Dead Serious -Finn
Fourteen
Acold drop hit my face, and I woke instantly.
Another, then another.
Rain.
Libby lay curled against me on the sagging rooftop couch, one hand still resting over my heart. Overnight, the sky had transformed, thick with heavy, rolling storm clouds, bruised purple-black, pressing down on the city below.
Then—lightning split the sky.
For a fraction of a second, the entire rooftop turned white.
Thunder followed immediately. Above us, a thin cascade of grit skittered off the ledge and pattered down across our legs.
Libby jolted awake, her body going rigid against mine, fingers digging into my shirt.
“Finn… what’s—?” Her voice was thick with sleep, roughened by a sharp edge of alarm.
I sat up, sweeping the roof. Everything in me became quiet and sharp at once.
“Storm,” I said quickly, to give her something solid to hold onto.
Another flash. The skyline appeared stark out of the dark—buildings, water towers, fire escapes, the skeletal outline of a crane on the neighboring block.
And movement. Far below, on the street.
The things.
They weren’t still.
They moved without direction—jerking toward each thunderclap, chasing noise they couldn’t locate. One walked straight into a parked car and kept going.
Same pattern. Sound-driven. Overwhelmed by it.
I acted on the idea before it could finish forming.
I gripped Libby’s shoulder. “Hey—focus. This might be our shot.”
She pushed herself upright, blinking hard against the rain already soaking through her clothes and plastering her hair flat against her face and neck. She shoved it back with one hand, jaw setting, her gaze sharpening.
Good. No lag. Some people drowned in that first waking moment—came up slow, gasping, still half under—and it got them killed. Not her.
“Our shot at what?”
“Moving back toward the tunnel. Or at least closer.”
Thunder rolled again—louder this time, longer.
I crept to the edge.
The street below was chaos, but undirected—and it worked in our favor. Rain fell in sheets. The runoff near the alley mouth ran pink. A body lay face down near the dumpster, split open along the back, ribs fanned wide, strings of tissue swaying from the metal edge like laundry on a line.
The things moved scattered and aimless through all of it—some drawn into the open, some locked in tight, jerking circles back to the same patch of pavement.
One stood beneath the fire escape across the street, slamming its forehead into the ladder in a steady rhythm.
Wet. Meaty. Punching through the rain. Skin peeled back to the bone above one eye. It didn’t stop.
I turned back to her. “The storm’s throwing them off. We move now.”
She followed me to the edge, crouching low, her shoulder pressing warm against mine as she looked down.
I heard her sharp intake of breath—the way she held it—and watched her eyes move across the street below: the body by the dumpster, the pink water running through the gutters, the thing still grinding its skull against metal, apparently unaware that it had started to come apart.
I waited for the freeze. The shutdown. The moment when the mind simply refuses and the body locks up behind it.
It didn’t come.
Her eyes hardened into something steadier. She took it all in, accepted it, and moved forward. Her gaze found the fire escape, the ladder slick with rain.
She tracked the whole descent before her gaze came back to me.
“You’re serious.” Not a question. “It took everything I had to get up here. Now it’s wet and slippery and—”
“Dead serious,” I said. “I’ll go first, and I won’t let you fall.”
Lightning streaked across the sky and the alley below—for that split second, it looked clear. No movement. No shapes pressing out of the dark. Only rain and concrete and the open mouth of the alley leading onto the street beyond.
“Storm’s covering sound,” I continued, keeping my voice low and even.
“Visibility is bad for everyone, but they’re worse at adapting to it.
They can’t compensate the way we can. I saw it when I set off the fire alarm while rescuing Fiona.
This is the best window we’re going to get, and it won’t stay open long. ”
She swallowed. Then she nodded.
Below, the street churned gray and white through the downpour.
The things moved through it like damaged machinery: erratic, purposeless, dragged toward whatever sound had come last. One circled the alley mouth in a slow, grinding loop.
Another had stopped entirely in the intersection, swaying in the current of the storm.
Not hunting.
Not yet.
“Okay.”
No argument. No hesitation beyond what she’d already worked through on her own.
I grabbed both bags and handed hers across. She took it without a word, adjusted the straps, and pulled them tight.
“Stay right in front of me,” I said. “Three points of contact at all times. Don’t rush. Don’t look down any more than you have to.”
She nodded again. Tighter this time.
“I’ve got it.”
I moved to the fire escape and swung over the edge, boots finding the narrow metal platform with a clang.
I looked back up at her. “Come on.”
She came over the edge in careful stages, her grip locked on the rail. For a second, her boot caught the wet edge of the platform wrong and slid out—
My hand shot out and gripped her hip. Firm. Anchoring her in place before the rest of her could follow.
“I’ve got you.”
Her eyes locked onto mine: wide, rain-streaked, lips parted, breathing hard. But steady. An unspoken understanding passed between us, unrelated to the fire escape. She held my gaze a beat longer than necessary.
“Okay,” she breathed.
I didn’t let go until both her feet were solid on the platform.
Then I turned and started down.
Each step was deliberate. The ladder rattled and groaned under our combined weight, bolts straining in their housings, but the storm swallowed most of the sound.
Rain poured down my face, into my eyes, streaming off my jaw in cold rivulets.
My hands slipped twice on the descent, but I caught myself both times through sheer grip, fingers burning against the metal.
Halfway down—
A shriek tore through the alley below.
Not from the street, but directly beneath us.
Too close.
I froze, pressing myself flat against the ladder, every muscle still. Above me, Libby stopped moving the instant I did. I could hear her breathing through the rain: fast, shallow, controlled, keeping it quiet.
We listened.
Rain against metal. Thunder rolling in the distance. And then—underneath it all—a dragging sound. Below and to the left. Something moving through standing water in a slow, uneven shuffle, and beneath that, a clicking noise.
Lightning streaked across the sky.
In that single, frozen frame of white light, I saw it.
Directly below us. Twelve feet down. Maybe less.
It stood hunched. What remained of its clothes hung in tatters, exposing gray, mottled skin, split open along both forearms where muscle had swollen and pushed through in dark, ropy masses.
It held something pressed against its face—a small, child’s shoe, still laced, its white rubber sole stained brown.
It wasn’t eating it. It held the shoe cupped against its nose and jaw, working its mouth against the fabric, tasting the surrounding air, pulling at whatever trace of scent still lived in the fibers.
Then its head snapped upward.
Toward us.
My stomach dropped and my hands went still.
Its eyes caught the light for a fraction of a second—hemorrhaged, the left one bulging from the socket on a thin bridge of tissue. Its jaw hung dislocated, teeth dark, a sound building low in its throat.
It had heard something. Or caught movement. Either way, it had us.
“Don’t move,” I whispered.
Rain hammered against us both, running into my eyes, pooling cold in the collar of my jacket, soaking through every layer. My arms burned from holding position against the ladder.
The thing shuffled forward, one step, then two.
Its head twitched and jerked in small, spasmodic arcs, probing the air for whatever had snagged its attention.
The child’s shoe dropped from its hand, splashing into the standing water below, but it didn’t notice.
It was already drifting closer to the base of the fire escape, closing the distance with a patient, grinding inevitability that stretched every second long and thin.
Three feet from the bottom rung.
My hand moved to my knife—slow, completely silent.
My boot scraped metal, the sound sharp in the rain.
The thing’s head snapped up. Then thunder cracked directly overhead—a concussive blow that shook the ladder in its mounts.
The thing spasmed, its whole body jerking violently toward the greater noise, and the sound that tore from its throat bounced hard off the alley walls.
It dragged itself around the corner and disappeared.
I exhaled, long and controlled, letting my hand fall away from the knife.
“Keep going,” I said.
The ladder shook and swayed. Each rung, slick with rain, was a gamble I had to take. I guided my feet by instinct, trusting my grip more than my eyes.
My boots hit the ground.
I turned immediately, scanning the full length of the alley in both directions. The child’s shoe sat in a puddle near my right foot, sodden and small. I stepped over it without looking down.
Clear.
For now.
Libby dropped down beside me a second later, landing lightly, breathing hard. Rain had soaked her completely through—clothes clinging, hair plastered against her face, skin pale in the dark. But her eyes were sharp and present.
I grabbed her hand without thinking.
Her fingers laced through mine, shaking slightly, and squeezed once, hard, before we both started moving.
We ran into the storm, the noise, and the flooded streets where the gutters ran with rainwater and blood, using every bit of chaos the sky had given us to stay one step ahead of everything trying to pull us under.