She wiped her running nose with the back of her hand. “He must have gone to the kitchen first, because he had a knife. Before Anna or I could stop him, he…”
She broke off, sobbing. I placed my hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
“He got James and Malik right away. Anna tried to stop him and he stabbed her and then Danielle. I was so scared. I had the guns in my hands and I didn’t even think to use them. I guess there wasn’t time, anyway. He was stabbing Anna again, so I dropped the guns and jumped on his back. We wrestled, and I got the knife away from him and I-I stabbed him. I stabbed him in the neck. It got stuck and I couldn’t pull it back out. But there’s so much blood. Why is there so much blood?”
“Sarah, check the kids.” I kissed Lori’s forehead and brushed the hair from her eyes. I soothed her with assurances that it would all be okay, even though I knew it wouldn’t.
I examined Anna while Sarah bent over the kids’ bodies. It didn’t look good. Anna’s insides peeked at me through the wound, pink and glistening.
“How are the kids?” I asked Sarah.
She shook her head, turned away, and began to weep.
Anna smiled at me and tried to speak.
“We’ve got to put pressure on this,” I told her. “You just hang in there, Anna.”
“No,” she rasped, “that won’t do any good. It’s too late, Kevin. Too late for us all.”
“Bullshit.” I tried to smile, but it felt phony. “We’ll have you fixed up in a jiffy.”
“He killed my babies.” She raised one trembling hand and pointed at Lee. “He killed my babies. Why? He seemed like such a nice man…”
“I don’t know.”
Her eyes suddenly seemed far away.
“Look,” she sounded surprised. “Is that the sun? It’s so bright.”
She exhaled, her chest collapsing. She did not breathe in again.
I reached out and closed her eyes with two fingers. Then I bent over and kissed her on the head. Her skin was wet.
“Good-bye, Anna.”
After endless days of rain, she’d seen the sun again. I figured we’d see it, too, before the night was done.
Taking Lori by the hand, I pulled her to her feet. The building trembled again and there was a loud crash on the floor below us. The hallway swayed under our feet. Lori grabbed onto me to keep from toppling over.
“What’s happening?” she screamed.
“It’s that thing. Leviathan. It’s destroying the building. Water’s coming in from the top.”
“The lower levels are flooding, too,” Lori said. “Mindy and I saw it when were looking for guns. Where is she, anyway?”
I shook my head. “It got her. And the others, too.”
“All of them?” she gasped.
“Except for me, you, Sarah, and maybe Salty. Have you seen him anywhere?”
“Salty? No. Just…” She pointed back to the bodies in the lobby.
Sarah got to her feet. “I’m going to find him. He might be hurt.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to stay here with Lori. Be careful.”
“Good luck.” She started down the hall.
“You too,” I called after her. Then she was gone.
Another tremor struck, bouncing me off the wall. Chunks of plaster rained down on us. Deep inside the walls, something groaned.
Lori wiped her eyes. “Kevin, will you hold me?”
“Yeah.” I swallowed. “I’d like that very much.”
“We’re not going to make it, are we?”
I started to lie to her, but I couldn’t. Not anymore.
“No,” I said, “we’re not going to make it, Lori. Not with that thing outside. It would kill us as soon as we tried to escape. We’re trapped.”
“Let’s go to your room, then. I want to smell the pine tree in your garden while you hold me, and I want to fall asleep before it happens. I can fall asleep in your arms and not wake up.”
“Okay. That sounds good.” Personally, I wondered how the hell we’d be able to fall asleep while a monster ripped the roof off the building, but I didn’t ask.
We made it back to my room while the creature tore the building apart around us. We lay down on the bed, not bothering to remove our wet clothes and boots, and our bodies entwined. Legs, groins, chests, and arms—we were as close to each other as two human beings could be. The rain hammered at the skylight, rattling it in its frame, but I ignored the noise, concentrating solely on Lori. I wondered how we’d go. I hoped that the water would flood our level and engulf us. Drowning was better than being crushed under the wreckage—or suffering the same fate as those on the roof. I thought about Mike being eaten alive by the tentacles and silently vowed that Lori wouldn’t meet the same fate. I’d kill her myself, if I had to, before I’d let that happen.
“Can you smell the pine?” she murmured.
“Yes. It smells good. Not much else grew in that garden, but the tree did okay. Maybe I wasn’t such a bad gardener after all.”
She nodded against my chest and closed her eyes.
I closed mine as well. It wasn’t bad. Not bad at all. It felt good. Right. Leviathan’s rage was nothing more than background noise, faint and distant.
“I love you, Lori.”
“I love you, too.”
This was a good way to die, surrounded by the warmth of someone you loved.
So when there was a knock at the door, you can understand why I was pissed. Lori gasped in surprise and I jumped as well. Something heavy crashed into the ocean with a loud splash as the second knock came.
“A tentacle?” Lori asked.
“Can’t be,” I whispered. “I don’t think they can reach that far, and I don’t think it knows how to knock.”
“Salty? Or Sarah, maybe?”
“It has to be. Who else?”
A third knock, more insistent.
Lori sat up. “We can’t just leave them out there, Kevin.”
“No, I guess we can’t.”
I got up, sloshed to the door, and opened it on the fourth knock. Salty grinned at me, appearing embarrassed. Sarah stood behind him. Both of them looked small and afraid.
“We’re sorry, Kevin,” Salty said. “But we just didn’t want to be alone.”
“It’s okay,” I told them. “Come on—”
Behind me, the skylight exploded, showering the bed and the garden with shards of broken glass and rain. Lori screamed. I turned in time to see the tentacle lift her from the bed and yank her through the hole.
“Lori!”
I ran towards her, and jumped up on the garden table. I reached for her, and she reached back, but it was too late. The image is burned into my mind, her arms outstretched, her face frozen in terror. With a final scream—a scream cut short by the creature’s squeeze—she was gone. Leviathan pulled her out into the night. Rain poured through the gaping hole where the skylight had been. I collapsed underneath it, sinking to the floor, shrieking and clenching sods of dirt from the garden in my fists. Broken glass cut my hands and my blood mixed with the mud.
Then, the hole in the ceiling grew dark again. I sensed it even before Salty and Sarah cried out in alarm. I looked up and stared straight into that huge, malevolent, yellow eye. Leviathan stared back at me.
I shook my bloody fists. “Give her back!”
“Kevin,” Sarah shouted. “Get away from there!”
I stayed where I was, rooted to the garden, staring into Leviathan’s eye.
It blinked once, and then, with one last fading cry, it was gone, vanishing into the rainy night.
Revenge. During the raid, the Satanists told us that the mermaid was Leviathan’s bride. I’d killed its lover, so now it had killed mine in return. Call it the laws of nature or the circle of fucking life.
Blood streamed from my clenched fists. I lifted my face to the skies and the rain showered me. The droplets rolled off my cheeks and into the garden. They were seeds. Rain seeds. My own tears joined them, and I wept like the sky. I had finally learned how to cry.