On the left side of the hallway, at the boundary of sunlight and shadow, he could see a bloody smear on the wall — a handprint leaving a long red trail to the floor below, like a painting of an outstretched arm, a hand reaching for help as its body is dragged back into the blackness.
Someone had died there. And it hadn’t been pretty.
His mind was racing: An animal did it, big animal no that’s impossible but her wounds looked like a tiger had torn her apart but that can’t happen…
In unison, both officers flicked on their flashlights, pointing them in line with their weapons, illuminating where they’d shoot. The dual beams of light flashed down the hallway, the small glass shards on the floor sparkling like diamonds.
The light revealed carnage.
Shoes. A couple of purses. A briefcase. What looked like a janitor’s mop bucket? Items were strewn along the hallway, each lying near — or in — a pool of dark, thick redness. Many people had died here. Right where they stood. But there were no bodies.
“Jesus Christ!” Knowlton whispered, just loud enough for his partner to hear. A drop of ice-cold sweat trickled down his neck.
A whisper back. “I don’t think Jesus had anything to do with this.”
Suddenly, his instincts screamed at him — it was an odd feeling, coming out of nowhere, but incredibly strong. A feeling of impending danger. Turning toward his partner, Knowlton said simply, “I think we need to get out of here.”
Before his partner could answer, the air was filled with an odd chattering sound, a clicking noise coming from the darkened hallway. Both officers immediately pointed their flashlights toward the far end of the hall, where it branched off into two perpendicular hallways, both out of view. There was nothing at the end of the hall. Nothing but the strange sounds.
“Do you hear that?” Knowlton asked. “What the hell?”
For a moment, as they faced each other, both officers lowered their flashlights, returning the hallway to darkness.
And then, they came.
The hallway erupted in an earsplitting roar, a bizarre chattering, a clicking, so sudden and intense that it slammed into the stunned police officers like a thunderclap, nearly knocking them off their feet. Knowlton grimaced with pain as needles of sound stabbed at his ears, the noise so indescribably loud that he could feel it reverberating deep within his chest.
As he stared down the hall through squinting, terrified eyes, all the inexplicable events he’d seen and heard that morning — the deserted city streets, the panicky radio calls, and the dead woman’s horrific wounds — suddenly made perfect sense.
For a second, he didn’t move. He didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. Recoiling from the vision before him, Knowlton took a step backward as hundreds of yellow eyes, shining brightly like pinpoint flames, bounded toward them down the length of the darkened hallway, covering every inch of the floor, the walls, and the ceiling as they came, moving at an astonishing rate of speed. At that moment, he knew he was a dead man, just as dead as the woman outside on the street. These things had killed her. And they would kill him, too.
Adrenaline pumped wildly into his bloodstream. Everything began to move in slow motion.
As he reached for his pistol, Knowlton heard a sharp popping sound to his left as his partner began to fire, spent 9mm brass spinning through the air as he quickly emptied his clip.
Closer.
Fifteen yards.
The second hand on Knowlton’s watch clicked forward another second, an eternity passing in a single mechanical action of delicately machined steel springs and interlocking gears.
Ten yards.
He wanted to shut his eyes, to avoid looking into the hurtling death that would slam into him in a matter of moments, but at the last instant he regained his senses. He aimed his own pistol and began to squeeze the trigger. Again. Again. And again. Aiming at the glowing eyes. There were so many of them!
His partner suddenly turned and ran toward the shattered entrance, a full clip of ammunition — never inserted into his weapon — bouncing on the floor, dropped when he’d made the snap decision to abandon his partner and run for his life.
As the things began to emerge from the shadows, Knowlton noticed the wave began to slow. He could see his targets more clearly and was shocked at what he saw — they were rats! Hundreds of them! But they weren’t rats, were they? They couldn’t be! They were huge! Clawed and fanged, muscles rippling under coarse hides covered with wire-like hair — no, these definitely weren’t normal rats. They were an abomination.
Three of the things slid into the sunlight, their claws squeaking as they skidded across the marble floor, desperately trying to halt their momentum. Their mouths opened wide, revealing rows of knife-edged teeth framed by stiletto fangs.
Bathed by the sunlight now, they began to shriek.
They contorted their muscular bodies, squirming on the floor like animals crushed under the wheels of a truck, enduring a few seconds of absolute misery on the asphalt before life mercifully slipped away.
The rest of the things piled upon one another, just at the boundary of light and shadow. They formed a living, screeching wall, each vicious yellow-eyed beast tossing long strings of saliva from a snarling mouth, each bright eye fixed on the prey that stood just feet away. So close. But they would come no farther.
Two of the creatures slowly clawed their way back toward the pack. They were pulled into the undulating wall in a flurry of claws and fangs, and torn to shreds. The weak providing sustenance for the strong.
The third one was stronger. The incredible hunger was too great for this one. In spite of the pain, it continued. It had to. It knew nothing else.
With a last burst of strength, it pounced.
Knowlton screamed and fell to his knees as the creature’s fangs entered his left thigh, cutting through nearly to the bone. He instinctively reached down with his free hand to grab at his attacker, but it was attached to his leg like a vise. Panicky, he swatted at the thing, trying desperately to break its grip on his thigh, but it was too strong.
Knowlton remembered his gun. He aimed carefully, but found it hard to focus. His eyes — there was something wrong with his eyes! He tried to pull the trigger, but stared in disbelief as his weapon dropped from his right hand, which to his horror was contorted into a clawed club of swollen joints and crooked bones, perched at the end of what was now an oddly curved forearm. He grabbed the gun from the floor with his left hand and squeezed the trigger. A single shot tore into the thing’s head, splattering gore across the floor. It dropped from his thigh and thudded to the floor, a foamy ring of blood covering its snout. His blood. He tried to kick his legs to scoot away, but suddenly realized they weren’t working. His arms weren’t working, either! His limbs felt like they were on fire!
He watched helplessly as his arms and legs kicked and flailed about wildly, as if he were a marionette being danced about the stage by a crazed puppeteer. He heard the loud snap of bones breaking as his legs zigzagged in the air like a child’s crude drawing of a lightning bolt.
The changeling fury moved up his body toward his head, turning his lower torso into a quivering mass of vibrating muscle and greasy, twisting viscera. His entire body was racked by unimaginable pain, a sledgehammer of flame searing every fiber of his being. He tried to scream, but his lungs were no longer functioning.
In his last few moments of sentient thought, he felt as if he were being torn apart from the inside out, exploding in a million different directions at once. A big, bloody Fourth of July firework at the end of the show. Burning out. Ceasing to exist. And then, there was blackness.