I couldn’t see Ramsey—hell, I couldn’t see my hand two inches away from my face—but I sensed him the same way I sensed the growing presence of the wraiths outside. So I pushed outward and hit him in the chest.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Why’d you do that?” I could barely hear myself.
I clenched, expecting a blow to the jaw. No punch ever came, however, and Ramsey said, “I-I don’t know. I was—am—fuckin’ scared.”
“All the power’s shut off now! And Mia—shit! We’re screwed!”
The monsters continued beating the tunnel walls. The sound was like heavy raindrops on a tin roof during a summer thunderstorm.
Ramsey pushed past me. “Find your lighter, I might be able to fix it.”
I dropped to my hands and knees and began patting the concrete. Unable to feel much through the material of my gloves, I took one off. The concrete was so cold that my hands, mostly numb to begin with, lost feeling completely. I ended up finding the lighter by the noise of its plastic casing scraping the ground.
I picked it up and handed it to Ramsey. He struck the wheel. Now the small flame’s light stretched farther than it had before. Some of the shadows shrieked and backed away.
“Gimme my keys,” Ramsey said. He still sounded scared—terrified—but he was trying, at least. I found the keys not far from where I found the lighter and passed them to him. A few seconds later, he opened the trailer door. The smell of smoke punched my nose and stung my eyes. In the back right corner of the main room, one of the batteries was doing more than sparking.
“Oh fuck,” Ramsey said, but instead of running out like I wanted to do, he ran toward the small blaze. A cabinet—one of the few still intact—creaked opened. In the dimness, I saw Ramsey pull a fire extinguisher from it. He yanked the ring, and then sprayed a white cloud over the flames.
Now I heard nails raking down the outside of the trailer mixing with the monster’s low moans and babbling. I ground my teeth at this cacophony.
“Is it fixable?” I asked.
“Not right now. It’d take some time.” He hit himself; I heard his palm slapping his skin. “Goddamn it, Grady, why’d ya have to try to steal the gun from me!?”
“Me? I was trying to stop you from letting them in. They don’t need much of an invitation if the whole fucking wall’s blown open!”
Ramsey yelled in frustration.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Let’s just focus right—”
The trailer rocked to the side. I nearly lost my balance and stumbled toward the door, but I grabbed the wall before I could crack a few of my teeth.
Ramsey, unfortunately, wasn’t so quick. He went sprawling into the batteries. The clank of his skull connecting with the floor brought a queasy feeling to the pit of my stomach.
“Ramsey? Are you okay?” I held on as the trailer teetered to the other side. I couldn’t see a thing, and I could hardly concentrate with the groaning sounds of the metal and the monsters’ laughter.
The trailer came down with a crash. One of my knees buckled, and I took a seat on the floor. Leaning forward, I felt for Ramsey’s body with both hands, one of which happened to be bare. That hand made contact with a battery, and I snapped it away in pain. The hot casing grilled my fingers, and the scent of charred flesh, a scent I was familiar with after our stay in Woodhaven, overpowered the smell of melting plastic.
To my relief, Ramsey groaned. “Shit, where am I?”
I crawled to him, careful to avoid anymore burning batteries. He was crammed into the space where a small table once stood. I grabbed his arms and helped him to his feet as the trailer began rocking again. Together we limped in the direction of the dark tunnel. I kept my lighter clutched in hand. If I had tried striking it for much-needed light, it would only have gone out. I figured we could sprint the distance without problem, get inside, slam the door behind us, and be all right.
I figured wrong.
Halfway to the theater’s entrance, something swiped by my face. The icy wind stirred the hair on the side of my head.
“Come here, Grady!” a venomous voice snapped.
Ramsey and I staggered away. Once I found my balance, I struck the lighter and saw a bare arm hanging through one of the bullet holes.
It was long, as if it had been made of rubber and stretched and squeezed over and over again. Its sagging skin was gray, the color of a corpse. The wiry hairs covering it were black, and it ended in a hand as big as a catcher’s mitt. The fingers were gangly, thin. Yellowed nails curled at the tips, brittle and cracked.
I wanted to let go of the button on my lighter, because in the darkness, I couldn’t see the horrors. But even if I had thought doing so was a good idea, I couldn’t move my thumb. I was frozen, bolted to the ground.
The thing’s other arm pushed through the hole, and then its head…then, craning its neck, the monster showed its face.
I saw it in all of its terrible glory, but even a glimpse would’ve been enough to fuel nightmares for the rest of my life.
The face was as Ramsey had described earlier, as if God had taken His almighty thumb and pressed down on the person’s features. Yet it was no gentle god who’d done this to the thing in the tunnel, because the monster was anything but a work of art.
The face had been indented so hard and deep that the eyes were shifted toward the ears, bloodshot and tallowy. The nose was a squashed whirlpool of cartilage with hints of bone jutting from the twisted flesh. And the mouth… I can’t even begin to do justice to the
