I climbed out of the car and slammed the door. The handgun pressed solid against the small of my back, beneath my jacket. Before moving, I looked at the drag mark one more time.
Whatever had left it had pulled someone heavy. The mark was wide and uneven—the width of a body being dragged—and it ended at the alley mouth in a dark, still-wet stain. Thin white lines flanked it on both sides where fingernails had scraped against the asphalt.
The first block was a blur of someone else’s panic. People shoved past in both directions, mouths open, eyes unfocused. A woman stood frozen on the sidewalk while a man pulled at her arm—she wouldn’t move, eyes fixed somewhere behind me.
From a side street, a car alarm screamed. Beneath it, another sound—wet and heavy.
The second block had gone quiet; it had nothing to do with calm.
Six people pressed flat against the brick wall of a dry cleaner, none willing to step past the corner. One man looked up as I approached.
“Hey—don’t. Turn back.”
“What’s down there?”
His eyes darted to the street beyond, then to me. “Something tore into a guy. Right there on the sidewalk.” His jaw worked.
The woman beside him had both hands locked on his arm. “It didn’t stop,” she said. “Not even when the screaming stopped.”
From the next block: a scream, high and raw, cut short. Then a wet, gurgling rasp. Then nothing.
Two blocks to go.
I drew the handgun and carefully rounded the corner.
The sidewalk ahead glistened dark and wet. A man lay crumpled against a dumpster, his abdomen open, entrails spilled across the concrete in dark threads. His mouth hung open, eyes fixed on the sky, still wet, still catching the pale morning light. Steam rose from the cavity of his chest in the cold air. Thin. Like the last ofhimleaving.
I’d seen combat turn men inside out, but this wasn’t an IED. His ribs were snapped outward, as if pulled bysomething. The flesh was torn away in furrows so deep I could have fit my fingers inside them. My hand started to move, some part of me needing to make it make sense, and I had to physically pull it back. This wasn’t combat. This was consumption.
I stepped around the body, pressing against the wall, scanning every doorway, window, and shadow deep enough to conceal someone. A thin, dark line ran from the body to the storm drain. A second later, the smell reached me—metallic and almost rancid, thick enough to taste.
The street ahead lay empty, devoid of movement. After the last two blocks, that stillness was more unnerving than any threat.
I checked my phone; the red pin, one block out. The parking garage entrance should be just past the next intersection. Fiona was somewhere inside.
I breathed through my mouth, but it offered no relief. Finger resting along the trigger guard, eyes constantly moving, I tried to ignore the steam rising from the body behind me, curling in the cold air like something ordinary. Like coffee or a breath.Ten years, and I had never once needed to steel myself to move forward. I moved forward.
One block.
Get to Fiona.
Two
It Was A Street Feast - Finn
Ipassed the intersection and slowed, an almost involuntary response.
Two bodies lay in the middle of the street, limbs bent at unnatural angles, as if struck by a car.
Three—no, four—figures hunched over them, shoulders working in fast, frantic movements. From a distance, it looked like a desperate rescue: first aid, CPR, pressure on a wound that wouldn’t stop.
Relief touched me for half a second before curdling into dread.
Their backs rolled and hitched in sharp, arrhythmic lurches, shoulders driving down, wrenching sideways. No one spoke or looked up. The only sounds were wet and repetitive, unhurried, and beneath them, something lower, something that took a moment to identify: the faint crack of cartilage giving way under steady pressure.
My boot scraped the curb. One of the figures shifted its weight, and I caught a flash of red.
On his face.
