Chapter 3 #2
He checked the inside for any more grinning faces before pushing on the wood and brick holding together the outer exterior of the building.
He ground his teeth together and shook his head, pulling his hand away before turning back to the window.
He grabbed the sill again, pressing his entire body into it to try to get it up even a tiny crack.
“Lionel?”
He turned to the woman who came up beside him, her hands tangling together in front of her.
She was around his age, a few years out of college—probably living alone for the first time, considering how often she had called him to help her with random, easily solvable tasks in her apartment. “What’s wrong, Wendy?” he asked her.
She was a little startled but asked, “I don’t… I dropped my phone somewhere. Do you have yours? We should call the police, or the government, or NASA, or something.”
He wanted to ask if she had NASA on speed dial, but pulled out his phone instead. He clicked it on, but, just like he noticed at Ms. Huxley’s, his wifi and data were completely out. He shook his head and showed her, “No signal.”
“At all?” She asked, taking it from him. He just shrugged and turned back to the window.
A slow, icy crawl went up his neck as he saw another group of people walk by down below, all of them with headphones on or with their phones pressed to their ears or mouths. He turned to the rest of the group, “Does anyone else have a phone on them?”
Several people pulled them out of their pockets, and all showed the same thing—no signal.
How the hell did they have no service in here when everyone just outside was using theirs as normal?
They were all looking at him again with those expressions begging him to tell them what to do.
Lionel ran a hand through his hair as he ran through every option he’d ever seen in a monster movie.
They had found a few more large kitchen knives, and they had taken apart the woman’s clothing rack to use the solid, metal poles as makeshift bats.
But there wasn’t enough for everyone to be armed.
“We need to get out of here,” someone else finally said.
“We need to get to the first floor,” the woman with her child said. “If the windows won’t open, then we need to go out the front door.”
Lionel froze, her words suddenly reminding him of what Gina had told him just a short time ago—the front door of the building won’t open. Lionel shook his head. It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence that the windows won’t open or even break, and the front door was locked that morning.
Lionel was about to interrupt the conversation that had quickly become heated around him—everyone arguing about what escape path they should take—when they heard the scratching sounds.
Everyone froze, and a shudder swept up Lionel’s neck. All heads turned toward the door where a long, drawn-out sskkrriittcchh was coming from, before it went silent again.
It was so quiet, Lionel could hear only the pounding of his own heart.
A moment later, the door was flung open like nothing had been blocking it.
The screams, held in so tightly when they needed to be silent, were all unleashed at once as the creature barreled its way through the door and the wall.
This one was even less human than the last. It had far too many limbs—more than even a spider could claim—sprouting wildly from a hulking mass that twitched and flexed, the shifting shape so alien Lionel couldn’t tell where one feature ended and another began.
His heart slammed against his ribs. He pulled the knife from his pocket, fingers tightening white-knuckled around the hilt, and lunged.
The creature jerked back, almost surprised by the attack. Its shriek was high and thin, echoing the wail of the first one he’d stabbed. But this time Lionel didn’t drop his weapon.
He yanked the blade free, slick and quivering in his grip, then drove it down again, aiming for what he hoped was its face.
The knife punched into the shifting mass with a wet crunch.
The creature spasmed backward, smashing into the wall with such force that the bricks cracked and buckled.
A section of the wall caved in, dust and rubble exploding through the apartment as the thing crashed sideways.
Lionel didn’t hesitate. He followed, knife raised, so focused on the monster writhing before him that he never noticed the shadow creeping up behind.
A sudden agony ripped through his sides. He screamed, eyes bulging, as claws punched through his flesh. His hands clenched around the knife, refusing to let it go, even as he felt his feet leave the ground until his head nearly scraped the high ceiling, and his legs dangled uselessly beneath him.
Lionel twisted his neck to look at it. Another creature loomed behind him, eerily close to the first one he’d ever seen: two arms, two legs, a disturbingly human face with empty black eyes and a mouth already curling into that grotesque, too-toothy grin.
He started struggling when the creature raised him higher over its gaping mouth, and he realized it intended to chomp down on him.
He kicked furiously, swinging his arm around and trying to chop off the hands that held him.
His foot managed to make contact with the thing’s jaw a few times, but that didn’t deter it.
Lionel cried out when the creature’s pincer-like hands squeezed him, then abruptly let go.
He hit the ground hard, barely managing to twist aside to avoid those snapping teeth, and heard the creature screech.
Looking up, he saw a man on the other side of the thing—but there was no time to process it before he was surging forward, driving his knife deep into the creature’s chest.
It let out an even louder wail, hurling itself against the wall and thrashing around the wound. Lionel couldn’t keep hold of the knife; it tore from his grip, nearly wrenching his shoulder out of its socket.
The man jumped back. Lionel didn’t see a weapon on him, but whatever he’d done sent the creature into a fresh frenzy. It screeched louder still and began to scramble away.
Panting, Lionel dropped to his knees, clutching his burning sides. When he pulled his hands back, they were slick with blood. He swallowed down the vomit threatening to heave up from his stomach.
“Hey, watch out!”
Lionel had just enough time to look up at the man, saw his strange, too-light features go wide with horror, before he was grabbed again and slammed into the wall.
He choked out a gasp as he heard the crunch of his skull against the brick, his vision darkening so quickly that he barely saw the man rush over to him, catching him just before he crumpled completely.