“Do you want to keep going?” Dorran asked. “Or would you feel safer turning back?”
Clare bit her lip. The door to their room was halfway along the passageway, before the intersection. “You know the house better than I do. What do you think?”
He took a slow breath. “My preference would be to continue. The room is still more easily protected than the dining room or kitchen. But I do not want to place you somewhere you will not feel safe.”
“Let’s go on, then. I’ll feel as safe there as anywhere.” As long as you don’t leave me alone.
Dorran shifted his crate and held it under one arm. Then he adjusted the fire poker in the other hand and began moving again.
A floorboard groaned as they passed over it. Clare alternated her attention between the closed bedroom door and the end of the hallway. The sliver of light trembled as the curtains moved. Clare tried to tell herself it was just an air current, nothing more.
Dorran pulled up short, and Clare nearly walked into him. She bent forward, around his arm, trying to see why they had stopped. He stared towards the intersection. Dim light ran over the hallway’s corners. One of the edges was straight. The other was ragged.
Clare’s heart missed a beat. She could just barely make out the edge of one long, limp arm. The stranger was horrifically tall. Its head nearly grazed the ceiling. A ringlet of stringy hair trembled as it breathed.
Dorran flexed his grip on the metal poker and took a step forward. As he did, the figure leaned farther around the corner, its elongated arm swinging.
It gave Clare the impression of a predatory animal. Its hunger drove it forwards while fear anchored it. As Clare and Dorran drew closer, it began to lose restraint over its impulses to hunt.
The door was only ten paces away. Dorran spoke in a whisper. “We will run for the bedroom. If we cannot make it, return downstairs instead.”
She nodded. He reached into the crate then moved forwards in three long paces.
The creature reacted instantly, lurching around the corner. Gangly arms swung aimlessly, but its legs were capable of phenomenally long strides that ate up the distance between them.
Dorran pulled the torch from the crate and let the box drop. It created a deafening bang as it hit the floor. The creature paused midstride. Dorran pressed the switch and lifted the torch in one motion. Harsh light burst down the hallway.
The creature came into sharp relief. It filled the passageway, its head grazing the ceiling. Its face was stretched painfully, an effect emphasised by its slack jaw. The thin, curved neck seemed wrong, as though it had been an accident to stick it between the jutting collarbones. Its eyes were round and shocked. It looked confused. The arms swung like giant pendulums as their momentum went unchecked.
“Go,” Dorran called.
Clare ran for the door. The creature had hesitated in the face of the light. It took a shuffling step forward, massive feet scraping over the carpet, but its eyes stayed fixed on the torch. Dorran followed Clare, holding the torch at arm’s length and directing it at the monster’s uncomprehending face.
Clare reached the door and wrenched it open. She threw her armful of necessities through, praying the blankets would buffer the radio enough to keep it safe, then she reached back out to grab the crate of food. As she dragged it inside, she called, “Okay!”
Dorran kept the torch up as he sidestepped into the room. He slammed the door, turned the lock, then stepped back. With one hand resting on the wood, he listened. The hallway outside was silent, almost quiet enough to make Clare believe they were alone.
But she only had to look at Dorran’s expression to know she hadn’t imagined the monster. Dorran’s eyes were tight, and his jaw was tense. He stepped away from the door, crossed to the fireplace, planted his hands on the couch, and began to push. Clare guessed what he was doing. She dragged the crate out of the way then joined him, and the couch’s feet scraped across the carpet as they pushed it across the room. It thudded to a stop as it hit the door, barricading it.
Clare, her pulse galloping, sank onto the seat. Dorran slid down beside her and ran his hand over his forehead. He looked ashen.
“She was hungry,” Clare said. She wrapped her arms around her chest and rocked gently. “She was frightened of us, but she was starving.”
Dorran rested his hand on her shoulder. A moment later, chills ran through Clare as something brittle scraped against the other side of the door. The sound started high then moved lower, digging into any crevice it could find.
Dorran’s hand tightened over Clare’s shoulder. The creature kept clawing, digging around every seam and crack. Clare held her breath. A moment passed, then the noise faded, replaced with heavy, thumping footsteps moving back down the hall.
Chapter Thirty-One
Dorran exhaled and let his eyes fall closed. He looked exhausted. Clare didn’t feel much better. The bedroom had been their choice, and it was supposed to be their safe haven. But with the creature prowling the hallways, it felt closer to a prison.
Then Dorran’s head snapped up. A look of alarm flashed over his features, and before Clare could ask what was wrong, he darted away. Clare rose onto aching feet to follow him as he moved into the bathroom. As she entered, she saw the second door in the room’s opposite wall, and her stomach flipped. She’d forgotten the bathroom connected them to the hallway through the second bedroom.
Dorran was already at the door. The lock made a muffled clicking noise as he sealed it, then he backed into the bathroom and closed its door, as well. The closest wall held a heavy cabinet, and Dorran put his shoulder against it and pushed it over the tiles until it covered the door as an added precaution. He sighed heavily as the cabinet ground to a halt. “There. Now they cannot get in… at least without making plenty of noise to alert us.”
Clare tried not to think about what they would do if it came to that.
“Would you start the fire, please?” Dorran’s smile was tired but resolute. He stepped past Clare and back into their room. “I will make fully certain that we are alone.”
Clare lowered herself to the rug in front of the hearth. She kept one eye on Dorran as he searched the room, opening wardrobes and checking under the bed. She’d managed to get the kindling lit by the time he returned to her. He carried their crate of supplies and placed it on the edge of the hearth before sitting at her side.
“We are alone as best as I can tell.” He flexed his shoulders and winced. “But if you ever feel that we are not—if you hear something or sense something—please tell me. I will not doubt you again.”
She nodded and poked more sticks on top of the little flaming pile. Dorran fished supplies out of the crate and used a knife to cut through the top of a tin of soup. Once the fire was large enough, he set the pot at the edge of the flames to heat, bending forwards to stir it every few seconds. They didn’t try to talk. Clare was wrapped up in her own thoughts, and she knew Dorran was as well.
Whatever had changed the people in the forest had been spreading across the world. That had been two weeks ago. The last experience Clare had with the outside world had been on the day of the crash when the helicopter passed overhead and disturbed the monsters gathered around her car. Since then, the sky had been bare. No planes. No drones. Nothing that could hint at a military operation. That made it a challenge not to assume the worst.
Marnie was probably gone, either killed by the creatures or swallowed by the quiet zone. That realisation hurt like a fist slamming into Clare’s stomach, and the ache was excruciating. Clare had been responsible for picking up Marnie. Beth had called their aunt to make sure she knew Clare was on the way. She would have waited—probably by the front door, with her luggage at her feet, wearing her favourite floral shirt and knit cardigan—for a rescue that would never come.