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Tom’s hands were a bloody mess, and he couldn’t even grip the gun. Isabelle was at her mother’s side after she’d made sure Tom was alive.
“Get the gun!” Tom shouted to the girl, and her gaze darted up, looking at him from the front door, where her mother lay unconscious.
Tom was proud of Isabelle Watson as she ran for him, grabbed his gun from the sidewalk, and stalked after Paul. In the distance, sirens rang out, and Tom knew he had to hold on long enough to see this through. He’d lost a lot of blood, and his eyesight was wavering. He pressed against the car and pushed his legs forward, trying to get to Paul.
He arrived miraculously, just in time to see Paul holding his son up by one leg, the boy dangling like he weighed nothing. Paul looked right at him; his eyes were black, mist dancing over the whites, and he smiled, blood covering his teeth and lips.
He dashed away, and Isabelle didn’t hesitate. She fired three rounds after him.
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Darrel fired two quick shots, and the creature cried out and scuttled away. The sound was ear-shattering, a terrible mix of fingernails on a chalkboard and a threatened animal. It was humanoid, frail and thin, long fingers and sharp nails digging into the dirt as it moved between Taylor and Brent. It was a thing out of Taylor’s worst nightmares, previously filled by a nefarious shadow.
It was moving on all fours, and it jumped at Brent, swiping a slender hand at his stomach. Brent fired a round toward it, and it shrieked out in agony. Then Brent crumpled over, and the girl behind him screamed. Taylor had the flashlight in her hand, and the monster had already turned, coming at Darrel, who stumbled trying to aim the long gun in the cramped space.
It bit her uncle on the left arm, and Taylor didn’t hesitate. She clubbed at its bald oval-shaped head with the flashlight, striking firmly. The head was damp; sweat or slime, Taylor didn’t know. Its teeth flashed to her, but she’d injured it. She kept hammering the thing’s head, the flashlight flickering off on impact. She was on the ground now, feeling it climbing up her legs toward her stomach. Its sharp yellow teeth gnashed at her as she struck it repeatedly in the forehead, the flashlight slipping off as many times as it connected.
The sound of the rifle firing rang out beside her, and her ear buzzed. Pain erupted in her head, and she was worried her eardrums had popped, it had been so loud. The flashlight flickered on in her hand, and the creature crumpled to its death on top of her legs. She scrambled away from it, crying and cursing at the same time.
“Brent, are you okay?” she asked, moving the flashlight beam to see him on the ground, motionless.
Darrel kicked the pale creature for good measure, getting it away from Taylor, and he helped her to her feet. “How about you?” he asked, and she saw his arm was bleeding where he’d been bitten. She could see the bone through the torn skin and blood.
“I’m fine.” She ran to Brent’s side and rolled him over. He was bleeding from deep gashes in his stomach, but his eyes fluttered open. Taylor saw a decayed stack of white bones in the corner of the room, picked clean by a ravenous animal, and the young girl stood staring at the flashlight beam highlighting the remains of her two schoolmates.
Darrel ripped off his sleeve from his injured arm and got Taylor to help rip his other sleeve. Once they were tied together, he wrapped them around Brent’s midsection, pulling the makeshift tourniquet tight. “We need to get him up and out of here. The ambulance will arrive soon for Tyler. Bring him upstairs.”
Taylor’s ears rang, and her heart pounded quickly as she helped Brent to his feet. He groaned, looking like he might pass out. The girl wrapped an arm around Brent to help, and Taylor wanted to cry at her courage. “What are you going to do?” Taylor asked her uncle, who couldn’t take his eyes off the revolting monster.
“What every bad horror movie has taught me to do. I’m going to burn the body. Get out of here.”
Taylor got a good look at it now and wondered how something so weak-appearing could be so powerful. This was the Schattenmann? A withered, pale, naked hairless person? Was it human? It may have once been, but the sharp teeth in its oval mouth and the small nose suggested it was something else, something terrible and ancient.
“Burn it. Go out the front,” she said, and watched her uncle cover the thing with his vest as he gagged before picking up the five-foot-tall creature with his good arm and lugging it over a shoulder. It didn’t look like it weighed much. She could only hope the shadow form had died with the corporeal body he was carrying.
A few long minutes later, Taylor was upstairs, a trail of blood left from the cavern to the main entrance. Sirens filled the night air, and she spotted the emergency vehicles approaching by the gravel road. The sheriff was still propped up, eyes alert as they neared.
“What happened?” he asked, his eyes darting to the girl and then to the injured Brent. “Did you…?”
Taylor nodded, and by the time the ambulance and Gilden police cars were in the parking lot, she could see a plume of smoke rising from the other side of the condo building. Her uncle had done it.
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Paul felt the tug of the creature as it vanished from his mind. It shrieked, and so did he, an unearthly sound emerging from his lips. Another bullet hit him in the shoulder, and he counted his blessings, as he’d counted three gunshots.
He released Stevie’s leg, and his son fell to the ground with
