Chapter 19 #2
Lionel waved a hand in the air, trying to conjure the image again.
“It was like the other monsters we saw early on with those huge jumbles of meat and too many limbs. But this one was way more put together. Like it had a shape, kind of, like a center. There were so many heads, arms, and legs, and it had whole sets of organs just hanging out, like dangling from the body. Some of them were still pumping.”
Mads’ eyes narrowed. “How big exactly?”
“I don’t know,” Lionel muttered, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Like… the size of a small house? Five or six of those monsters all mashed into one, maybe more. It took up almost the whole space.”
Mads turned to look at the door again, his face darkening as something shifted in his expression—thoughtful, but distant and cold. “Oh,” he breathed, almost to himself. “Yeah. Maybe you’re right. Maybe that’s what’s behind all of this.”
Lionel reached out, cupping Mads’ face and pulling his attention back.
“Maybe if we kill it, we can get out of here,” he breathed, the slightest amount of hope coloring his words.
He smiled as he said, “We should make a plan. Maybe we could try finding some bigger guns, something we could shoot from a far range. Maybe we could find some other survivors to help us bring it down.”
Mads’ expression was difficult to read as he nodded along, almost like he was purposefully keeping himself from reacting, but Lionel could see his eyes darting around even more than the normal tremble of his pupils.
“Okay,” he said eventually. “Yeah, let’s make a plan.
We can figure something out.” He grabbed Lionel by the wrist, tugging on it gently.
“But not right now,” he said, voice quiet.
“You can’t just go running to your death because you think you’ve found a way to be the hero. ”
Lionel deflated slightly, realizing that the expression must have been Mads holding back his worry.
Lionel really was one to run into things without thinking too hard about them—he was definitely already thinking of what apartments they hadn’t checked on this floor yet and how many guns would be necessary to take down a monster that big.
“How about we get some sleep,” Mads hummed. “And in the morning we can sit down and really make a game plan, okay?”
Lionel nodded and let Mads lead him back to their bed. He didn’t know how he was supposed to sleep now that his heart was beating so fast, adrenaline shooting through his veins. But every time he lay down with Mads, his eyelids almost immediately felt heavy.
He sighed contentedly through his nose as Mads tucked the duvet around him, winding their bodies together as they both rested their heads on the pillows. “Good night,” he murmured.
He felt Mads kiss him quickly on the forehead, already feeling himself drifting off as Mads whispered, “Good night, Lionel.”
When Lionel pulled his eyes open, he was alone.
He raised his head, instantly aware that something was wrong—that someone was missing. He patted over the mattress and looked around the small studio apartment. “Mads?” He whispered. When he got to his feet, he quickly checked the bathroom before asking again, louder this time, “Mads?”
Only silence answered him. Lionel’s pulse raced hard enough that he could feel it in his temples, pounding quicker than it had even when he was being chased by the creatures.
As he turned in a slow circle, his eyes landed on the gun, still lying untouched on the kitchen counter, and then the door, which sat unlocked.
Lionel felt his blood freeze in his veins, his entire body stiffening. “No, he fucking didn’t,” Lionel whispered to himself as he walked over to the front door. “No fucking way did he leave.” He turned the knob, making sure he truly wasn’t wrong, and the door slowly creaked open.
Lionel’s hands shook as he considered what Mads could possibly be doing—he barely liked walking down the hallway without Lionel’s hand in his because he couldn’t see well.
But, as Lionel thought about it longer, Mads had been getting more confident in moving around on his own.
He had gone out and killed that creature in the middle of the night with hardly any preamble, and hadn’t been reaching for Lionel when they trekked out into the building as much.
But still, the idea of Mads walking around alone out there was enough for a shiver to crawl down Lionel’s spine.
He grabbed the gun from the kitchen counter, swung the door fully open, and looked out.
The hallway looked no different than any of the dozens of times he'd opened that door before—still, quiet, empty, no sign of movement, no sign of life.
Lionel hesitated in the doorway, the silence thick as static. He was almost desperate enough to call out Mads’ name, voice clawing at the back of his throat, when he heard it. A door, somewhere down the hall, creaked shut.
His head whipped around, eyes locking just in time to see it finish closing with a soft click. His stomach twisted. It could’ve been anything: a survivor or one of the monsters. There was no proof it was Mads. Nothing but a gut feeling curling like a hook in his chest.
He shut his apartment door quietly behind him and jogged down the corridor, footsteps soft but urgent. As he neared the door that had closed, his pace slowed, breath catching when he saw the number.
His steps faltered when he noticed which number it was, and he could have sworn it was one they had been to before.
Lionel eyed the doorknob for a long, pulsing moment before reaching out.
He half-expected it to be locked, but it wasn’t.
The knob turned easily under his fingers, and the door swung open without resistance.
He held his breath. Let it settle deep in his lungs as he ducked inside, gun raised and steady despite the tremor in his hands.
The place was trashed, but untouched. Just as they’d left it days ago. Furniture overturned, dishes shattered, but nothing new or anything out of place.
Except for the feeling crawling up Lionel’s spine. He turned in a slow circle, scanning every corner until his eyes landed on the bathroom door.
It was open just a sliver, just wide enough to suggest it hadn’t latched shut, and just wide enough to see darkness on the other side. He crept toward it, breath held again, steps soft as paper. The air felt colder here, almost too still, as if the room itself was listening.
He glanced inside through the crack in the door, not wanting to push it open all the way just yet, and strained to hear. It was difficult through the sound of his own ragged breathing and heartbeat thundering in his ears, but he could definitely hear the distinct sounds of something inside.
Lionel frowned as he leaned closer, trying to make it out.
It didn’t sound human, but it wasn’t the same shrieking cries of the monsters.
It sounded almost like clucking and clicking noises someone could make with their mouth, alongside a strange squelching noise Lionel couldn’t begin to fathom how to make.
He shut his eyes, trying to focus on the sounds, mostly listening for Mads; for his footsteps, a quiet ‘help’ or a call of Lionel’s name.
If the creature in that nest was truly what was controlling the building, maybe it had brainwashed Mads into coming here, had forced him to come so that he could eat him.
Lionel trembled at the thought and put both hands on the gun.
He took another deep breath, shaky and too shallow, then pushed the bathroom door inward just enough to slip through. It opened without resistance, revealing the linen closet door standing wide. From this angle, he could see how impossibly deep the room was, just as it was before.
Lionel flattened his back against the wall just beside the doorway, heart pounding so hard he could hear it in his ears.
His hands were trembling so violently that the gun nearly tapped against the wall, and he had to press it hard against his chest to still it.
Every muscle felt like it was ready to snap.
His knees quivered, threatening to buckle beneath him, but he bit down hard on the inside of his cheek and forced himself to stay upright.
He strained to listen. Inside the long, darkened room beyond the door, a series of wet clicks and low, watery gurgles sounded, as though something were sucking air through a clogged throat.
The sounds were staggered—overlapping, even.
The longer he stood there, the more he came to realize that the strange clicking and gurgling sounded like they were coming from two different creatures—one was a bit more lower-pitched than the other.
His vision tunneled for a second. He could barely handle one of those things, let alone two. Everything in his body screamed to run, to bolt now and forget all of this, lock the door behind him, and never look back.
But then he remembered why he was here. Mads.
He couldn’t just leave. Not without knowing. Not if there was even a chance he was alive in there, trapped, seconds from being torn apart.
Lionel gave himself one short nod. It was pathetic, unconvincing, but it was all he had.
He rocked up and down on the balls of his feet, trying to psych himself up, blood humming through his ears like radio static.
Then he turned, ever so slowly, and inched his way around the doorway, gun raised and finger on the trigger.
He moved just far enough to glance inside and stopped cold.
Time seemed to lurch forward and backward in his chest.
Mads was there, just standing in the middle of the room.
Lionel's feet, which had so badly wanted to carry him in the opposite direction moments before, now felt glued to the floor. His knees nearly gave out for real. Every instinct screamed that something was wrong, but all he could do was stare, mouth half-open, eyes wide.
Because Mads was standing—whole and alive—like nothing was wrong.