I stumbled again, this time over a snarl of downed trolley wires, caught myself again, and ran on. They were closing in. I thought about Mr. Bowditch’s .45, but even if it worked against those apparitions, there were too many of them.
Then a wonderful thing happened: all at once my lungs seemed deeper and the stitch in my side disappeared. I’d never done enough extended running to experience a second wind, but it had happened to me a few times on long bike rides. I knew it wouldn’t last long, but it didn’t have to. The gate was now only a hundred yards ahead. I risked one more glance over my shoulder and saw that the shining troop of night soldiers had stopped gaining. I faced forward and put on even more speed, head thrown back, hands clenched and pumping, breathing deeper than ever. For thirty yards or so I even pulled ahead of Radar. Then she caught up again and looked over at me. No big isn’t this fun grin on her chops now; her ears were flat against her skull and white rings showed around her brown eyes. She looked terrified.
At last, the gate.
I pulled in one last deep breath and screamed, “OPEN IN THE NAME OF LEAH OF THE GALLIEN!”
The ancient machinery under the gate screeched into life, then smoothed out to a deep rumble. The gate trembled and began to slide open on its hidden track. But slowly. Too slowly, I was afraid. Could the night soldiers leave the city, if we slipped through? I had an idea they couldn’t, that their fierce blue auras would wink out and they’d crumble away… or melt, like the Wicked Witch of the West.
An inch.
Two.
I could see a tiny sliver of the outside world, where there were wolves but no shining blue men and no rotted hands coming out of graveyard earth.
I looked back and really saw them for the first time: twenty or more men with maroon lips the color of dried blood and parchment pale faces. They were dressed in loose pants and shirts that looked weirdly like army fatigues. That blue light was gushing from their eyes, spilling downward, coating them. They had features like ordinary men, but they were gauzy. I could glimpse the skulls beneath.
They were sprinting at us, leaving little splashes of blue light behind them that dimmed and faded out, but I didn’t think they were going to make it in time. It was going to be very close, but I thought we were going to escape.
Three inches.
Four.
Oh God it was so slow.
Then came the sound of an old-fashioned firebell—CLANG-A-LANG-A-LANG—and the cadre of blue skeleton-men parted, ten or a dozen to the left and the rest to the right. Speeding up the Gallien Road came an electric vehicle like a jumbo golf cart or a squat open-air bus. In front, moving some sort of steering stick to and fro, was a man （I use the word advisedly） with graying hair falling to either side of his hideous half-transparent face. He was gaunt and tall. Others were crammed in behind him, their blue auras overlapping and dripping down to the wet pavement like strange blood. The driver was aiming right at me, meaning to crush me against the gate. I wasn’t going to make it after all… but my dog could.
“Radar! Go to Claudia!”
She didn’t move, only looked up at me in terror.
“Go, Rades! For God’s sake GO!”
I had dumped my pack because its sodden weight was slowing me down. Mr. Bowditch’s gun was different. I couldn’t shoot enough night soldiers with it to keep them from getting to me, and I’d no intention of letting them have it. I unbuckled the holster belt with its decorative conchos and slung it into the darkness. If they wanted the .45 they’d have to leave the walled city to look for it. Then I slapped Radar’s hindquarters, and hard. Blue light washed over me. I know you can resign yourself to death, because in that moment I did it.
“GO TO CLAUDIA, GO TO DORA, JUST GO!”
She gave me one final wounded look—I’ll never forget it—and then slipped through the widening gap.
Something hit me hard enough to drive me against the still-moving gate, but not hard enough to smash me against it. I saw the gray-haired night soldier lunge over his steering stick. I saw his outstretched hands, the fingerbones visible through the tallow of his glowing skin. I saw the eternal grin of his teeth and jaw. I saw blue streams of some awful reanimating power gushing from his eyes.
The gate was open enough for me now. I dipped away from the thing’s clutching fingers and rolled toward the opening. For a moment I saw Radar standing in the darkness at the end of Kingdom Road, looking back. Hoping. I lunged toward her, one hand outstretched. Then those terrible fingers closed around my throat.
“No, kiddie,” the undead night soldier whispered. “No, whole one. You’ve come to the Lily uninvited, and here you will stay.”