Amber stood back up and scanned the room again. They had been over it three times. Alan and Liz had pointed the flashlight at oblique angles while Amber stabbed at shadows and corners with her stake. There was no sign that more of the creatures had gotten in, but they were close—Amber could feel it down in her stomach.
“I don’t think they’re fast at all,” Amber said. “I think I was in the bathroom for a long time and you guys were passed out on the bed.”
“No,” Liz said. “We were fully awake. I would swear to it.”
“Is it like a trance?” Alan asked.
“Yeah,” Amber said. “I think it is. The tapping made me go unconscious on the toilet. Meanwhile, you guys were hypnotized here on the bed. That gave them all the time they needed to dissolve the tape and manipulate the lock. They operate on instinct, and it’s a very clever instinct. They know how to hunt people.”
“That’s horrifying,” Liz said.
“Next time they come tapping,” Amber said. “We have to make as much noise as we can. We can talk, shout, and play music on our phones. Anything in order to mask the sound of the tapping. I think they use tapping for a number of things—location, moving things around, and hypnosis.”
“That sounds crazy, but when all the evidence points to an idea, it’s only crazy if you ignore it,” Liz said.
“What else do we know about them?” Alan asked. “How many of them are there?”
“I have no idea,” Amber said.
“That’s not true,” Liz said. “We have some idea. We know that there was at least one trying to get in when we forced the window shut.”
“And one was tapping during the beginning of the attack. It was coming from this wall,” Alan said.
“So that’s at least two more out there,” Liz said. “Did Nick say how many things he saw attack Riley?”
Amber shook her head. “I don’t think he knew. What if Riley is one of them?”
“You think that’s a possibility?” Liz asked.
Amber paced in the space between the bed and the wall.
“I don’t know. My neighbor said that a scratch could transmit the infection. I think that means that he caught it through a scratch. It took him a while to become one of them. But what if a bite…”
“Transmits the infection more quickly,” Liz said.
“Exactly,” Amber said. “He said that he killed thirteen of them. If this pack is of a similar size, that leaves ten more out there—more if Riley is already one of them.”
“No,” Alan said. “I think we can dismiss that possibility. The more I think about it, this infection can’t be that virulent, right? I mean, if they could convert someone in a matter of hours, how would we still have any people left on this planet? Something like that would spread faster than Ebola.”
“Unless they die really quickly,” Amber said. “What if they only live a few weeks? What if winter reduces their numbers?”
“What if this infection is new?” Liz suggested.
Amber stopped pacing. She turned towards Liz with horror spreading on her face.
Liz’s voice trembled as she continued her thought. “Maybe the migrators caught some disease and became these things. It could be that the mechanism for spreading the disease to humans is something brand new and by next year it will have spread to everyone. We could be witnessing the beginning of the end of humanity.”
“Don’t say that, Liz,” Alan said.
“Don’t say that? Can we afford to ignore the possibility?” Liz asked. “Alan, we could be at a tipping point here. We might only have one chance to get this right. We might have to grab Joe and make a run for an island and get as far away from these things as possible. It might be our only chance for survival.”
“Why an island?” Amber asked. “Didn’t you say that your version of these things come from the water?”
“The migrators do travel through water, yes. It might only be freshwater though,” Alan said. “An island in the ocean might be safe.”
“Until they travel in the hold of a ship or whatever,” Amber said.
“Let’s try to stay sane here,” Alan said. He stood up and ran the flashlight across the curtains, looking for any movement. “First things first—we have to survive the night and make it until sunrise, right? That’s our only priority. In the light of day, we can make a rational decision about what to do.”
“Maybe,” Amber said.
“What does that mean?” Alan asked.
“Maybe,” Amber said again. “Sometimes, in the sunlight, we want everything to be simple and explainable and we forget about what it felt like at night. Sometimes, it’s not possible to remember everything as clearly as you want to. You need the fear. You need to not let yourself forget.”
“She has a point, Alan,” Liz said.
He started to raise his voice. “Well it doesn’t change the fact that we have to survive the night in order to do anything tomorrow.”
After a pause, he shook his head.
“I’m sorry. Listen, I’m not discounting the idea that this might be the end of the world, but does that mean you want to try to go out there now?”
Liz thought about it, looking between the blocked door and the windows. Finally, she shook her head.
“Then can we please put all of our attention on trying to make this room as secure as possible?”
“Yes,” Liz said.
Amber held out for even longer before she agreed. “Yes.”
“Is there anything more you can tell us about the seeds?” Alan asked.
# # #
With Nick’s arm slung over his shoulder, Ricky practically carried him down the hall. When he found an unmarked door, Ricky leaned Nick against the wall and handed him the flashlight. The handle had a simple lock, but Ricky didn’t even need to try to break it. With a pocketknife, Ricky pushed the latch to the side and swung the door out.
It was a
