June didn’t stop running as Hank pulled her along. The two angel-demon-whatever-the-hell-they-weres hadn’t stopped thrashing around and throwing chairs and other fragments all over the place.

“How do we get Mom out?” she asked.

“We survive!” Hank shouted. “Whatever those things are, I bet they can do permanent damage!”

Then they were in the hallway, Hank slamming the door.

“Wait a minute!” June said.

“June, we have—“

June ignored Hank. She’d opened a window, so now…

The door isn’t just closed. It’s sealed. Like the fire door at school. Remember? Remember how people got so pissed that someone had padlocked it? June took a deep breath, remembering that, but also trying to remember every locked door she’d ever seen. Take the memory and…

Make.

It.

Real.

And suddenly the rickety door that Hank had closed was replaced by a strong door, metal gleaming dully in the light.

“Now let’s go!” June said, turning and running as something heavy hit the door, snarls coming from behind it.

Okay, they can’t get through the door, not unless they’re super strong, or can mold memories, and if they could do that—

Claws penetrated the fragile wood around the new door, and moments later it had been torn free of its frame.

Or they could just make a big hole.

“Go faster!” June said.

“I’m trying!” Hank replied, and then they were turning into the room they’d escaped from. The monsters behind them, June refused to call them angels, seemed just as interested in tearing things up as they were chasing them, and that gave them some time.

Hank kicked the window out, no longer interested in being quiet, and he and June jumped out onto the rickety fire escape. The metal groaned, and for a moment June feared they were about to plunge down to the alleyway, but it held.

“Hank!” June called.

“What!?”

“You’re a better driver!” With that, June tossed her key to him, Hank staring at the object as June called her trike. Hank could summon the memory of his bike, but it’d take way too long.

“Right,” Hank said, as the trike appeared in the dark alleyway below, its headlights blazing through the murk, the surroundings seeming to recoil from the bright light. Then June hit the ground and hopped onto her trike behind Hank, grabbing him around his waist.

“This is a terrible design!” Mike said. “Three wheels are something kids are supposed to use.”

“It’s a wonderful design, far more stable than a two-wheeler or traditional three-wheeler!” June shouted back. “But talk later, drive now!”

Hank said nothing, but then they were shooting forward, just as the entire damned wall above them exploded into debris. Coming out of it were the monsters, but they were…

They’re getting bigger. Why are they getting bigger! And in front of them there was a crowd from the theater, more and more pouring out, holding torches blazing with sickly greenish flames.

“Hang on!” Hank shouted, and cut to the right, towards the wall.

“What are you—AAAHHH!” June’s arms tightened around Hank’s waist as he hit a little pile of junk, and then the trike was sailing through the air, the crowd below trying to grab it, but missing. Then it hit the ground behind the crowd as the monsters exploded out of the alley mouth. June saw them just tear through their supposed allies.

“How did you do that?” She asked.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Hey, you can make a bike, but learning how to use one?” Hank chuckled. “That’s me, but let’s go.” He accelerated the trike, heading down through the narrow streets, hopeless eyes following them. There was a cry above them, and June glanced up to see the gibbous moon occluded by a pair of great, winged forms.

“They’re still chasing us!” she said. “We need to get back into the City!”

“Yeah, I know!” Hank told her. “Heading back the way we came!”

June nodded. Once we’re back in the City, we can go to teacher and—Hank brought the vehicle to a screeching halt. “Hank! Why did you stop?”

“No more street,” Hank told her.

“What are you talking about? This is the way we came!”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t, but there’s no more street,” Hank said, his voice grim.

June stared at the wall that now blocked the street. It wasn’t new. It was ancient, pasted with the faded posters for losing political candidates and has-been movie starlets.

“We must have taken a wrong turn!” June said.

“No. It’s the neighborhood. Remember, we warned you. Darktown doesn’t like letting people leave.” He turned and went zooming down a narrow, twisting alleyway. June sat people hunched over fires that had been kindled in barrels.

“Just gotta make it through winter…”

“Try again. I’ll find a job. I gotta find a job…”

More hopeless words followed them, but June wasn’t paying any attention to them. Hank made another turn, and even though June could see the glimmer of the city over the buildings, they came to another dead end, this one looking like the wall of a crypt. Some of the niches were full shattered ramains, hateful graffiti scrawled over the marble.

NO ONE REMEMBERS YOU! Was written over the remains of a crypt, a statue of a marble angel looking like it was crying tears of blood over the dead. Then Hank whipped the trike away from the wall, heading down another street.

“It’s never been this bad!” he said. “I think whatever the hell they were doing in the theater has made Darktown worse—a lot worse.”

“You’ve been here before?” June asked.

“Yeah. Once.” Hank didn’t say anything else. “Not my story to tell. Hang on!” He turned onto a rising, twisting road, heading away from the City, flicking the headlights off.

June almost said something, but shook her head as a shadow passed over them. When the job was to get to the City as quickly as possible, the headlights made sense. But now…

How are we going to get out of here? She heard another shriek from their pursuers, but it seemed to be further away. Could they have lost us?

“Darktown doesn’t like it when anyone wins,” Hank said quietly. He was hunched over the handlebars, peering out into the gloomy road in front of the trike.

“Right,” June said. She looked around. At some point, the buildings had turned to little sheds, tar roofs with gaps in them, dim light from candles only calling attention to the rising fog that was surrounding them. Then there were the gravestones. Big ones, little ones, graves for children and men, even a few mass graves, bony hands clawing at the air above them.

“Kids are here?” June asked, staring at a little grave.

“No.” Hank quietly said. He gestured for June to get off the trike and after he dismounted, pull the key from it and handed it back to June as the vehicle faded into nothingness. “At least not many. Those are probably from the memories of the people who lost them… however they did.”

June swallowed. There were words on some of thos—she turned and looked away. She had no curiosity about what might have been written.

A lonely owl hooted over the endless graveyard. Beyond, June could see the tangle of Darktown, and beyond that, the blazing lights of the City.

It’s so huge… “Is it all connected?” June asked. “There were just a few square blocks, not… this.”

“You’re the one learning memories,” Hank said. “But I’ve been here longer than you have. Think about when you were upset at something. How it seemed to be the biggest thing in the world.”

June paused. I’d wanted the lead role in the school play. But I didn’t get it. I tried to be nice, and I think I fooled people, but I went home and cried for the whole night…

Now she barely remembered it. But when she had been ten years old, it had loomed over her.

“Bigger on the inside?” June asked, a smile flickering on her face.

“I think so. The people here, they’re all trapped in their memories. Some of them because of pride, some of ‘em because of despair. And it’s big, to the ones trapped, but outside, not so much.”

“I should talk to Teacher.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t tell you about it.”

“He mostly focused on one word regarding Darktown.”

“Which was?”

“Don’t.”

“Good word.” Hank put his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. “But it’s not gonna let us out, not easily, not with whatever the hell that was in the theater. And the longer we stay here, the longer Darktown has to get its hooks into us.” He paused. “So, got any good little tricks to get us out of here?”

“Let me think about it,” June said. Then there was another cry from below. The monsters. But getting louder.

“We’d better get under cover,” Hank said.

“Yeah.” And figure out a way to not become permanent residents. June shivered as she followed Hank into the tangled graveyard.