The Fear You Know

12. Symbol and a Song

 Eli dove face first into the crowd, plunging through a gap in the bodies just as one of the Revealed reached a hand for him. Peter ran just ahead, his hand around Eli's wrist as the two of them shot into the throng of panicked people. Up ahead, the two women had already been whisked down one of the side halls. Eli pointed towards an exit in hopes it was closest to the front of the city, yelling to be heard over the crowd as Peter continued to pull him by the arm.

He was jostled from all sides, bumped by shoulders and elbows, his feet repeatedly stepped on by the panicked stampede of people racing around him. Behind him he could hear the roaring of the Revealed as they grabbed offending men and women, tackling them to the ground,

It was pure chaos.

On one or more occasions, Eli saw someone intentionally throw themselves in front of the Revealed, blocking the path and slowing the progress of the bare-skinned hunters as they attempted to chase after the two dancing women. On the skin of the victims, Eli read the desperate words of defiance even as they were pinned to the ground by snarling Revealed who would force them to give up information on their fleeing idols.

A man just to the left of them tripped and fell to the floor suddenly swallowed by a tidal wave of bodies.

Eli kept his elbows out to his sides to avoid being tripped, while also holding desperately to Peter to keep him upright.

They filtered into a wide hallway where the bottleneck broke, and they raced up the glass stairs and out into the sunlight. People flew to the left and right of them wide eyed and fearful. A woman dove past them and into the city crowd, vanishing amidst the bodies with the ease of someone who had lived here their entire life. Others, like Eli and Peter, ran for the gate though, behind them they could still hear the screaming of others as they were taken to the ground by the Revealed

Eli and Peter were not the fastest, nor were they the slowest as they sprinted full force down the street towards the main city gate. The woman at the gate was busy tackling another runner as Eli and Peter approached the exit.

Eli was about to release a sigh of relief when a familiar and unwelcome sound reached him.

Nothing like the intoxicating singing he had experienced earlier. This was a sound that made him sick to his stomach, a sound that made him pull to a dead halt so hard that Peter yelped in pain as Eli nearly jerked Peter's arm out of its socket as Eli froze.

But then Peter heard it too and together the two of them turned their heads as the rattling rasping noise of the Outbreak broke through their focus,accompanied with an all too familiar stench of rotting flesh.

They looked across the way just in time to see a small contingent of Outbreak standing on the marble path just off to the side. It appeared as if they had been speaking with the city guard when the fighting broke out between the guards and the fleeing citizens.

Where the Outbreak's feet touched the white marble of the city, the pristine surface was immediately spoiled.

And what worse.

They were subjected to the same rules as everyone else bare skinned, revealing, in some cases, massive eroded gaps in their rib cages, gangrenous, black appendages, and yellowed wounds crusted by malodorous discharge

The sight made him sick.

The sight of Eli and Peter had no such effect on the Outbreak, and Eli watched as an Outbreak howled in triumph, pointing one gangrenous finger towards them and with a wicked smile of glee, barred its rotten teeth like a feral animal.

"It's HIM!" it rasped.

Before the Outbreak could take a single step, Eli was already moving in the opposite direction grabbing Peter by the hand and dragging him back from the city gates. Ragged wheezing followed them as they raced into the crowd.