Read The Dark Shore (Atlanteans) for Free Online Page B

means it’s fresh. Fresh means someone just put it there, new since this morning. . . . Someone who’s still—
    Until a piercing scream tore me loose.
    Lilly.
    The scream ended in a distant metallic crash.
    I spun and sprinted for the door.

5
     
    I THREW MYSELF DOWN THE FIRST FLIGHT OF STAIRS, legs moving too fast, losing control and slamming into the cement wall. I spun and headed down the next flight, this time grabbing the rail, taking two steps at a time. The light from the doorway above began to fade. On the third flight, the darkness total, my ankle buckled. Pain surged up my leg.
    I limped to the open door at the bottom of the stairs. Faint light spilled in. I caught my breath and ducked out. The stairwell I’d come down was part of a column in the center of the store. There were a couple small lights on in the ceiling. A little more light seeped in around the seams of the plywood on the front doors, but gloomy shadows hung within the maze of aisles in all directions.
    I heard a sharp smacking sound, something metal hitting the tiled floor. And then a rush like whispers. I ducked out and started toward it.
    I reached a main aisle. Many of the shelves were bare, but then sections like art supplies or dishware looked so full and orderly it was as if the store had just closed for the evening. I passed rows of smashed glass cases, some empty, others still full of now valueless things like perfume and nail polish. In the clothing section, the overturned racks looked like carcasses, their skeletal limbs sticking up, leftover clothes like skin bunched and folded.
    Many of the electronics had been spared, things like retinal-fit cameras that you slung over your eye. The small, sleek designs looked newer than things I’d seen at Hub. At first it surprised me that they were still here but then again there’d be no way to recharge batteries, and also probably little desire to record this world for posterity.
    I spied another object that would be worthless to most people but that we happened to need: a reader for the video sheet we’d printed in Dr. Maria’s lab. I tore open the plastic package and slipped the thin, cylindrical device in my pocket.
    Up ahead there was an eerie blue glow. A sign read GROCERY . I heard a hum. Leech had been right: at least some of the freezer cases seemed to be on.
    I wanted to call out to Leech and Lilly, but I couldn’t risk revealing myself until I knew what was going on. There was another muffled sound, and then a sharp crack behind me. I ducked into a side aisle. My heart beat so furiously I worried that someone would hear it.
    A noise grew, metallic and jangling, like a machine rolling, along with the rhythmic slapping of feet.
    “Careful!” someone whispered.
    Now I heard laughter.
    Lilly sped by. She was kneeling inside a four-wheeled cart made of blue plastic, being pushed by Leech. He got to full speed and jumped up so that his feet were on the back of the cart.
    “Woo!” he shouted.
    “Look out!” Lilly warned.
    They flew by me and there was a huge crash. I saw that they’d collided with a shelf at the end of an aisle, scattering a display of lamps.
    Lilly and Leech cracked up, Leech in sandpapery chuckles and Lilly in big, high giggles. I’d never heard her laugh like that before. She got out of the cart. “Okay, that was too fast. Your turn.”
    I wanted to scream. But I hung back out of sight for another second because I also had a sudden, deflating feeling. Lilly was actually enjoying herself, so different from how she’d been all day, and I hated that it didn’t include me. I fought off an urge to just turn and head back up to the craft, and ran over to them. “Hey!” I whispered. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be hurrying.”
    “We were hurrying,” said Lilly between breaths, her smile fading, like here was no-fun Owen. “That’s why we were going fast. It just happened to also be fun,” she added, looking absently into the space near my