Free American Quest by Sienna Skyy

take to run across the street to those stairs. But how else was she going to escape this acid torrent? Someone else was screaming now, a man, and she saw him writhing on the ground in the park, unable to muster enough sense to duck for cover.
    “Get out of the park!” she screamed at him. “You have to find shelter!”
    He staggered to his feet, arms flailing, feet heavy. The wind changed and blew the drizzle directly into Candace’s face. She screamed, instantly blinded despite her glasses. She used the underside of her shirt to dab at her skin. She was sure her bra was showing as she wiped her face but she didn’t care. The burning liquid striped her flesh, tightening, and she felt boils bubbling up around the frames that protected her eyes.
    She shook her head, blinking and squinting as best she could, and made a dash for the subway.
    The rain sliced at her flesh and sizzled in her scalp. She cried out, wracked with agony and panic, running and then sliding down the stairs, tearing open her knee and the palms of her hands.
    And then at once she was safe.
    She whimpered, hugging herself. She fanned a shaky hand to sluice the moisture from her arms as the last residual liquid ate into her flesh.
    A train was coming, and she limped toward the end of the platform. She didn’t care where the thing was going. Others crushed in behind her. Most seemed to have no notion of the atmospheric phenomenon that was occurring just beyond the ground surface.
    She closed her eyes, weeping, and groped inside her heart once more for Gloria. The reality of what just happened left her feeling more ashamed. It was an incontrovertible reminder of the tremendous power and evil behind what they faced. To think she’d literally fallen asleep on her watch and allowed her friend to be taken without the slightest resistance.
    I’m so sorry, Gloria. Where are you now?
    She could no longer sense the location of her best friend. One
sensation did filter through, though. Something angry, searching. Something evil. It came from just behind her. She opened her eyes but didn’t dare look over her shoulder. She concentrated on that feeling and knew, like watching a rattlesnake whose black eyes fixed upon a field mouse, when it would strike.
    She looked to her left and saw the train approaching, its Cyclops eye emerging from around the bend, and she felt that snake behind her.
    She jerked to her left just as hands pushed forward at her back.
    She felt the awkward motion as they lurched harmlessly past her, glancing off her spine and into the crush of people. If she had stayed still, those hands would have forced her off the platform and down in front of the train. Someone gasped, Candace heard a scream, and she watched in horror as another woman teetered at the edge of the platform. But someone yanked the woman’s arm and pulled her back to safety.
    Candace scanned the faces, looking for the fat, red-haired men she’d seen in the park above. She saw people in business suits, people with children, and a wide-eyed lady with a hairy mole on her cheek dressed in full Arabic headscarves that covered her mouth. She saw no one she recognized and could not tell who’d tried to push her.
    She stepped onto the train along with the throng, moved down the car and, just as the doors were about to close, stepped off again. She ran down the platform without looking back. Another train loomed, screeching to a halt, and she hopped onto it. No one else boarded along with her.
    She squeezed her eyes and tears wrung from them with continuous flow down her stinging cheeks. She concentrated and felt certain that whoever had tried to push her in front of the train was now a good distance away. She began to pick up traces of Gloria again, a vague sense that she was somewhere nearby.
    The train sped through the underside of the city. After two transfers and a crossover, she was back in Brooklyn.
    She would go back after Gloria again soon, but she needed a better plan. She