Beyond the Walls

Chapter 16

I awake to the sudden stop of motion. Lifting my head from Ruben's shoulder, I glance around.

"Surely, we aren't in the first city yet," Ruben muses, confused. "We weren't supposed to reach it for at least four hours. It's scarcely been three."

"Could the train have broken down?" Aston asks, turning around in the seat in front of us. "I thought I heard an odd hissing sound earlier."

"That's strange," I mutter, standing and striding to a window on the other side of the carriage. I peer out. The train has, indeed, stopped. Black smoke plumes from under the wheels. Through the haze of the smoke clouding the window, I can make out a plain of grass followed by the enormous trees of the forest rising in the distance. Then my ears pick up a sound. At first, I think it is the whistle of the wind between the metal carriages. But for the second time, I distinguish a high-pitched, manic cackle, like the chatter of a hyena. The sound seems to catch on the breeze, drifting and echoing. Every hair on my neck stands up straight and a chill runs down my back.

"Did any of you hear that?" I ask, turning to my friends.

"Here what?" Aston says.

"That sound."

I turn my head back around to the window to find a face pressed against the glass. The man's eyes are wide, brimming with madness. What little hair he has left on his head is sticking up in patches as if he yanked most of it out. His face is covered in scabs and streaked with dried blood. An awful slit from the corner of his mouth opens his cheek in a raw, gaping wound. The horror of a man licks his lips and flashes me a malicious grin. His teeth are stained yellow and black.

"Hello, Elizabeth Fallon," he purrs from the other side of the glass. He runs his bloodied hands down the window, smearing red.

There is a knocking on the window behind me and I vaguely hear Aston make a disgusted sound. A woman, just as horrific looking as the man, taps her knuckles against the window persistently. She locks her yellowed, crazed eyes on me and lets out a shrill cackle.

"Elizabeth Fallon." Her voice is raspy, yet measured despite her crazed appearance.

An almighty shudder comes from the door to the carriage opposite me. The door groans as animalistic yelps and shouts fill the air.

"They're trying to break in!" Ruben yells from the window beside the woman.

The man at the window suddenly holds a rusty piece of metal. He hits it with surprising force against the window and a crack runs across the face of the glass. Instinctively, I jump to my feet, withdrawing my sword from its scabbard. The man hits the glass twice more and it bursts open, sending shards of glass over the seat of the carriage. He howls and reaches through the window, seeming to not notice the sharp edges of the window frame. His gnarled, bloodied hand clamps down on my shoulder.

"Elizabeth Fallon," he says again, spit flying.

Swallowing the bile rising in up my throat, I swing my sword and bring it down hard on his wrist, slicing the hand clean off. The man lets out a nightmarish shriek, pulling his arm back as the blood pours out, and, impossibly, screams louder. His hand fell on the seat where I sat moments before and I gag.

Monet and Ruben desperately try to keep the door to the carriage closed. But as they are failing, I can tell that there are plenty more of these manic people outside, desperate and determined to get into the train. The door creaks awfully as the animals on the other side force it to open. Dozens of dirty, bloody hands reach in, grappling to find their entrance. Their shrieks and yells, combined with the shout of my name build in volume until it is a horrifying crescendo.