid, yet here she is with a baseball bat and a set of keys, just in case we need them.
“Is Uncle Noah gonna be okay?” Marlo asks.
I hesitate, recognizing this moment for the crossroads it is.
Never did I imagine a future where the shitty attitude of an ancient talking parasite—who also happens to be my dad—would hold weight over my parenting decisions, but here we are.
I know exactly what Eddie would tell me to say, and that’s a cycle I’m not interested in repeating.
I open my mouth, ready to speak with empathy and care, but before the words have a chance to escape my lips I stop myself.
“Mom?” Marlo presses.
Now isn’t the time for softness.
“No,” I tell her, scooping up the shotgun and climbing to my feet. I grab her by the hand and start pulling her along with me, heading back the way we came.
As we reach the bottom of the stairs I notice a distinct pink haze, dancing flecks of fuchsia dust confirming the motivation of Kenny’s sudden mood change. The fog gives me pause, and I push Marlo behind me. The two of us hold here for a moment, listening intently.
People are talking and stomping around up on the main floor, chatting in tones of excitement.
I hear glass break, then a loud metal clatter.
I catch fragments of various phrases, like “pull her eyes out” and “see what her lungs taste like.” The stomping quickly grows in volume and speed, transforming into a cluster of heavy footsteps that ring through the building.
I immediately pull back, scooping Marlo up with my free arm as we alter course.
This hallway offers few options, but with the footsteps drawing closer I take the only one that makes any sense.
I open the door to what I assume is the engine room, greeted by an assortment of industrial machinery and the massive spool of thick black cable.
Marlo and I slip inside, but before the door closes, I hear a voice cry out with sickening excitement.
“Over there!”
The metal door has a deadbolt on this side, which I immediately throw, but who knows how long that will hold.
Slam!
Someone has already reached us, hurling all their weight against the door and then continuing with a series of violent punches.
I can see the mob piling up outside through the row of glass windows, filling the hallway and pushing to get a look at me with their snarling, furious faces.
These openings are too small for anyone to climb through, but unfortunately the door has one positioned right next to its deadbolt.
I back away as Marlo clings tightly, then turn and run when the glass begins to crack. Someone hits the window with a crowbar, taking two or three stabs with their metal rod until the whole thing finally shatters in a crackling burst.
I’m hustling through the engine room now, weaving my way between various pieces of industrial equipment.
Massive gears sit unmoving against the back wall, and a giant server bay rests next to us.
While I’m sure this equipment is fascinating on a grade-school field trip, we ignore it, pushing onward in search of an escape route.
An EXIT sign, red and brilliant, catches my eye across the room.
I take a sharp turn, barreling toward it.
Over my shoulder I catch a glimpse of several arms reaching through the broken window, the ravenous crowd struggling to find the lock that holds them back from whatever macabre task Eddie has assigned.
Shards of glass remain stuck in the edges, slicing through flesh as frantic appendages grope wildly.
Blood runs down the door in thick streaks.
We burst through the exit, finding ourselves on an outdoor staircase that winds upward against the side of the building. From here we can see down into the parking lot below, which is now strewn with dozens of vehicles left haphazardly across the pavement, doors wide open and dome lights shining.
We’re approximately forty feet up, and while tying off a rope and climbing down might be an option with unlimited resources and time, it’s not a viable route at the moment.
This thought is punctuated by a loud clang from inside the engine room, a sign that they’ve finally caught the deadbolt and made their way through.
Assuming the shotgun was fully loaded, I have three shells left with this particular model. I’m guessing there’s fifteen or so people after us, so the math doesn’t quite work out in our favor.