The Dead Fleet (Juggernaut #3)

Thirty One

The fear pushed her on, drove her forward and slowed her down all at once. She could see nothing. Every sound hid a thousand terrors. Her fingers recoiled from every surface they brushed. The walls were wet, or simply cold. It was impossible to tell anymore.

This new corridor was strewn with unseen debris. Bulky metal machine parts, empty crates (to judge by the noise she made when she walked into them), but whether these were things no longer needed or spares for the refinery ship she didn't care. They were just obstacles. Just walls between her and freedom.

Ellie had seen enough of the dark. She shuffled faster. Then half-shuffled, half-jogged through the black corridors.

But still she could see nothing.

As she ran her shin smashed against something, a length of pipe, or a discarded tool. It was hardly important. She shrieked at the stab of pain and fell to one knee, tightly gripping the injury. She could feel the sharpness of the blow subsiding under a warm aching glow as the pain spread along her shin. Her fingers tenderly probed the skin through her clothing. There didn't seem to be any blood.

Ellie pushed herself tenderly to her feet again and took a step forward, gently lowering her weight onto the injured leg. It was painful, agonising, but she could walk. Ellie tried to go faster but the next step caused pain to stab up her leg and hop and shuffle to the wall where she could rest. She whimpered in the dark. She looked back down the inky corridor.

I can't run.

She pushed off the wall and hopped and stepped away as fast as she could. She had been afraid before when she had chosen to move slowly. But all along she had known that running was an option from the unseen terror behind her. Now she could not run. And something was out there, behind her, following her. Or up ahead, waiting for her. Either way, she couldn't run.

She could feel it coming closer, nonetheless.

She tried a few more steps. This time her unsteady gait sent her crashing into another obstacle. An open crate of small metal parts. As she righted herself she felt the box begin to tip and fall, cascading its treasure onto the metal floor in a loud, invisible torrent. The noise grew into a crescendo until the last few items bounced and crashed their way to the floor and as the ringing echoes died away she stopped short.

He heard that.

Her heart began to fight it's way out of her chest and terror beginning to claw its way up out of the pit of her stomach.

He's coming.

It was getting harder to breathe.

He could be anywhere. He could be up ahead. I don't know where I'm going. He could be waiting for me. He knows where we landed. He'll be waiting there for me. I can't get away. He knows where I am. I can't see anything. He'll find me. He's coming. He's coming!

She ached all over with the tension of nervous energy and the sharpness of the pain on her shin was gradually being replaced by a dull ache spreading through her leg. Ellie took another step forward but this time her knee buckled. She stumbled to the floor. Ellie reached out to steady herself against the wall with one hand and she crouched for a moment on one knee. She could feel a cold sweat evaporating from the back of her neck and exposed arms sending a chill shiver through her. Her heart raced and the darkness at the edge of her vision begin to grow.

The creeping fear wrapped around her throat like a choking vine.

He's going to find me. I can hear him and he's coming. I'm on my own in the darkness and he's coming for me.

Shivering, Ellie collapsed behind a crates, pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms tightly around them. She hid her fingertips under her clothing. She took gulping, gasping breaths of air. She fought to control her breathing, to keep the noise down. She failed.  

She squeezed her eyes shut, and began to panic.