A scream tore its way out of Ken’s throat. Not just fear, but indignation. He was halfway out of the elevator, halfway back to being alive, dammit. What was stopping him?
At first he thought it was Buck. But why would the big man grab him?
Besides, the angle was wrong. This was something else.
The growling started again. Snarling. The ugly and yet subtly hypnotic call of the monsters, and Ken felt himself drawn upwards. He rose to the balls of his feet and realized that one of the things on top of the elevator must have reached down somehow, must have caught him.
Something blinded him. A bouncing light that seemed far too bright and also made his skin crawl, as though the terror that held him tight had also given him temporary synesthesia. He could feel sights and hear colors and smell tastes and everything was mixed up in his mind and he wondered – (Is this what it feels like before you die?) – what was happening.
Something tore Hope away from him. He screamed. Reached for her. The thing slapped his hand down. “Stop!” shouted a voice.
Christopher. The light Ken was seeing was the penlight the younger man had appropriated from Buck. And now Christopher was yanking at him. Trying to pull Ken the rest of the way out of the elevator.
But the thing above wouldn’t let go. Ken felt his neck popping. Felt like his head would be yanked free from his shoulders.
Smoke poured out of the elevator around him.
The elevator jounced again. Dropped another inch. Ken saw an image of Buck holding the decapitated head. Wondered if he would be severed so cleanly in half along his vertical axis.
No, it’ll be messier.
Christopher pulled harder. So did the thing on top.
The elevator was groaning and moaning like a living thing about to give in to a fatal wound.
And then something hit Ken on the back of the head.
73
Where a moment before Christopher’s light had blinded Ken, now he could barely see it. His vision blurred, then doubled momentarily. He blinked, tried to shake his head. Couldn’t.
What’s –
Why can’t –
Something’s got me.
The jumble of thoughts resorted themselves just in time for something to hit him again. Christopher was pulling him forward, the monster that had reached down from on top of the elevator was pulling him up. The elevator was about to fall.
And whump.
Ken’s vision didn’t blur this time, but rather exploded into a collection of sparklers. The kind the kids loved to run around with on the Fourth of July. Giggling and laughing in half-joy, half-terror: caught up in the ecstasy of the celebration, but at the same time dreadfully afraid of being burnt. Little hands held as far from little bodies as possible. Little mouths wrinkled in fear-smiles. Laughter that tilted into ranges that blurred with hysteria. When you were a child, the lines between euphoria and panic could disappear in an instant.
But they loved the things. Loved the sparklers that Ken now saw everywhere in his eyes, in his mind.
Especially Derek.
Have to buy extra for him this year.
But he’s dead, isn’t he?
Another thud. Ken felt wetness on the back of his neck. Warmth flowing down his skin.
Stop hitting me.
Third concussion. Or is it my fourth?
What’s the world record for noggin knocks?
Someone call Guiness!
His thoughts were just so much loose change rattling in his skull. But he was suddenly aware that he was no longer lighter than himself. The thing that had been pulling him upward had stopped yanking at him.
In fact… he turned his head. Slowly. It took longer than it should have. His neck creaked like a rusty hinge.
He was out of the elevator.
Everything was illuminated in flickering half-shadows. Ken couldn’t tell if that was because something was wrong with Christian’s light – (Wait, is his name Christian or Christopher? Or just Chris? What’s his name again? Derek?) – or with his own vision. Maybe both. Perhaps all three.
Three? What three? Aren’t there more of us? Not just three? Derek, Liz, Hope?
Hope isn’t one of us.
You’re losing it, Ken.
Everything seemed disjointed. Separated. But he managed to make out Buck through the gap in the elevator doors and through the clouds of acid-smoke that poured out of the cab. The big man – more a silhouette than a featured figure – threw something round behind him – (It’s a head where did he get a head why isn’t he wearing his head?) – and then leaped for the gap.
Behind Buck, bright streams of black light poured down. A sound like bacon frying chittered into the air.
“Move!” someone shouted.
It’s the cowboy man. The killer man.
Buck made it to the doors. Pushed himself into the gap.
The elevator started to fall out from under his back foot.
Metal pinged. Popped.
Buck’s face slackened. He looked… relieved. Like he’d been hoping for this.
And the elevator fell out from beneath him.
74