Chapter 2
He sucked in a sharp gasp as he toppled backward, landing hard on his tailbone. The drywall chunk slipped from his fingers and clattered across the floor. Scrambling on his hands and feet, he tried to put as much distance between himself and that gaping hole in the wall as possible.
His heart thundered in his chest. Holy shit— there’s a dead body in the fucking wall. How the hell am I going to explain this to the cops?
But before that thought even finished, something in the gap twitched. The woman’s cheek gave a tiny, spasmodic jerk, like a smile trying to grow even wider.
Holy shit. It’s fucking moving.
The creature’s smile stayed on its face as it started shifting within the wall, its long, scraggly blonde hair flopping into its face as it pressed forward through the hole Lionel had cut for it.
Lionel stumbled backward until his back hit the kitchen island.
He could still hear Ms. Huxley screaming, could hear her drop her phone a few times in her haste to call whoever the hell could possibly help them, even through the roaring of his pulse in his ears.
The thing shouldn’t have been able to move through the hole he’d made, only big enough for his hand to be able to reach through—a human skull shouldn’t have been able to bend and mold around the drywall like it was.
Lionel’s jaw dropped open, breathy noises moving through his lips as his chest tried to summon a scream, as the thing’s limbs contorted and crunched until it could fit itself through.
His entire body was shaking too badly for him to pull himself up; all he could do was stare, frozen, as the thing crawled out of the wall.
Its arms hit the hardwood first; long, thin, and bent at impossible angles, elbows jutting the wrong way.
Then came its legs, unfolding with far too many joints, each sharp bend clicking into place like insect limbs.
It took Lionel a stunned second to realize its chest was facing the ceiling. Its head, grotesquely twisted a full one-eighty, stared straight at him with that monstrous grin. The lips were still pulled back so far they looked ready to split, gums gaping around oversized teeth.
Something primal seized him then, a deep animal instinct that told him to keep absolutely still. But behind him, Ms. Huxley was still screaming. A heartbeat later, he heard the front door slam open, her shrieks fading into the hall as she fled.
Lionel didn’t dare look away. The creature’s eyes were locked on his, unblinking. His own eyes burned, but he forced himself not to blink, terrified that even that tiny motion would trigger it.
Then it crouched lower, muscles bunching.
He sucked in a sharp breath. At that exact moment, he remembered the jab saw clenched in his palm, the handle slick with sweat. Without thinking, he tightened his grip, bracing himself.
The thing lunged.
Lionel brought the saw down hard, aiming for the center of its head. The blade struck with a sickening crunch, sinking deep into the flesh. The creature let out a gut-wrenching wail—high and shrill, painfully childlike. The sound made every hair on Lionel’s body stand on end.
It didn’t crumple completely. It staggered, limbs convulsing, the saw still lodged in its skull as if it were trying to figure out how to keep coming. Lionel didn’t wait to see if it managed. He scrambled to his feet, legs nearly giving out beneath him, and bolted for the door.
He slammed it shut behind him with all his strength, pressing his back to the wood, heart roaring in his ears. For a terrifying moment, he expected the door to explode open, those twisted limbs to wrap around him from behind.
Lionel had watched too many movies, and a dozen suggestions were surging through his mind—demons, aliens, ghosts—but the one that he landed on was, of course, zombies.
The thing was too humanoid, too real to be anything besides the living dead, even with its uncanny movements and smile that threatened to rip its face in half.
His heart rate was just barely beginning to get under control when he heard the other screams.
A shiver ran down his spine, dread settling in his stomach, as he turned to look down the hallway toward the sound. It didn’t seem like it was on this floor; the yell was just loud enough to be heard all the way through the floorboards.
Lionel forced himself to stumble forward, away from the sound. He practically fell against the wall, shoulder slamming into it multiple times, as he tried to keep himself upright. By the time he made it to the elevator, dozens of people had opened their doors and looked outside.
“Lionel?” Mr. Ryder said in awe as Lionel ran past.
He didn’t answer, just started pressing the elevator button over and over again, begging it to move faster as the number slowly counted up toward them. He took a deep breath as the doors finally dinged open, relief spreading over him.
He froze in place at the sight of the elevator, or its lack of.
The metal box was mostly gone, looking as though something had taken a massive bite out of it, revealing the dark, cement walls encasing the shaft. Lionel’s head slowly tipped up so he could see the pulley system of wire that was hanging uselessly above.
Lionel fell to his knees and stared at the dark elevator shaft until the doors slowly closed again.
When he glanced over his shoulder at the faces of the people staring at him, his gaze searched for the red ‘exit’ sign all the way at the other end of the hallway.
He hardly ever used the stairwell, what with how many floors he was going up and down a day, so he hadn’t even thought to run that way.
Now, it was so far out of reach it might as well not have existed at all.
Lionel rolled onto his feet and lunged over to the windows lining the wall beside the elevator, peering outside.
It was a clear day, and the city was just beginning to wake up, the first few people walking on the streets below looking like ants from so high up. Hardly any cars were out this early; only a lone taxi, driving by at a shockingly slow pace, interrupted the road.
Lionel was looking around, searching for any sign of red and blue lights coming toward them, when more screams suddenly sounded from the building.
It was like a domino effect. They started far away, almost quiet enough to ignore, but slowly made their way closer until everyone on the ninth floor was turning to watch a woman rush out of her apartment, her dog clutched to her chest, and her face red from the horrified screams ripping out of her throat.
An icy chill ran all the way to Lionel’s toes at the sight of her—he had just helped her fix a leaky faucet in her apartment no more than twenty-four hours ago.
The whispers started as Maria collapsed, bare feet scrabbling against the floorboards, trying desperately to push herself away from her apartment door.
She let out a sound that was equal parts terror and agony, her nightgown torn down one side and already soaked with blood from long, fresh gashes.
Little Toby writhed frantically in her arms, claws scratching at her as he tried to escape, even while his owner screamed.
Lionel really needed to get his brain checked out, given how heat pooled in his stomach at the sight.
He shook his head to rid himself of the thoughts and cursed himself for not grabbing his toolbox from Ms. Huxley’s apartment before he ran.
A hammer, a screwdriver, even another jab saw—anything would have been better than standing here empty-handed.
The thing that slithered out of Maria’s apartment was far larger than the one he’d found in Ms. Huxley’s wall. Lionel’s mind flailed for something, anything, to compare it to. The closest image he found was a Japanese spider crab, those monstrous creatures that looked dredged up straight from Hell.
It had too many limbs, each joint bending wrong as it crawled forward.
Unlike the first one, its head wasn’t even fully formed; it was just a seething mass of brownish flesh, twisting and pulsing as if trying to figure out what shape it should take.
Somehow, that made it worse. The lack of any real face gave Lionel nowhere safe to look.
Lionel stared for maybe too long as the screaming started, so loud his ears were ringing, as people dove back into their apartments and slammed the doors.
Some other people, the smarter ones, realized that this thing came from inside the woman’s apartment and raced toward the stairwell at the far side of the hallway.
Lionel got to his feet and raced forward.
He didn’t have many options but to get past the thing and run with the rest of them.
Luckily for them, it was pretty set on ripping Maria apart.
Lionel felt a deep-seated nausea in his stomach, bile rising in the back of his throat, as he couldn’t look away.
The creature slid its front hands, too sharp and pointed, into her chest and tore its way until her torso was entirely split in half, her organs spilling onto the carpet as Toby finally got away.
Lionel slid past the creature and thanked his father for forcing him to run cross country for his entire high school and college career, as he very easily overtook the majority of the people running in the same direction.
The people down at this end of the hallway were just beginning to open their doors to try to figure out what the commotion was as Lionel sped past.
Lionel slammed into the exit door, the sound echoing in the metal stairwell. He took the steps two and even three at a time, jumping over the railings when he could and landing hard enough for a shock to stab through his knees.
He made it to the sixth floor before he encountered another creature.
Lionel cried out, slamming into the stairwell railing so hard it rattled beneath him. His breath caught painfully in his chest, and for a second, he thought he might throw up. His heart galloped so violently he felt it in his throat.
Then he saw it.
It emerged even without any hole or crack in the wall. It simply pushed through solid metal like it was water. The surface of the stairwell wall bulged and rippled, a dark shape pressing from the other side. Then the metal split, not breaking or tearing, but warping as a head began to push through.
It forced itself out with a sickening, boneless squirm. An arm followed, long and jointed wrong, clawed fingers splaying against the railing. Then another arm. Then another, and another.
Lionel stood frozen, vision tunneling. His stomach lurched, and it felt like the world was dropping out from under his feet.
He finally snapped, pivoting on his heel and wrenching open the door to the sixth floor.
He staggered through it, almost fell, then flung himself down the hallway.
The carpet blurred underfoot as he broke into a full sprint.
Doors were cracked open here and there, curious faces peeking out. They hadn’t yet heard the horror behind him.
Then a scream shattered the air, a sharp, shrill sound so full of terror it sounded inhuman. The stairwell door slammed open behind him, banging against the wall, and more footsteps pounded out in a frenzied stampede.
Lionel’s chest seized. His lungs burned with the ragged gasps tearing from his throat as he ran. God, please don’t let them be following me. Because he had no idea where he was going. No plan. He just had the blind instinct to run.
A wild, hysterical thought struck him: Maybe jumping from the sixth floor would kill me outright. When he glanced over his shoulder, he cringed. It would probably hurt less than being torn in half by a mutant human-crab-spider zombie.