The garage doors…Shit!
How was she supposed to open them without any power?
If this were a movie, she would probably just start the car, rev it up, and burst through them before speeding off into the darkness. This wasn’t a movie, though, and the shuttered metal looked pretty strong to her. There must be some way to manually open them, she reasoned. After all, what would happen if there was a power outage? Were people expected to be locked out of their garages?
“Stay in the car, kids,” she said, turning to face the children. “I’ll be right back.”
Emily took a deep breath to steady her breathing and exited the vehicle, her heart thumping in her chest. She made sure the SUV’s door was ajar, then checked that the door leading from the interior of the house was still closed securely; she didn’t want the Simon-thing creeping up behind them.
A large plastic box was fixed to the ceiling right above the Durango’s roof. A thick chain, much like the chain of her bike, ran from the box along a metal beam to the door. Fixed to the garage door was a curved arm that extended upward, connecting to the pulley system that raised and lowered the door. That was how the door would open normally, but how the hell was she supposed to raise it now? She spotted two aluminum handles at the base of the door, near the floor. She grasped one and gave it a gentle tug. The door rattled, moving up about an inch but then hit resistance and refused to budge any farther. Looking up at the arm attached to the door and the pulley illuminated in the beam of the SUV, she could see there was some kind of hook attachment that meshed into the chain like the spokes of a gear. A nylon cord with a red plastic handle at the end hung from the arm, swinging back and forth gently.
The handle screamed, “Pull me!”
Again, she found herself holding her breath as she grasped the plastic handle in her hand and tugged. There was a very distinct click as something disengaged from the chain, but there was no other indication of anything else happening. Was that it? Only one way to find out, she told herself. Emily moved back to the door and, ever so gently, pulled the same handle.
This time the door continued to move past the stop, rumbling and rattling along its tracks. When the door was a foot off the ground, she stopped. What if Simon was outside right now? Waiting for her. He could grab her legs and pull her under the door, and that would be it. She let the door drop to the floor with a clang of rattling metal.
There was no doubt in her mind that whatever controlled Simon was going to hear them trying to escape. When it did it would do whatever it could to get to them. What would happen if she opened the garage door and it was waiting outside? She would have a matter of seconds at most to get to the vehicle, figure out how to drive it, and get out of there. And then what? Where would they go? They had no supplies. Everything, including her bike, backpack, and sat-phone was at the other house.
That was the least of her problems.
She needed to figure out whether she should lift the garage door first and then hope the car started before Simon found them. Or did she start the car first and hope the garage door would open?
“Jesus,” Emily hissed. Despite the cool night air, she felt sweat trickle down the insides of her arms.
It made no sense to raise the barrier between them, she reasoned, only to find that the Dodge would not start. That would leave them completely exposed. Car first. Then worry about the garage doors. She climbed back into the driver’s seat and looked at the kids. “Okay, you two, here we go.” Reaching for the ignition keys, she twisted them all the way forward.
Nothing happened.
“Shit,” she cried and thumped the steering wheel. The engine was dead. They had been through all this only for the fucking SUV to not start? You had to be kidding.
“You have to step on the brake,” said a voice from the backseat. Emily flashed around to face Rhiannon, trying to keep the anger and disappointment from her voice.
“What?”
“You have to step on the brake to start the car,” Rhiannon repeated. “It’s a safety feature,” she added proudly, probably repeating some tidbit of information she had learned from her dad.
Emily looked down at her feet. Which pedal was the brake? It had to be the larger of the two, she reasoned and pressed her left foot down and twisted the ignition key again.
The big V-8 engine of the Dodge Durango exploded into life. It was incredibly loud in the enclosed space of the garage. Emily flipped around and shot a huge smile at Rhiannon, all anger dissipating with the deep roar of the engine. She could already smell the acrid stench of the vehicle’s exhaust seeping through the open driver’s door and gave a little cough. It wouldn’t do to breathe this crap in for very long, but she needed to leave the door open, every second would count. Sorry, kids, she thought as she leaped from the driver’s seat and ran over to the garage door.
She grasped the metal handle again and began pulling with all the strength she had. If there had been any doubt that Simon would not be alerted to their escape attempt, it was quickly dispelled as the door rattled along the tracks, even louder, it seemed to Emily, than the rumble of the SUV’s engine. With the door halfway up, Emily dipped her head under the gap and scanned the area beyond the garage. The light from the SUV illuminated the ground directly in front of the garage, pushing the darkness away. There was no sign of anything waiting outside to grab her. Thank God.
Flipping her grip on the handle she began pushing the door up rather than pulling it. The door was almost at its zenith when Emily heard the clattering of dislodged roof tiles as something huge scrambled over the roof toward her.
“Oh, shit! Oh, shit!”
What was she supposed to do now? The door was still only three-quarters of the way up. She let go of it for a second and watched as it began to slowly slide back toward the ground. She grabbed the handle again and began pushing. There was no way she was going to get back into the car in time to figure out the controls and get out of the garage before the door closed on them again or the thing scrambling across the roof reached her.
Run, her frightened mind screamed. Just leave the kids and run.
No way! There was not a chance in hell that she was going to do that. She would rather just—
She felt the metal garage door click into place. Looking up, she could see the hook had engaged itself again onto the stud on the pulley. She let go of the handle and the door settled back slightly but stayed exactly where it should be, suspended above her head.
“Thank you,” she sighed and sprinted back to the SUV. She was about to clamber into the driver’s seat when a cascade of adobe-colored roof tiles fell to the concrete just outside the entrance of the garage, shattering like broken plates across the drive. Before the last broken piece had skittered across the concrete, a shape dropped from the roof, landing low to the ground just on the other side of the door, red eyes staring unblinking into the lights of the SUV.
“Simon,” she whimpered as she leaped into the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Rhiannon,” Emily yelled. “Cover your brother’s eyes…now!”
Emily pushed the accelerator to the floor and slipped the gear stick into the drive position. There was a squealing noise, and, in the rearview mirror, Emily saw smoke begin to fill the garage. What was she doing wrong? Why weren’t they moving?
Through the windshield, Emily could see Simon, and for a second her heart seemed to stop. He had undergone a stunning metamorphosis. His arms had rotated 180 degrees in their sockets and now jutted forward from each elbow. His legs were impossibly twisted at the knees, so he now walked on all fours rather than upright. The tentacle trailing from the back of Simon’s head pulsed once as it pushed something dark and viscous down its elongated length. Whatever that stuff was had an instant effect on Simon; his neck began to stretch inch by inch until, finally, it had grown in length by six inches or more.