The Inexplicables (The Clockwork Century 4)

Rector plastered himself against the slimy wall, his pickax hanging from one hand. It knocked against his thigh. He clutched the weapon higher, up against his chest.

The bright-eyed thing came forward in a slinking crouch. It snarled and slathered as it crept, its joints stiff and its ears flattened. It approached them unhappily, nervously, curiously.

Hungrily.

“Mad dog,” Rector wheezed.

Houjin disagreed. “No. A fox. It’s a Blight-poisoned fox. ”

“Never seen one of them before,” Zeke marveled, still arched and primed for battle.

Rector asked, “Is it dead? A rotter fox?”

Zeke shook the ax. “Go on, you. Get out of here. ”

Huey said, “Not dead. Real sick, though. The birds fight off the Blight—they live with it. Four-footed things don’t handle it so good. ”

The ragged creature paced forward slowly and stopped within a few feet, as if considering what to do. Three people to one small, ill animal … it weighed the odds, and weighed its own hunger. It growled, yipped, and shook its head, but did not retreat.

“You see. ” Houjin planted his feet apart, ready to strike if he had to. “It’s thinking. Or it’s trying to. Rotters don’t think. ”

Zeke swung the ax in the fox’s general direction. “Get along, you dumb thing. Get out of here. Don’t bother us, and we won’t bother you. ”

His ax went wobbly, due to its weight. He drew it back up and held it with both hands.

The fox quivered and hopped back half a step. It snapped its jaws, spraying yellow-tinged spittle in every direction. Then it made up its mind, turned sharply, and dashed away. It disappeared through the fog in an instant, and the sound of its small feet—its little claws clicking against pebbles—lingered only a moment longer.

All three boys exhaled hard and let their weapons fall to their sides.

“I’m glad we didn’t have to kill it,” Zeke confessed.

Houjin said, “I don’t know. It isn’t happy being alive in here. ”

This time, Rector agreed with Houjin. “Should’ve just smashed its head in. Would’ve done it a kindness. ”

But Zeke still sagged, looking unhappy behind his visor. “I feel sorry for it. I wish we could’ve caught it, maybe let it go outside the wall. ”

“So it could go bite other foxes, and make them sick, too?” Houjin swung his bar up over his shoulder so it rested against his neck.

Zeke did likewise with his ax, and sighed. “Maybe if it got some fresh air, some regular air, it’d get better. ”

They still whispered, though their caution evaporated somewhat in the wake of the fox’s disappearance. Rector still brought up the rear, watching backwards to make sure no one followed them, and praying that Houjin and Zeke would see anyone up ahead. It was odd, feeling so alone but knowing that they weren’t—that the city crawled with sick and dying things, and dead things that hunted regardless.

Rector surveyed the wall, too, but it stayed firm and showed no signs of holes, or even cracks. There were no breaches big enough to let anything person-sized (or even fox-sized, or rat-sized) in or out. He clung to it, oddly comforted by its epic reliability.

He said, “I thought maybe that fox was a good sign. ”

Houjin looked back at him. His face was a masked shadow. “Why?”

“You saw it. It hadn’t been inside for very long. Makes me wonder if we’re close to the entrance, or exit. ”

“But you saw it run off,” Zeke said. “Those things move pretty fast. It could’ve run pretty far. ”

Huey paused, and the two boys who followed him paused, too. “What if we’re going about this the wrong way?”

“Everything feels like the wrong way, down here,” Rector said. He was getting thirsty, and he was also getting the very smothered feeling of spending too long in a gas mask. He wanted to get inside, someplace where the air was clean. He was running out of patience, and he didn’t want to admit it. It grieved him to think that the wall held several square miles of space, which meant that there was still a whole lot of territory to check before he could report to Yaozu that he’d done his job.

“That’s not what I mean. What if the hole isn’t in the wall—what if the hole is underground? Say one of the tunnels collapsed and left a spot that stretched beyond the wall, to someplace outside. What if things are getting inside that way?”