He was running.
That was the only thing that mattered right now— the rhythm of his feet hitting the cracked flooring, the dust kicking up behind him, the weight of the girl clinging to his front with both arms locked around his neck and both legs wrapped around his waist like she had personally decided this was the safest place in the building and had no plans to relocate, because, yea it is... Her face was buried against his shoulder. He could feel her breathing— fast, shallow, not panicking yet but getting close.
Behind him, the sound was getting louder.
He looked back.
The corridor was full of them. Pouring through from the stairwell entrance at the far end, spilling around the corner in a mass that moved with the specific, horrible energy of things that didn't get tired and didn't slow down— shapes that had been human recently enough that the outline was still there, the shoulders and the arms and the forward lean of running, but wrong in every detail up close.
