As they emerged from the passage, a limping six-legged animal trailing blood, harassed from behind by the din of gunfire, bullets sparking off the walls, they found themselves on an uncovered sidewalk.

A short distance to their left was the marketplace. To their right, perhaps a hundred yards away where the street ended, stood a tall metal and glass canopy from which a clock hung, its face a full white moon. They saw no one. No soldiers, no creatures. The street was empty.

The sidewalk on the other side of the street was covered, and they moved to it as quickly as they could. As they stepped into its shelter, back in the passage the pattern of gunfire changed. The gunman was no longer firing wildly in their direction. Now the shots were coming in bursts, with moments of silence between them. He was aiming, then firing, then aiming and firing again. The gunman had come across the creatures that Ryan and his parents had just stumbled past, and now he was clearing the passage. Perhaps this would buy them some time.

They veered awkwardly to their right, away from the marketplace. Ahead the covered sidewalk was clear, a tiny arch-shaped patch of daylight marking the end. They moved down it slowly, Ryan struggling to propel his share of his father’s weight forward. He looked down at his father’s feet, watched them press wearily against the ground, not helping at all.

Certainly they were doomed. Once the passage was clear, the gunman — fit and unwounded, bearing only the weight of his rifle — would catch up to them. And when he did, he would finish the job he had started.

The next burst of gunfire ended abruptly, and the clatter of metal striking stone echoed down the passage. Ryan stopped, catching his mother off guard.

“Ryan!” Jane exclaimed as she stumbled, struggling to hold her husband aloft. Walker’s injured arm was wrapped across her shoulders, and the torn T-shirt she’d wrapped around his wound was now saturated, his blood was streaming down her chest.

“Wait,” Ryan said, and before she could object, he released his father’s other arm and turned.

Dropping his backpack to the ground, he moved slowly away from his parents, his eyes focused on the passage across the street, his ears on full alert. Why had the gunfire stopped? Perhaps the gunman had finished clearing the passage and was now advancing toward them. Perhaps, in a second or two, he would emerge from the passage, and a second or two after that this would all come to an abrupt and brutal end.

Yet there was another possibility that Ryan considered more likely, and when a harrowing, agonized howl erupted from the passage, stopping Ryan in his tracks, he knew that his instincts had been correct. The gunman had been overwhelmed. Despite his weapon, one of the creatures had reached him, and this howl was the sound of a man in the midst of dying.

Ryan moved back across the street, arriving at the passage entrance just as the sound of the howl receded. The gunman had fled the passage and was most likely running back to the helicopter. Remembering the sound he’d heard after the gunfire had stopped — metal striking stone — Ryan guessed that the gunman had dropped his weapon and left it behind. A weapon that the creatures feared, that drove them to conceal themselves in tall grass and hide in dark passages. A weapon that they would need if they were going to live through this.

Ryan entered the passage at a sprint, his mother’s screams chasing him. The only creatures he saw were lying still, their faces torn away by automatic gunfire. He hoped, without knowing, that the creatures the gunman had failed to kill had pursued him out of the passage. It was possible that they hadn’t, that in a moment he would run right into them, but upon entering the passage he’d pushed doubt and fear aside, his father’s words driving him forward.

I need some help. I can’t take care of all three of us by myself.

Ryan stopped when he reached the rifle where it rested horizontally across the passage, like a finish line. He stooped down and picked up it up, his hand on the grip, avoiding the hot metal. Then he looked up.

Near where his father had been sitting just a few minutes before, he saw his mother’s backpack. It was where she’d left it when she’d taken out the T-shirt she’d used to dress Walker’s wound. He considered collecting it, but this idea was quickly swept away by the sound of gunfire from the marketplace and the quickening of the helicopter’s engine. Ryan turned and ran back down the passage.

When he emerged on the other side, he could hear the roar of the helicopter growing louder as it moved in his direction. He stepped out into the street and stood facing the marketplace, holding the rifle in one hand, his fingers wrapped around the grip, its stock propped against his thigh. Too energized to be afraid, he waited, transfixed, for the helicopter to appear.

The cabin moved into view, gliding about fifteen feet off the ground, then it stopped and turned, and the tail boom swung around behind it. Through the cabin window, Ryan could see the pilot struggling to control the craft with one hand while fighting off two creatures with the other. Outside the craft, several creatures clung to the landing skids, their dark mouths agape, their eyes wild with hunger. More creatures were tracking the copter from the ground, reaching up for it as if they could snatch it from the sky.

Shots rang out, and then the gunman stumbled into view on the ground below, ineffectually firing a pistol at a trio of creatures doggedly on his trail. With his free hand he was clutching a large wound on his throat, blood gushing out from between his fingers. When the loss of blood finally overwhelmed him, his eyes rolled back, his body slackened, and he dropped to the ground. The creatures that had been chasing him now fell on him, tearing away his clothes and ripping into his skin with their bare hands. They pulled his meat up into their mouths and reached in for more as they chewed.

A hand landed on Ryan’s shoulder. He jumped and instinctively clutched the rifle.

It was his mother.

“Ryan, thank god,” Jane said, out of breath. She looked down at the gun. “Where’d you get that?”

A muffled scream drew their attention back to the marketplace. Inside the helicopter, the pilot was losing his struggle with his attackers, and as they tore into his arm and shoulder with their teeth, he released the controls to engage in a futile effort to protect himself.

Abruptly the craft dropped toward the surface of the marketplace, then tilted sharply. The rear rotor hit the concrete first, disintegrating into a million pieces of steel shrapnel. The tail boom landed next, and as the helicopter, driven only by the main rotor, started to spin, the tail bent and then tore away, splitting the copter in two. Then a section of the main rotor struck the ground and snapped, and the cabin slumped out of the air and landed with a crash on its side.

Inside the cabin, the creatures who had subdued the pilot enjoyed their feast, unperturbed by the hard landing, and the creatures who’d been hanging from the skids climbed in to join them. The rest of the creatures divided themselves between the copter and the gunman on the ground. If any had noticed Ryan standing there in the street just a few yards away, none made any effort to pursue him. For the moment, they seemed satisfied.

“We need to get your father out of here,” Jane said, a tremor in her voice. Clearly she was affected by what she’d just witnessed, but now was not the time to process the shock and horror. They still needed to find a safe place to hide.

“Okay,” Ryan nodded.

“You’d better give me that,” Jane said, pointing at the rifle.

Ryan handed her the weapon, and as they stepped back into the covered sidewalk, she pulled the strap over her head and across her chest. They moved quickly to Walker, who sat awkwardly on the stone ground a few yards away, his legs twisted around each other, his head and neck pressed against a column. His eyes were half closed, and his chest was heaving as if he wasn’t getting enough air. Jane knelt down beside him.

Ryan reached down and picked up his backpack, once again noting its weight. Unzipping it, he reached in and, one by one, pulled out the half dozen books he’d been hauling since they’d fled the cabin by the lake, unceremoniously tossing them aside. After peering in at what little remained — a T-shirt, a sweater, a pair of jeans, some toiletries — he closed the bag and slung it over his shoulders.

“I know you’re hurt,” Jane was telling Walker, “but you need to help us out. You need to use your feet a little bit.”

Walker nodded weakly, and Jane helped him sit up. Ryan hunkered down under Walker’s uninjured arm, while on the other side Jane wrapped her arms around Walker’s waist. Together they rose to their feet and began to move slowly away from the marketplace, Walker using whatever strength he still possessed to keep himself upright.

They had found a lurching rhythm and were making decent progress when something caught hold of Ryan’s backpack and he found himself abruptly pulled out from under his father’s arm. Taken by surprise and unable to bear her husband’s weight, Jane fell sideways, crashing into a glass storefront and then to the ground with Walker on top of her.

Ryan twisted around and found himself confronted by a man roughly twice his size, a man with green skin and grey eyes, a man whose dark mouth hung open and from which an unholy growl emanated. A purple plaid pajama top hung from the man’s beefy frame; from the waist down, he was naked. One of his feet was bare and torn up; on the other he wore a slipper that looked like a bear claw. One of his ears was missing.

Behind the beefy man, Ryan could see several other creatures lumbering in his direction, some spilling out of the passage, others en route from the marketplace. Then, suddenly, Ryan felt himself nudged aside.

It was Jane, stepping in beside him, raising the rifle with its stock pressed against her shoulder, its muzzle inches from the beefy man’s forehead. A wave of concern drifted across the creature’s face, and its mouth closed slightly. The other creatures stopped in their tracks; a few even retreated, shuffling into passageways or taking shelter behind columns.

“I need you to run,” Jane told Ryan as calmly as she could.

“What?” Ryan exclaimed. Running didn’t make sense. They couldn’t run with Walker in tow.

“Run away,” Jane said. “To safety.”

Ryan glanced over his shoulder at his father, sprawled out unconscious on the ground.

“He’s not coming with us,” Jane said bluntly, her eyes focused on the beefy man’s forehead. “We tried to save him, but we can’t. And I don’t think he’d want us to die trying.”

The events of the last several minutes flashed through Ryan’s mind. The howl of the gunman as he was overtaken. The gunman on the ground minutes later, his entrails in the creatures’ greedy hands. The pilot’s face as chunks of his body were torn away. Ryan knew, all too explicitly, what would happen to his father if they left him behind.

“But–”

“Later, Ryan,” Jane cut in. “Later we can argue about it, and maybe you’ll hate me for it. But right now I need you to do what you’re told.”

Ryan inhaled deeply.

“Okay,” he said.

And then he ran.

Ryan’s boots were made for hiking on dirt not running on stone, and the sound they made as he sprinted down the covered sidewalk was soft. And this was the only sound he heard for several agonizingly long seconds, as he wondered where he was running to and what was happening behind him.

Suddenly the soft sound of his boots was overwhelmed by an explosion of gunfire. And then, as if on cue, two men appeared in front of him.

One of the men was older and large, muscular, with short-cropped white hair and features that seemed to have been drawn with a sharp pencil. The other was younger and smaller, and leaner, with thick black hair that appeared to have been styled by whatever pillow he’d last slept on.

Both men were carrying rifles.

“Wer schüsst do?” the white-haired one asked. “Ghöred die zu dir?”

Ryan was too startled and confused to explain to the man that he didn’t understand what he was saying. Ryan looked at the younger man, whose focus was up the covered sidewalk. The shooting continued, and Ryan listened for the sound of his mother’s voice — a scream, anything — but there was only gunfire.

“Allons-y,” the white-haired man said to the younger one. “Et souviens-toi, nous n’avons pas beaucoup de temps. Nous devons retourner au train.”

As the younger man stepped out into the street, his rifle out in front of him, the white-haired man’s thick hand dropped onto Ryan’s shoulder and gripped it.

“Bliib bi eus,” he said. “Du wirsch in Sicherheit sii.”

He pushed Ryan out in front of him, and together they advanced toward the marketplace, the younger man in front and Ryan in the middle. The white-haired man moved backwards, his eyes and rifle trained on the space behind them. They were in the street and exposed, but Ryan could see the sense in it. There would be no surprise attacks. Any creature that emerged from the shadows would have several yards to cover before it could lay a hand on any of them. The two men had the area around them covered, with Ryan tucked safely between them.

The younger man opened fire almost immediately, taking down one by one the creatures that were lurching across the street toward Jane. His shots were reminiscent of the gunman’s, short bursts directed at the creatures’ heads. Nothing like the panicked gunfire they could hear coming from the covered sidewalk.

The white-haired man’s rifle remained poised but silent; for the moment, the street behind them was clear.

They found Jane crouched over Walker, firing wildly at creatures that were bearing down on her. Turning her head in their direction, it seemed for a moment that she might turn her gun on them as well. Then she saw Ryan and her features relaxed. Her son was alive and unharmed, and these men were neither creatures nor soldiers. The nightmare wasn’t over, but it had softened, if only a little bit, if only for now.

The white-haired man made a small gesture with his head, and the younger man nodded and moved into the covered sidewalk. Taking a position over Jane, he raised his rifle and opened fire. Each of the man’s shots struck a creature in the head, stopping them instantly, sending them collapsing to the ground, and within seconds the sidewalk was clear.

“Vous allez bien?” the younger man asked, hunkering down beside Jane, smiling inexplicably.

“What?” Jane asked, trembling.

“Anglais?” the man said.

“What?”

“You speak English?”

The white-haired man moved in from the street and placed a hand on Ryan’s shoulder, a protective and reassuring gesture.

“Yes,” Jane said. “English.”

The younger man’s smile widened. He gave her his hand.

“Come with me if you want to live,” he said, and then he burst out laughing and looked up at the older man. “J’ai toujours voulu pouvoir dire ça.”

The white-haired man grimaced.

“Forcément,” he said. Then he asked Jane, “Is it just the three of you?”

“Yes,” Jane said, rising unsteadily to her feet.

“And him,” the man said, nodding at Walker. “What happened to him?”

“He’s been shot,” Jane said.

“Not bit or scratched,” Ryan interjected, suddenly reminded of his conversation with the soldier in the mountains. Mohler, his name had been. “Just shot.”

Just shot. The preferred injury in this new world, better than a bite or a scratch.

“My name’s Harry,” the white-haired man said as he slung his rifle over his shoulder and behind his back.

He reached down and grabbed Walker by his uninjured arm and pulled the unconscious man to his feet. The weight that Ryan and Jane had struggled to bear seemed like nothing to Harry.

Ryan looked up at his mother.

“I’m Jane,” she told Harry. “This is my son Ryan, and that’s my husband Walker.”

The younger man was still at her side, still smiling unaccountably. Unaccountably, because what was there to smile about?

“Nice to meet you all,” Harry said perfunctorily, shifting Walker’s weight with a shrug. “That’s Nicolas–”

“Nic,” the other man quickly interjected.

“Nic,” Harry corrected, with a weary glance at his comrade. “And now we know each other’s names, which might come in handy on our way.”

“On our way?” Jane asked.

“Yes,” Harry said. “I assume you’re coming with us.”

Jane took a moment to consider their situation. Their future without these men, whoever they were, promised to be little more than a bleaker version of their past. And anyway, her husband was already draped across Harry’s shoulders.

“Of course,” Jane said.

“Great,” Harry said, again perfunctorily.

“Where to?” Jane asked.

“The station. We’ve got a train to catch.”