Panting hard, Tom leaned against the dresser. His forearm stung from where the creature’s claws had dug into him. There was blood soaking into his sweatshirt sleeve. The fear inside him was so powerful it was sickening. For a moment, he thought he was actually going to throw up. But he remembered his brother’s voice shouting to him from the basement.
Fight them! Fight them off! Despair is never an option!
Shouting to him, calling him by name, as if it weren’t just Burt on a video but the real Burt, really there, still alive.
Remember the Warrior, Tom!
Tom didn’t know how it was possible for his brother to reach out to him from the grave like that. But right this minute, with everything so crazy, he didn’t care. Nothing made sense now, so he might as well cling to the sound of that familiar voice he missed so much. He fought off the fear and the sickness. He gritted his teeth, and his mouth twisted as a low growl of determination came out of him.
He had to do something. Now. The beasts were still out there. The fog was rising. They would rise with it, come up the stairs, down the hall. They’d be at the door soon, any second. He had to find a way out of here. Find a way to get help.
Tom looked around at his bedroom for something he could use: the computer on the desk, the window by the bed, the sports pennants on the wall, the framed newspaper pages . . .
“Sources: Tiger Champs Used Drugs.”
Something flashed through his mind. Some fragment of memory. Why couldn’t he grasp it? He had to think . . .
Go to the monastery, Tom. That’s where the answers are.
For a moment, Tom felt as if everything were on the verge of making sense . . .
Then the creatures reached his bedroom, and all his thoughts were scattered.
The first thud was soft, as if one of the beasts had stumbled coming down the hallway and fallen against the door. The noise was so faint Tom might have pretended to himself he hadn’t really heard it.
But then the thing started mewling. That high-pitched, weirdly echoing sound was unmistakable. Tom took an involuntary step back as a fresh wave of fear went over him. He stared at the door.
The doorknob began to turn.
Tom heard the clicking of long claws against the metal. The knob turned tentatively at first. Once this way, once that. Then again. Then it clicked back and forth harder—back and forth. Then the knob began to rattle as the creature grew frustrated. The door began to shiver on its hinges . . .
Tom gasped as the door leapt in its frame. One of the things started pounding on the wood, slamming the wood—it sounded like with its open hand—again and again. Then it stopped. But the next noise went up Tom’s spine and made his teeth ache. Scratching. Long claws were digging into the surface of the door, trying to rip their way through. Then there was more pounding—steady pounding now. Tom heard grunts, gasps, small animal shrieks out in the hall. How many of them were out there? He couldn’t tell.
The snarling got louder. The pounding on the door got more insistent. The dresser that barricaded the door began to shiver.
Eyes wide, Tom turned this way and that, looking for some way out. The window . . .
He crossed the room to the window. Peered outside.
His bedroom looked out on the backyard. He could see the fog lying over the small square of grass. At first he couldn’t make out much more than the ruffled whiteness. It was like staring down into clouds from an airplane.
But then he saw them.
There must have been nearly a dozen of them out there, dim hulking shadows ranging back and forth through the mist. Some were climbing into the house through the broken windows. Others were moving in slow, stumbling circles right below him, as if they were waiting for him to try to climb out and escape.
The pounding on the door continued behind him. And the growls and snorts and shrieks out in the hall continued, too. Grimly, Tom looked over his shoulder and saw the door rattling and the dresser trembling. The barricade couldn’t hold forever. The creatures were going to come bursting in, and soon.
Tom prayed for help as he scrabbled in his pocket for his cell phone. Please, God, help me, help me . . .
He fished his phone out. His hands trembling, he quickly called up the number pad and keyed in 911. He raised the phone to his ear. Waited. But there was nothing. There was no sound. Quickly, he lowered the phone. Looked desperately at the readout. He felt his stomach go sour again as one of the creatures out in the hall gave a loud echoing cry and hit the bedroom door full force.
No bars on the phone. No reception.
He quickly stuffed the phone back in his pocket. He went to the computer on the desk. His fingers were so unsteady, he had to try three times before he could call up his browser. Maybe he could raise a friend, or contact the police by FaceTime or Skype or even e-mail. Something. Anything. He had to reach anyone he could.
He waited for the browser page to load. What was taking so long? A monster in the hallway let out another soul-withering shriek and crashed into the door so hard Tom thought the wood would splinter and the door would fly off its hinges.
“Come on! Please!” he whispered at the computer.
But the only answer was the words that now appeared on the laptop’s screen: Connection timed out. He didn’t even bother to try again. He knew the Internet was down.
He was trapped—trapped in here. Trapped in his room. With the creatures gathered out in the hall, trying to break in. With more of them on the ground outside, circling beneath his window in the mist.
There was no escape.
The monsters in the hallway roared and pounded on the door. What could he do? What could he do?
Remember the Warrior . . .
The Warrior!
All at once, Tom did remember—and the memory was like a little flame inside him. The Warrior. Of course.
He stepped to his closet. He reached into the dark at the back. He touched the cool metal of his aluminum baseball bat. He didn’t play much anymore, but he’d never let his mom give the bat away. He brought it out. Read the label. A Louisville Slugger Warrior. Burt had given it to him for his birthday one year—Tom couldn’t remember which year, which birthday it was. It was a good one, though. Burt had taken him out to the park the next day. He had pitched to him and given him tips on how to swing, how to play the game.
Was this what Burt was trying to get him to remember?
Well, he had it now. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but somehow just the feel of it in his hand gave him courage. The creatures might break down the door, but the doorway was narrow. They could only come through one at a time, two at most. Maybe he could use the bat to fight them off, keep them at bay—for a while, anyway—who knew how long he could hold them? Even if they broke through eventually—even if they killed him—he’d at least have the satisfaction of de-braining some of them on his way out. A little payback for all this terror.
He returned with the bat to the bedroom door, posted himself in front of the dresser barricade. He gripped the handle of the bat in one hand—the bloody hand the monster had grabbed. He cradled the barrel in the other. He tried to ready himself.
The door continued to jump in its frame. The beasts continued to make those awful noises out in the hall. Tom’s heart beat so hard, so loudly, the pulse of it filled his head. He waited. He waited for the door to give way, waited for the beasts to start coming through, waited, as the seconds ticked off one by one, for the final battle to begin.
Then, with shocking suddenness, the noises stopped. All of them. The pounding. The snarling and growling and shrieking in the hall. The rattle of the shivering dresser. All the noises stopped altogether. Only the thudding of Tom’s heart continued, filling his mind as he went on staring at the door, as he went on gripping the bat in his sweating hands.
Come on, he thought. I’m ready for you!
But there was only silence. Silence and suspense—suspense worse than the terror.
Then—so surprising—so frightening it went through Tom’s body like an electric shock—a man spoke from behind him, from right inside the room.
“Tom,” he said quietly.