The catwalk was a cage.

  Frankie backed until her heels hit the resin-sealed door. To her left, the railing dropped forty feet into the glowing nightmare of the cargo hold. To her right, a wall of dripping biological steel.

  In front, the ten.

  They didn’t look like the shambling zombies from the movies. They stood upright. Still. Their movements were jerky but precise, like stop-motion animation missing a few frames. The glowing slime coating their uniforms pulsed in sync with the thrum vibrating in Frankie’s skull.

  The leader—the burly man with the melted face—stepped forward. He tilted his head, his jaw clicking unnaturally. Then, he opened his mouth.

  He didn’t speak. He let out a jagged, ear-piercing scream that sounded like metal grinding on bone.

  It was a signal. The others mirrored him, their throats vibrating with the same horrific, non-human screech.

  “Not today,” Frankie said, her voice barely audible over the wall of sound.

  She didn’t wait for them to rush. She initiated.

  She pushed off the door, launching herself at the leader. She hit him low, a tackle meant to drive the air from his lungs. It was like hitting a tree stump. He didn’t budge. He absorbed the impact, his body dense and unyielding. He looked down at her, his blue eyes devoid of surprise.

  He swung a heavy pipe wrench. Frankie dodged, the iron whizzing past her ear. She countered with an uppercut to his jaw.

  CRACK.

  She felt the bone give. His head snapped back. But he didn’t drop. He just rolled his neck, the broken jaw hanging loosely, and lunged.

  He grabbed her by the throat. His grip was hydraulic. Frankie gagged, clawing at his wrist. Her fingernails tore through the gray skin, revealing the writhing white worms underneath, but he didn’t let go.

  “Damon!” she choked out.

  Damon was already moving. He swung the aluminum bat at a second drone—a woman in a torn engineer’s jumpsuit.

  CLANG.

  The bat connected with her ribs. It dented. The woman didn’t even flinch. She grabbed the bat with one hand, ripped it from Damon’s grasp, and tossed it over the railing like a twig. She backhanded him, sending him slamming into the resin wall next to Ted and Dee Dee.

  “They’re too strong!” Damon yelled, blood trickling from his lip.

  Frankie kicked the leader in the knee. The joint bent backward with a sickening pop. He didn’t fall. The gray sludge inside his leg just re-knitted the structure instantly. He lifted Frankie off the ground by her neck.

  The other drones closed in, their mouths wide in a silent, expectant snarl.

  “Ted!” Frankie gasped. “Weapon!”

  Ted leaned against the railing, hyperventilating. He held the sharpened silver serving spoon in both hands, shaking so hard it looked like a blur. A drone—a lanky man with missing ears—lunged for him, letting out a sharp shriek.

  “Stay back!” Ted shrieked.

  Ted squeezed his eyes shut and thrust the spoon forward in a desperate, flailing stab. The sharpened silver tip pierced the drone’s chest.

  A crack of blue light.

  The sound wasn’t a wet thud. It was the sound of a high-voltage wire snapping. The drone froze. Blue light exploded from the wound.

  It wasn’t blood. It was electricity. Arcs of blue lightning shot out from the spoon, shooting through the nerves in a millisecond. The creature’s eyes flashed white. Its mouth opened in a silent scream.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Then—it came apart.

  The drone didn’t just die. It detonated. The biomass holding it together turned to soup. The body convulsed and dissolved into a spray of steaming gray sludge and blue sparks.

  Silence fell on the catwalk. Even the leader dropped Frankie. She hit the metal deck, gasping for air, rubbing her bruised throat.

  The other drones stopped. They looked at the puddle. They looked at the spoon. The blue eyes widened. The drones took a step back.

  “What…” Ted stammered, looking at his weapon. “What did I do?”

  Dee Dee scrambled forward. She looked at the spoon, then at the fizzing puddle.

  “Silver,” she whispered. She looked up, her eyes wide. “It’s not magic, it’s physics! They run on a bio-electric signal. Silver is the most conductive metal on earth. It acts as a grounding rod! You short-circuited him, Ted! You overloaded the network!”

  Frankie scrambled to her feet. She looked at the leader. He was staring at the spoon, backing away.

  “Get the silver!” Frankie yelled.

  “We don’t have any!” Damon shouted. “Just the spoon!”

  “Think!” Frankie roared. “Pockets! Jewelry!”

  She reached for her neck—the silver surfboard charm Damon had given her. She ripped the chain off and wrapped it around her knuckles.

  “Dee! Your rings!”

  Dee Dee ripped off her three heavy silver rings. She handed one to Damon and kept two, gripping them in her fist like a roll of quarters.

  “Ted!” Frankie commanded. “You’re on point! Use the shiv!”

  Ted looked at the spoon. He stopped shaking. He screamed.

  “Die! Just die!” Ted yelled. He charged.

  The drones screeched in unison, a desperate sound of alarm. Ted stabbed the nearest one in the shoulder.

  A crack of blue light.

  Blue lightning arc. The drone convulsed, its arm blowing apart into gray mist. It fell over the railing, dissolving before it hit the cargo hold floor.

  “Left!” Frankie shouted.

  The leader swung the wrench at her again. Frankie ducked and stepped inside his guard, punching him in the chest with the hand wrapped in the silver chain.

  The surfboard charm pierced the gray skin. The leader shuddered. The blue veins in his neck turned black. Smoke poured from his mouth. Frankie didn’t stop. She hit him again and again, the silver disrupting the hive signal holding his atoms together. The chain burned her hand, glowing red hot against her knuckles.

  With a final hook to his jaw, the leader exploded into a cloud of ash and sludge.

  “Push!” Frankie yelled. “Push to the door!”

  They reached the catwalk’s end, but a fresh layer of gray resin buried the door.

  “Ted! Burn it!”

  Ted jammed the silver spoon into the resin. HISSSSSS. The biomass reacted violently, bubbling and retreating from the metal like flesh from a hot iron. Ted carved a circle, and the resin fell away. Damon kicked the door open.

  “Go! Go! Go!”

  They piled into the corridor. Frankie brought up the rear, looking back one last time. Below them, in the pit of the cargo hold, a shadow moved. Something massive.

  A roar that cracked the air.

  Frankie slammed the door. “Run!”

  They sprinted down the hallway, the walls pulsing rapidly in an angry, chaotic strobing light. They reached the ladder and slid down, hitting the lower deck. The gangway was ahead, but a thick web of slime blocked the path to the pier.

  Ted ran forward, slashing at the web with the spoon. Zap. Zap. Zap. The strands snapped, burning away in puffs of blue smoke.

  A massive tentacle smashed through the catwalk behind them, sending metal shrieking into the abyss.

  They dived through the hole. Fresh air. Cold, salty air.

  They didn’t stop until they reached the van. Ted fumbled with the keys, his hands shaking with adrenaline. He finally unlocked the doors, and they threw themselves inside.

  “Drive!” Frankie yelled.

  The engine roared to life. They sped away from the harbor, leaving the glowing blue nightmare in the rearview mirror.

  Fifteen minutes later, Ted pulled onto a logging road deep in the Pine Barrens. He killed the engine.

  Silence.

  Frankie leaned her head against the window. She unclenched her fist, letting the tarnished, blackened surfboard charm fall into her lap.

  “We made it,” Ted whispered.

  “Barely,” Damon said, wiping sludge off his face. “But we don’t have enough silver. A spoon and some jewelry against a whole ship?”

  “We get more,” Frankie said, her voice hoarse but determined. “We hit the pawn shop. We raid every jewelry box in town. We get everything that shines.”

  “And then?” Ted asked. “That big thing in the hold… that wasn’t a person.”

  “The Queen,” Frankie said. “Maybe Daria… She’s rallying her army.”

  She looked out at the fog swirling through the pines.

  “The Sheriff and the Mayor think this is a chemical spill. They don’t know they’re being invaded. We show them the logs Dee Dee downloaded. We show them the silver reaction. We make them listen.”

  “Sunrise is in four hours,” Damon noted.

  “We rest,” Frankie said. “We wash this filth off. And then we get up.”

  She looked at the tarnished charm in her hand.

  “Then we fight back.”