Nightmare City (7 page)

Three of the things were crawling, clawing, climbing into the house. They had smashed the living room windows—the windows that ran all across the front wall—they had smashed all of them, and the fog was pouring through the openings. Second by second, the room was filling with white, swirling mist and the three creatures were coming in with it. They were scrabbling over the jagged shards of glass and tumbling through. One landed on the sofa, two fell to the floor. They all climbed slowly and clumsily to their feet. They looked around them with gleaming eyes.

They were searching—searching for Tom.

Tom ran right toward them. It cost him every ounce of courage he had, but he ran right through the dining room, right past the dining room table and into the living room, right at the beasts. It was the fastest way to get back to the front stairs—and the stairs were the only hope of survival he had. The kitchen was filling with fog behind him. The living
room was growing misty in front of him. If he stayed where he was, the creatures would come crashing in through every window till the house was full of them and he would have nowhere to make a stand. Upstairs, at least he had a chance.

The hunched, grunting creatures spotted him at once as he raced toward them. They came to attention like hunting dogs when they get the scent of game. For a second, they went rigid, their horribly distorted faces twisting, their sunken nostrils flaring. Then they let out a hollow shriek of triumph—and they charged.

They moved slowly with their slumped, lumbering, limping gaits. Tom was already racing past them and heading for the front hall as they made their move. The monster closest to him reached out, and Tom felt the tip of one of its claws brush his arm. He dodged out of its way. The terror of the near miss gave him fresh agility and speed. He was past the thing before it could try again to grab him.

There was the front door now, the front hall, the stairs. He’d almost made it. He rushed through the connecting doorway, out of the living room, into the foyer. He began to reach for the newel-post to pull himself up the steps.

But as he did, the sidelight next to the front door burst. A clawed hand shot in and grabbed hold of him.

Tom saw the furred fingers close around his wrist. He felt the long claws slashing his flesh. He saw the pocked,
elongated, skull-like face of the thing pressing through the hole in the sidelight. He saw the monster’s eyes gleaming with cruelty and anticipation as it gripped him and began to pull him toward itself. Tom thought his heart would stop with sheer horror.

He tried to yank himself free, but the beast was strong—and worse than that: the creature’s touch was somehow poisonous. The minute its hand wrapped around him, the minute its claws slashed him, Tom felt a swirling darkness enter his mind. He felt himself losing strength.

The beast held him fast, trying to pull him toward the sidelight. The fog poured in around him and his mind grew foggy, too. With every second, Tom felt himself becoming weaker. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the monsters in the living room humping toward him. He heard them grunting and gasping. He saw their eyes gleaming, their teeth bared.

The monster at the sidelight continued to hold him and the fog swirled around him and the dark poison swirled through his brain. Tom wasn’t even sure he wanted to fight anymore. So what if they got him? What was the worst thing that could happen, anyway? At least if they killed him, it would put an end to this day of horror and confusion . . .

His will was seeping away.

The beast leaning in through the window gibbered
wildly and kept trying to pull the weakening Tom toward him. Tom’s legs went wobbly. His eyes rolled in his head as he began to lose consciousness. He saw the portrait on the wall, tilting and spinning. His mom. His brother. He saw the cross hanging beside it.

“Fight them! Fight them off! Despair is never an option!”

Tom shook his head, trying to clear it. Was that Burt?

“Don’t give them even half a chance. Remember the Warrior . . .”

It was! It was Burt! On the television set again. His voice dim, far away but still shouting up to him from the basement.

“Don’t give in! That’s just the poison talking! Come on! You’re my brother! You do not surrender! The Warrior, Tom!”

A surge of strength went through him. Tom gave a roar and pulled himself free of the monster’s grasp, ignoring the claws that sliced his arm.

At once the poison seemed to leave his body, the darkness seemed to drain out of his mind. Light and alertness flooded through him and he was fully awake again.

With the new energy surging through his muscles, he started moving. Just as the monsters clumped out of the living room into the front hall, just as they began to close in on him, he shot up the stairs as fast as he could go.

He took the stairs two and three at a time. He broke free of the fog. It fell away behind him. The shuffling, limping monsters clustered on the stairs beneath him, bumping into the walls, bumping into one another, unable to rise above the level of the mist.

Tom was at the second-floor landing—was racing down the hall toward his room. Another moment and he was through his bedroom door. He slammed it shut. Locked it. Seized hold of the dresser with both hands. Dragged it across the floor and shoved it against the door, barricading himself inside.

He was safe—for now.

9.

P
anting 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.

10.

T
om spun around so fast he nearly lost his balance. The voice seemed to have been coming from his desk. But there was no one there.

Yet as Tom stared at the empty desk chair, the man spoke again: “Listen to me, Tom.”

The voice was coming from the computer. The monitor had gone dark now. But Tom saw something flicker in that darkness. A faint, failing light. A suggestion of static. And a figure—yes—a silhouette, barely visible.