Chapter Twenty-Eight
They rushed on in the darkness. Tom clutched his left arm to his chest; he thought it might be broken, but he would worry about that later. Frankie had their only flashlight, and he was up ahead with Patricia. Tom hung a little ways behind them, keeping an eye back along their trail. He couldn’t see much in the darkness, but he felt certain that they were being followed. He had given up the hope that the things might let them go, or give up the chase. Those fucking things meant to kill them all.
Kate was gone. At first the living shadow had chased them around the lobby, playing with them like a cat playing with its prey before the kill, wearing them down, draining them of their energy and will to escape, always careful not to let them get too close to the hall opening off of the lobby. When the shadow finally moved in for the kill it had chosen Kate, perhaps for a reason that Tom would never know, or maybe for no reason at all. The shadow had lifted the young woman off her feet and carried her high, until she was almost brushing the ceiling. She started to scream, but the scream was smothered as the thing pulled her close against itself. Her legs kicked wildly for another moment, and then stopped as they all heard a crunching sound, after which her legs hung limply.
That was when Tom, stunned into immobility, had seen Patricia waving to him from the entrance to the hallway, the one that Frankie had been so afraid of. Frankie had lost that fear evidently, as he had already started down the hall and had disappeared from view. As Tom stepped from the lobby into the hall he heard the sound of Kate’s body hitting the ground.
Now Tom found himself following on the heels of Patricia and Frankie as Frankie tried to find his way back to the window he had used to enter the Home. It was the one way out they were certain of, if they could just find it before they were found themselves. Tom looked ahead, watching Frankie’s light bounce and jostle with each quick step. The only sounds were the sounds of their collective breathing and the scuffing of their shoes on the floor.
They heard screams briefly; they sounded faint and distant, but they were unmistakably masculine. Patricia and Tom exchanged a look; Frankie acted as if he hadn’t heard a thing. And on they went, searching.
“Frankie, are you sure this is the way?” Patricia said up ahead.
“Yeah…I think so. I mean, yeah it is.”
Tom didn’t hear much confidence in the boy’s voice.
Tom slowed his pace a little as he took another look behind them; the way behind them looked empty. He faced forward again to find that Frankie and Patricia had widened the gap between Tom and themselves a bit, and he quickened his pace to catch up. Patricia looked back once to reassure herself that Tom was still there behind them; Frankie was too absorbed in trying to find the way out to pay attention to anything else.
Tom had almost caught up with the other two when he slackened his pace, preferring to stay behind and act as a rearguard. Another hall opened up on their right, but after standing at its mouth for a few seconds, shining his light down its length, Frankie shook his head.
“That’s not the way,” Frankie muttered, mostly to himself.
Instead they turned left down another hall ten yards further up. Patricia threw a few more quick glances back at Tom.
“I’m fine,” he said after one of these glances.
She didn’t say anything back; she just kept moving. They took several more twists and turns, turning back once when Frankie realized he had passed a turn that he should have taken. Tom wondered if the architect of the building had made it such a maze on purpose, or if it was merely an unhappy accident.
When Frankie stopped, he did so suddenly so that Patricia took a few steps past him before stopping herself. Tom stopped as well, and the two adults stood looking at the boy, waiting for him to explain himself.
“That’s it right there,” Frankie said. “That’s the Special Room.”
Up ahead a ways, on the left side of the hall, a door stood ajar. From where they stood they couldn’t see inside the room.
“Let’s go,” Frankie said. “The window I came in through isn’t too far.”
Frankie started forward, but was stopped by Tom’s voice:
“Hold up,” Tom said. “Give me a second.”
Tom went ahead of them, stepping into the Special Room; he wanted to be sure if the kids inside were still alive or not. When he came back out a minute later he looked white as a sheet.
“Go on,” he told Frankie.”
When Frankie and Patricia passed the open door, neither of them looked inside. They moved quickly now that Frankie was sure of his place. As they turned down one hall they passed the limp, ruined form of Kevin, who had escaped from the Special Room only to meet his end there in that hallway. Tom stopped briefly to check for a pulse, and he found none. Frankie kept his gaze averted from the other boy.
When they reached the room with the open window they hustled inside. Tom, the last one inside, closed the door softly. The three of them stood near the window, peering out into the cool summer night. The streetlight beyond the fence threw pools of light across the parking lot that didn’t quite reach the building, but were so inviting.
“You first,” Tom said to Frankie.
Frankie climbed out quickly, dropping down to the ground. Patricia went next. As Tom began working his way through the empty window frame the door behind him burst inward, knocked free of its hinges. Tom saw a moving shadow rushing at him, but he dropped down, falling flat on the ground as Patricia pulled him out of harm’s way.
“Get up!” she commanded.
Tom got to his knees, and then pushed himself up to his feet. They all backed away from the window. For one hope-filled moment it didn’t appear that the thing was going to follow them outside, but then it burst out into the open. Then another one came out. And then another. Tom and his allies found themselves facing three of the living shadows.
‘Run!” Tom yelled.
Frankie was the first to move, and Tom and Patricia followed him. Frankie headed for the space in the fence where he knew the opening was, hoping that once they all got out to the street the shadows would give up the chase.
One of the shadows cut them off, getting between them and the fence, and Frankie turned. Now he had no idea where he was running to, only that he wanted to get away from the damned shadows. Patricia and Tom were still behind him, and all three of the living shadows dipped and swooped among them. The things were still having fun, but Tom felt that the fun would soon end, one way or the other.
The last three members of the group fled together, their hearts pumping hard, their lungs working to supply their muscles with oxygen. They came to a big field that was surrounded by a knee-high wood slat fence on three sides, and they entered through the open end, cutting across it. They were halfway across the field when Frankie tripped, tumbling on the ground. Patricia stopped to help him, but as she tried to pull him up she lost her balance and fell to her knees. Tom grabbed onto both of them, meaning to pull them up to their feet, but the shadows were nearly upon them, bearing down for the kill. Tom crouched low, grimacing as he closed his eyes. And then…
And then nothing happened. Tom opened his eyes; he had been squinting them shut so tightly that at first all he could see were bright speckled stars that floated in his vision for a moment before winking out.
The shadows had backed away from them. From the ground, from at least two dozen points, a fine blue mist was rising up from the earth.
“What’s happening?” Patricia asked.
Tom answered truthfully:
“I have no idea.”
Tom looked at the shadow-things, and strangely he felt fear emanating from them like heat. The spots of blue mist each coalesced into separate forms. Tom saw it almost immediately, but it took him a moment to admit it to himself. They looked like children. Children made of mist.
The mist-children closed in on the shadow-things, and the shadows made a break for the Home, but each one was caught up and pulled down to the ground by wispy blue hands. The
mist-children piled up on them, and together they all, mist-children and shadows alike, started sinking into the ground. The shadow-things bucked and jerked, trying to break free, but the mist-children held on tight, and they all sank deeper. Just as they were about to disappear from sight completely Tom and his friends heard something like a last scream of pain. And then they were gone.
The night was perfectly silent for a minute, and then the normal night symphony of buzzing insects and chirping grasshoppers started up. It was a lovely sound.
The three of them were still crouching together on the ground. Frankie looked up into the stunned faces of Tom and Patricia; he was still wearing the safety goggles.
“Can I go home now?” he asked.