Luckily, some of the glow from inside of the theater cut through a good portion of the darkness, but it wasn’t the same. I felt like I was five years old again, hiding from the boogeyman, knowing my tiny basketball-shaped nightlight wasn’t going to do a thing to prevent the monster from escaping the closet.

  I pulled out my lighter and struck it. That was when I saw the hunched shadows pressed against the curved wall. I don’t know how the shadows came through the metal with the absence of light both outside and in the tunnel, and with the walls being made of steel (albeit a thin steel), but they did, and the fear I felt branched through every vein in my body. I guess it was just their ability to bend the known rules of the universe to their will. Whatever, as long as they got their meals.

  Mumbling, the one nearest me, said, “Ohhhh Gradddyyyyy…Gradddyyyyy, my dear…please let us innnnnnnnn—”

  “Not by the hairs on my chinny-chin-chin!” answered another. The rest let out wheezy laughs.

  “Can you heaaaar me?” spoke the one to my right. “Or shall I do this?”

  A long arm parted from the shadow, bent at the elbow, and shot toward the top of what I guess was its face, near the mouth. I heard a squelch as the point of the shadow’s elbow pulled away from the head and the arm extended. The squelch changed into a ripping sound.

  “Ahhhh, that’s much better!” the wraith said in a louder, clearer voice. “I can finally breathe!”

  All around us came the sounds of the Thumbprint People tearing open their pinhole-sized mouths. Imagining their jagged, uneven lips flapping as they spoke nearly brought me to my knees.

  The heat of the lighter suddenly stung my thumb, and I dropped it, hearing it cartwheel away in the darkness. Before I bent to look for it, the monsters slapped the walls. Each one was like an electric shock to the heart. Ramsey let out a soft yelp as I watched the silhouettes of deformed hands smear their blood in waves.

  “Which key?” I said. “Ramsey, which key?”

  He kept on staring.

  I shook him, and the keys jingled. “They can’t get in. We’re okay. But the sooner we light the place up, the sooner they’re gone.”

  “We’ll never leave, we’ll never leave, we’ll never leaaaaaveeeeeee,” one said in a mocking, singsong tone.

  Ramsey kept on ignoring me. “Fuck this,” he whispered, and his right hand, still shaking but disciplined by years of muscle memory, fell to the unseen holster on his hip and yanked a pistol free. In one smooth motion, he aimed at the source of the sound.

  I lunged at him, grabbed his wrist, and he jerked the gun upward. It went off once, blasting a hole in the tunnel’s ceiling the size of a saucer. The sound was enormous, ear-shattering, and the heat coming off the barrel was enough to singe the hairs on my face.

  “Get off me, Grady!”

  “Stop it! Stop it!”

  The monsters laughed together, their hands beating against the walls over and over again.

  Ramsey and I continued wrestling, and the gun went off I don’t know how many times. I didn’t have a chance to count the holes in the tunnel when it was all said and done, because my focus was on not taking a slug to the gut. But I do know more than a few punched through the Battery Box’s walls.

  The immensity of the bullets evaporating the metal exterior rivaled the explosion of the shots, but failed to drown out the chorus of monstrous laughter. Still, the struggle for the pistol continued, and it only stopped when another sound joined in. It was the sound of a giant battery powering down.

  A low, dying hum.

  Darkness.

  The lights in the theater no longer reached into the tunnel, and the blackness filled every inch of the corridor and beyond, merging with the blackness of the outside world.

  Both Ramsey and I went limp. My arms fell to my sides like wet noodles, and the gun dropped to the concrete. Surprise washed hit me in a wave; this, however, was quickly stolen away by fury.

  I couldn’t see Ramsey—hell, I couldn’t see my hand two inches away from my face—but I sensed him the same way I sensed the growing presence of the wraiths outside. So I pushed outward and hit him in the chest.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you? Why’d you do that?” I could barely hear myself.

  I clenched, expecting a blow to the jaw. No punch ever came, however, and Ramsey said, “I-I don’t know. I was—am—fuckin’ scared.”

  “All the power’s shut off now! And Mia—shit! We’re screwed!”

  The monsters continued beating the tunnel walls. The sound was like heavy raindrops on a tin roof during a summer thunderstorm.

  Ramsey pushed past me. “Find your lighter, I might be able to fix it.”

  I dropped to my hands and knees and began patting the concrete. Unable to feel much through the material of my gloves, I took one off. The concrete was so cold that my hands, mostly numb to begin with, lost feeling completely. I ended up finding the lighter by the noise of its plastic casing scraping the ground.

  I picked it up and handed it to Ramsey. He struck the wheel. Now the small flame’s light stretched farther than it had before. Some of the shadows shrieked and backed away.

  “Gimme my keys,” Ramsey said. He still sounded scared—terrified—but he was trying, at least. I found the keys not far from where I found the lighter and passed them to him. A few seconds later, he opened the trailer door. The smell of smoke punched my nose and stung my eyes. In the back right corner of the main room, one of the batteries was doing more than sparking.

  “Oh fuck,” Ramsey said, but instead of running out like I wanted to do, he ran toward the small blaze. A cabinet—one of the few still intact—creaked opened. In the dimness, I saw Ramsey pull a fire extinguisher from it. He yanked the ring, and then sprayed a white cloud over the flames.

  Now I heard nails raking down the outside of the trailer mixing with the monster’s low moans and babbling. I ground my teeth at this cacophony.

  “Is it fixable?” I asked.

  “Not right now. It’d take some time.” He hit himself; I heard his palm slapping his skin. “Goddamn it, Grady, why’d ya have to try to steal the gun from me!?”

  “Me? I was trying to stop you from letting them in. They don’t need much of an invitation if the whole fucking wall’s blown open!”

  Ramsey yelled in frustration.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Let’s just focus right—”

  The trailer rocked to the side. I nearly lost my balance and stumbled toward the door, but I grabbed the wall before I could crack a few of my teeth.

  Ramsey, unfortunately, wasn’t so quick. He went sprawling into the batteries. The clank of his skull connecting with the floor brought a queasy feeling to the pit of my stomach.

  “Ramsey? Are you okay?” I held on as the trailer teetered to the other side. I couldn’t see a thing, and I could hardly concentrate with the groaning sounds of the metal and the monsters’ laughter.

  The trailer came down with a crash. One of my knees buckled, and I took a seat on the floor. Leaning forward, I felt for Ramsey’s body with both hands, one of which happened to be bare. That hand made contact with a battery, and I snapped it away in pain. The hot casing grilled my fingers, and the scent of charred flesh, a scent I was familiar with after our stay in Woodhaven, overpowered the smell of melting plastic.

  To my relief, Ramsey groaned. “Shit, where am I?”

  I crawled to him, careful to avoid anymore burning batteries. He was crammed into the space where a small table once stood. I grabbed his arms and helped him to his feet as the trailer began rocking again. Together we limped in the direction of the dark tunnel. I kept my lighter clutched in hand. If I had tried striking it for much-needed light, it would only have gone out. I figured we could sprint the distance without problem, get inside, slam the door behind us, and be all right.

  I figured wrong.

  Halfway to the theater’s entrance, something swiped by my face. The icy wind stirred the hair on the side of my head.

  “Come here, Grady!” a venomous voice snapped.

  Ramsey and I staggered away. Once I found my balance, I struck the lighter and saw a bare arm hanging through one of the bullet holes.

  It was long, as if it had been made of rubber and stretched and squeezed over and over again. Its sagging skin was gray, the color of a corpse. The wiry hairs covering it were black, and it ended in a hand as big as a catcher’s mitt. The fingers were gangly, thin. Yellowed nails curled at the tips, brittle and cracked.

  I wanted to let go of the button on my lighter, because in the darkness, I couldn’t see the horrors. But even if I had thought doing so was a good idea, I couldn’t move my thumb. I was frozen, bolted to the ground.

  The thing’s other arm pushed through the hole, and then its head…then, craning its neck, the monster showed its face.

  I saw it in all of its terrible glory, but even a glimpse would’ve been enough to fuel nightmares for the rest of my life.

  The face was as Ramsey had described earlier, as if God had taken His almighty thumb and pressed down on the person’s features. Yet it was no gentle god who’d done this to the thing in the tunnel, because the monster was anything but a work of art.

  The face had been indented so hard and deep that the eyes were shifted toward the ears, bloodshot and tallowy. The nose was a squashed whirlpool of cartilage with hints of bone jutting from the twisted flesh. And the mouth… I can’t even begin to do justice to the horror of the thing’s mouth. Like I had imagined before seeing the Thumbprint People, it looked torn open. There were teeth under those shredded lips, broken and pressed so far back they almost lay flat against its tongue.

  As I studied the monster, blood dribbled from its chin and streamed down its neck.

  The thing’s upper half flopped over the edge of the hole, like some unseen beast was birthing it into our sheltered, once-bright world. It now hung at the waist, its arms stretching and stretching until those huge hands hit the ground. The hole was much too small for anything to pass through, and the sharpness around the edge of the metal wall cut into the monster’s flesh, but the more it pushed into the opening, the more of its skin sloughed off.

  I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to run.

  But I could do none of these things.

  It looked up at me with its flat yellow eyes and grinned. “Why the long face, Grady?”

  It then landed on the concrete, the sound of a slimy fish flopping on the bow of a little boat as it struggled for breath.

  Slowly, it rose to its feet, which were as long and unnatural as its hands. Naked as the day it was born—if such a thing is born and not assembled in Hell—I saw how not only its face was smashed inward and twisted, but so were parts of its torso, its knees, its genitals.

  Ramsey snagged my hood and pulled me into the dark theater. I flew back, landed on my ass, and rolled until I thudded against the far wall. The breath rushed from my lungs, and I found myself wheezing. Air of any kind would’ve been fine—smoky, smoggy, even the icy variety—but my desire for light trumped my desire to breathe, believe it or not. I struck the lighter, which was somehow still clenched between my fingers, before I could catch my breath.

  I almost wished I hadn’t.

  Just as the monster outside wrapped its fingers around the jamb, Ramsey slammed the door shut. There was a soft crunch and a wailing from the other side. The fingers waggled, preventing the lock from catching.

  Still gasping, I hauled myself up to my feet and threw all of my weight into the entryway. A snick and a louder crunch cracked through the air as the lock caught and three fingers dropped to the floor.

  Thud-thud-thud.

  “The lighter,” Ramsey said. “Hurry!”

  Surprisingly, and I don’t know how, it was still in my grip. Shaking, I struck the wheel, but the sweat coating my palms made it difficult to do, and it took four tries before the flame brought much-needed brightness to the theater’s interior.

  Again, I almost wished it hadn’t.

  Ramsey and I stared at the carpeted floor in horror. The fingers weren’t unmoving like they should’ve been; they inched toward us, like gray worms.

  I stomped on the closest two while Ramsey crushed the other. Outside of the door, the monster shrieked, but only for a moment…because the shrieking turned into the mocking laughter of before.

  The smeared gray flesh and bone beneath my boots hadn’t disappeared, and I knew it wouldn’t until we burned it. So I put the flame on them. Here, the laughter stopped, and the flattened gray worms disappeared into a puff of dark smoke.

  But the monster still had another hand and five more fingers. It scratched at the door with them from the other side, and it would continue to do so until we got the lights back on.

  If we got the lights back on.

  Ramsey had a few flashlights. They weren’t much good in the way of brightness, but hey, it beat the hell out of the dark.

  He stored them in Auditorium 3, where he kept a bunch of other random junk. Once he located the goods and handed me one, I turned it on. The beam was dim, but it was better than the small flame of my Bic.

  Newly equipped with flashlights, we rushed to the cafe. As we approached, I heard Mia’s heavy breaths and shouts of pain. Ell and Stone were trying to calm her down. Not much luck there.

  I entered with Ramsey close behind.

  “What the hell happened?” Stone shouted by the fireplace, where he was stoking the flames and giving the cafe much-needed light and warmth.

  Eleanor let go of Mia’s hand and darted across the room into my arms. She buried her face in my jacket. “I heard gunshots. Grady, I thought you were dead, but I couldn’t leave Mia—”

  “I’m all right, Ell, don’t worry.” This might’ve been the biggest lie I’d ever told in my life because I was far from all right. I was damn near insane with fear. Still, I spoke calmly. “How is she?”

  “Just fuckin’ peachy!” Mia answered from her spot near the fireplace. “FYI: Ell made me take my pants off so my vajee is hangin’ out under this blanket. And trust me, it ain’t something you wanna see.”

  I made a point of averting my eyes toward the ceiling when I faced Mia. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

  “Anytime.”

  Ell cracked a slight smile. “Yeah…as you can see, Mia’s good, for the most part. And definitely still herself—so far.” She lowered her voice. With the wind, Ramsey’s frantic telling of what went down in the Battery Box to Stone, and Mia’s rhythmic breathing, I doubted anyone would’ve heard her anyway. “Grady, I don’t know what I’m doing. I was studying to be a nurse, yeah, but most of it was just learning out of books and from boring PowerPoint presentations… I never got to do much hands-on stuff, not as much as I’d like. And I was nowhere close to delivering babies.”

  “It’s gonna be okay.”

  “Her contractions are about twelve minutes apart. It’s still early, we still have time, I think, but they’re only supposed to be mild at this point, and each time she has one it’s like she’s being murdered.”

  I shrugged, telling myself not to worry. Remain calm. Keep a level head.

  “Some people deal with pain differently than others.”

  Ell bent her neck forward. “Seriously? Mia? She’s, like, the toughest person I know. The contractions shouldn’t be hurting her so badly. What do we do if something’s wrong?”

  It was a tough question. In lieu of modern medicinal miracles, we were basically living in the eighteenth century. I gave a positive answer anyway.

  “People have been having babies since the dawn of humanity, Ell. Most have done it without epidurals and hospitals, and with plenty of germs. It worked for them, didn’t it? Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.”

  She frowned at me. She had undoubtedly already had this conversation with herself and came to the same conclusion. I offered nothing new, nothing comforting. The truth is, I couldn’t; we were up shit creek without a paddle, and now there was a hole in our boat. We all knew it.

  But like everything else we’d faced since the blizzards began, we wouldn’t give up without a fight. I told this to Eleanor, and though it didn’t ease all the fear she felt, it helped.

  A little bit, I think.

  “What’s the power situation?” Stone asked.

  I nodded at the flashlight in my hand. “These, and the fire. Until Ramsey has time to fix what happened in the trailer, at least. Right now”—I pointed toward the windows, where the monsters had congregated outside—“we’re gonna have to wait them out.”

  Images of the gray-skinned, long-limbed thing haunted my mind, and I began trying to think of a plan if one were to get inside while Mia was giving birth… And no plan presented itself.

  Oh God.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Ell asked.

  I nodded and set both my hands on her shoulders, bent my knees so we were eye to eye, and said, “Eleanor Hark, we are going to get through this, all right? And when it’s over, this strange family of ours is going to be one bigger.”

  She smiled. More warmth radiated from it than from the fire.

  Then Ramsey called from across the room. “Uh, guys…I think Mia’s having another one.”

  Ell glanced down at her watch. It told the wrong time, and she knew this, but wearing it was about comfort, a reminder of a dead world where time mattered.

  “Shit,” she mumbled. “The last one was only ten minutes ago. They’re getting closer, which means so is the baby.”

  “Oh no…” Mia moaned. “I-I think my water broke.”

  “Are you sure?” Ell asked, rushing over to them. I followed.

  “Either that or I just pissed myself.”

  Stone was holding one of the flashlights. Eleanor snatched it from his grip and aimed it at the beige blanket Mia lay on.

  “Oh no,” she whispered.

  Illuminated before us was a growing puddle of red beneath Mia’s half-covered legs.

  Blood.

  5

 

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