Exodus

CHAPTER TWELVE

Emily’s feeling of relief disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.

There was something wrong with Simon. The way he stood, his hands draped at his sides, his eyes wide open, staring directly at them, his mouth a thin slit, the way his chest barely seemed to move. It looked like Simon, but it just didn’t feel like Simon. His energy just felt unnatural.

She felt Ben start to move from her side toward his father. Heard his ecstatic cry of “Daddy” as he took a step closer.

“Stop!” Emily yelled, her voice like a crack of thunder in the stillness of the virgin night, her hand automatically reaching out and grabbing the little boy’s shoulder, slowing him before he could get out of her reach. “Stop,” she said again, more gently this time, as she swung the boy around and dropped down to face him. “That’s not your daddy, Ben. That’s…someone else.”

“No!” he yelled at Emily while at the same time tearing loose of her grip. He turned and sped across the grass toward Simon, his little legs eating up the ground at a frighteningly rapid pace. The spell that had grasped Emily so firmly broke; she was back in reality watching as the boy raced across the fifty or so feet separating them from Simon.

“Oh, Jesus,” she whispered, casting a quick glance over her shoulder. Rhiannon must have sensed something was not right with the scene because she seemed glued to the spot of grass she was standing on, a look of horror and confusion painted across her pale face.

“Stay here,” she ordered the girl. Then Emily was off, chasing after the kid, her feet sliding on the damp grass, searching for traction.

Simon did not move to intercept them; he stood as still as the trees behind him, his face expressionless and his hands resting flat against his thighs, like a soldier at attention.

There was maybe twenty feet left between the kid and his father when a blur of motion exploded past Emily on her right and made like a missile directly for the running boy. It caught up with him in a second, skidding to a stop between the child and Simon, blocking the kid’s path. Ben collided with the flank of Thor, bounced off him, and flew three feet backward through the air, a surprised “Oomph!” whistling from his throat as he landed on his butt on the grass.

“Bad For! Bad doggy!” the little boy cried, his voice a high-pitched wail as he struggled to get to his feet. Thor was back at the kid’s side in a second, dancing around the child and keeping him from standing.

It was all the time Emily needed to scramble after the boy and close the final gap separating her and Ben. She grabbed the spluttering kid with one arm under both of his shoulders, scooping Ben up in one fluid movement, even as he struggled and kicked against her, pulling him tight to her side.

Despite his son’s obvious distress, Simon did not move to help him.

“Daddy!” Ben cried, both hands reaching out to Simon. “Iwannnnntmyyydaddddddy.”

Perhaps the sound of his son’s voice struck a chord deep within Simon’s mind or perhaps it was simply coincidence, but as Ben’s sorrowful howl faded into the dark, Simon took a single jerking, almost robotic, step toward them.

“Oh, shit!” The first step was followed by another hesitant, wobbling step toward Emily and the boy.

Thor was back at her feet now, his attention focused on the boy under Emily’s arm, until he caught sight of Simon’s tottering steps in their direction. Snarling, the malamute turned and faced the advancing man.

“No!” Emily yelled. “Come here, Thor. Back up.” The dog threw a look at Emily, then back at Simon, who had moved another step closer. For a second, Emily thought Thor was going to disobey her and attack, but an instant later he was at her side.

She began to back away from Simon, unwilling to turn her back on him for a second. Ben cried his father’s name, both hands reaching out toward the shuffling figure.

Simon’s face remained expressionless, seemingly unmoved by his son’s dilemma, but with each step he took his head swayed slightly—first right, then to the left, as though the muscles in his neck were unable to hold the weight of his head. If it hadn’t been for the almost ramrod-straight posture of the rest of his body, she might think he was drunk.

With each faltering step forward Simon took, Emily managed two backward. If she didn’t have Ben tucked under her arm, she would have simply turned and run for her life, but she had to think about Ben and Rhiannon. She had no idea what was wrong with their father, but there was no way she was going to let him get close to either of them until she figured it out. She didn’t want to hurt him, but if he had suffered some kind of breakdown or the red dust had managed to affect him in some way, then she was going to have—

Simon teetered out of the long shadows of the trees and into a bright pool of moonlight.

He was fully illuminated now, and Emily could see there was something very wrong with him.

Slick black tendrils, each edged with small wicked-looking barbs, glistened in the light of the moon. Emily could see two of them jutting out from either side of Simon’s spine just above his shoulder blades. They arced up above his head and back into the shadows, as though they sprouted from the very darkness itself. A third snakelike tentacle spiraled from the darkness and attached to the back of Simon’s head, terminating at the point where Simon’s spine met his skull. An instant before Simon took each step, Emily could see the barbed tubes pulse as though they were moving liquid under pressure from whatever was hidden in the darkness to Simon. Or maybe they were issuing instruction, she thought, as the tentacles throbbed again and Simon took another faltering step, as if on the command of some strange puppet master.

Emily swung a struggling Ben around so his head was pressed deep into her shoulder; there was no telling how he would react if he saw his father like this. The boy squirmed and complained, but she kept him pressed as tightly to her as she could without risking suffocating him. She took another step backward, then braced and forced herself to turn away from Simon and whatever was controlling him.

Standing in front of her, rooted to the spot, was Rhiannon, her jaw hanging loosely open, a look of abject terror spread across her face. Emily could see the girl’s eyes were wide and fixed on her father; there was little doubt the girl had seen what Emily had seen. Well, there was nothing she could do about that now. She had no idea what had captured Simon, but, if her previous experience with the new life-forms wandering the planet were anything to go by, they weren’t there to say hi and invite themselves to a Mets game. The most important thing right now was to get them all as far away from here as possible. She could figure out what to do next when they were all safe.

“Rhiannon,” Emily said as loudly as she could without frightening the girl or the still-wriggling boy clasped in her arms. The girl didn’t even register Emily’s presence; she just kept staring back at her slowly advancing father. Emily chanced a look back over her shoulder. Simon had moved a few steps closer; he was near enough now that she could make out the bloodless pallor of his skin and the black pits of his eyes.

“Rhiannon!” Emily spat, her voice sharp enough to cut through the terror enveloping the girl. Her eyes flicked to Emily, then darted back to her father, then back again to Emily. This time they stayed fixed on her. “I need your help, baby. I can’t explain what’s happening to your dad, but we have to get out of here, right now, okay?”

Rhiannon’s eyes stayed locked with Emily’s for a second, then drifted back toward Simon. He was close enough now that she could hear his feet dragging through the damp grass, snapping twigs underfoot like a character from some bad zombie movie. It was all Emily could do not to scream and run. Instead she spoke as calmly as she could, “Honey, we have to get out of here. We have to get you and your brother to the Jeffersons’ house, now.” The words tumbled from her mouth in one breath, but still the kid refused to move.

Shit! Think. Think.

“We have to get the dweeb out of here, Rhiannon. Do you understand me? We have to save the dweeb.”

Recognition flickered across Rhiannon’s face for a moment; it wasn’t much, but it was enough. Emily shifted the boy from her right arm to her left, grabbed Rhiannon by the sleeve with her free hand, and pulled her in the direction of the house. The girl stumbled backward for a few paces, still looking back at her dad, but then she shook free of Emily’s grasp, swung around, and started to stride toward the house. Emily could see a glint of tears trickling down her cheek, but there was a resoluteness to her face now that Emily thought she had seen in her own face during the first few days after the rain. The fear was there, too, in her eyes, but the kid was doing her best to keep her foot firmly on its throat.

Thor ran right alongside Rhiannon. Occasionally he would stop, look back, and glare at Simon. Then he’d wait for Emily and the boy to catch up and then run on to catch up with Rhiannon, who was quickly increasing the gap between Emily and her brother.

“Rhiannon,” Emily yelled between panting breaths. “Head for your dad’s car.” She wasn’t sure the girl had heard her, but Emily saw her change course away from the house and head toward her father’s parked car. Rhiannon reached the car and pulled open the unlocked passenger side door. Instead of jumping in and slamming the door she stood in the V of the open door and waited.

“Give me my brother,” she demanded, holding her arms out for the boy as Emily caught up with her a few seconds later.

“Here,” said Emily, lowering the boy down to the ground. Ben immediately grabbed his sister around the waist, burying his head into her stomach. “Don’t let him out of your reach,” she warned the girl.

Emily looked back to where Simon was. He was still advancing toward them, inexorably placing one foot after the other, but he was terribly slow, plodding almost. It was as if the dynamics of walking were alien to whatever had taken hold of Simon, which, she surmised was probably closer to the truth than she cared to admit. Emily had a sense of something dark looming in the shadows just out of sight, but it kept to the darkness as though trying to convince them that it really wasn’t there. That was fine by Emily. It gave her time.

She ran around to the driver’s side of the car and pulled open the door, feeling for where the ignition should be and, hopefully, the keys. The ignition was empty. She slipped her hand between the center console and driver’s seat, checked the cup holders and glove compartment, just in case. Finally, she flipped down both sun visors, hoping Simon might have stashed the keys there. He hadn’t of course. And why would he have? They were probably in his pants pocket.

There was no way she was going to head back through the woods in the dark with whatever this thing was on the loose. Under its control, Simon was barely able to move at the pace of an eighty-year-old, but who knew how fast it really was? And who was to say what would happen if it suddenly decided to drop Simon and come after them directly? She had to get the kids to safety, and the only thing resembling that was the Jeffersons’ home.

“Come on, Rhiannon. Bring your brother. We’re heading to the house,” Emily said as she jogged back around the vehicle to the passenger side. Ben was back on his feet and standing next to his sister; her hand was clamped firmly around his. He seemed to have calmed down a little but refused to look at Emily, shrugging off her hand when she ushered him gently in the direction of the house, allowing his sister to lead him instead.

Emily walked behind the kids, occasionally glancing back in Simon’s direction, as she and Thor herded the two children in the direction of the front door of the house.

Ben clung to his sister, his legs unable to keep up with her faster pace. He had to give a little skip every other step to keep up with her. Emily was surprised at how quickly Rhiannon had seemingly accepted the situation and adapted; gone was the prissy “Valley girl” demeanor, and in its place was a cold determination, almost a fatalistic acceptance. Emily wondered whether the whole attitude thing had simply been a coping mechanism for her, a cloak to cover her fear and a wall against the reality that existed just beyond the safety of her family’s valley.

Their feet crunched over the gravel path leading up to the front door of the house. Emily sprinted ahead and tried the door; it was unlatched. She pushed the door open and turned on her flashlight, illuminating the hallway.

“Thor,” she called. The dog sprinted from the kids’ side and into the house, disappearing into the darkness beyond the reach of her flashlight. Emily looked back at the kids stumbling toward her. She stopped them at the threshold. “Let Thor check the house for us first, okay?” She did not want to risk trapping them all inside the house, only to find there was another of whatever that thing behind Simon was waiting for them.

Thor reappeared at the end of the corridor; tail wagging, he rushed to the kids’ sides and wheeled around them.

“Okay, move, kids. Get inside now.”

Rhiannon pulled Ben inside, and their two shapes disappeared into the blackness of the corridor, quickly followed by Thor. “Turn on your flashlight,” Emily called out, her voice echoing through the empty house. A second later she saw the faint orange glow of Rhiannon’s flashlight flowing back to her as the children moved through the house.

Simon had stopped moving and was standing about a hundred feet or so away, his hands back at his sides in that strange stance of attention, his body swaying slowly back and forth, his eyes staring directly at her, framed by an expressionless, emotionless face. Behind Simon, backlit by the moonlight, the silhouette of something huge blotted out the tree line. Emily caught a glimpse of long angular arms articulated at odd angles like the legs of a praying mantis. The shadow towered over Simon; it looked as though it was stooped at an angle, leaning down toward the man. The tentacles were still attached to him. She could see them move slightly in the darkness, but could not make out any more detail, as the thing hid itself in shadow.

As she continued to stare, Simon’s head turned slightly to one side, his eyes fixed on hers, and he smiled, a wide, shit-eating grin.

Emily closed the door, flipped on her flashlight, and sprinted into the house. In an anteroom off the living room, she found a large wooden desk. It weighed a ton, creaking and complaining as she dragged it down the corridor. She pushed it flush up against the front door. It should at least slow Simon down and give her advance warning if he tried to force his way inside the house.

She had to think clearly. If she had been alone, she would have tried sneaking out the back door and avoiding Simon and whatever the thing in the shadows behind him was, relying on her own ability and Thor to avoid contact. She could have headed back to Simon’s house and hid out until dawn. But with the kids there, she couldn’t risk it, and there was no way she was going to leave them behind. They would just slow her down if she tried to escape and sneak away.

There was only darkness and the woods beyond the four walls of the home, and Emily would bet her last can of peaches that the alien was better equipped to find them than she and the children were at avoiding it. Besides, Ben was too upset. The kid just would not shut up. They wouldn’t get ten feet before Simon heard them making a run for it.

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. For now, the children were safe in the guest room—it was the only place in the house that was not directly adjacent to an external wall—with Thor standing guard over them. Neither of the kids had spoken a word to her since they had entered the house. By the light of the flashlights, she had seen Rhiannon’s frightened, accusing eyes staring at her as she cradled her baby brother in her arms.

The front door had a five-by-ten-inch glass window with fake leading set into it at about head height. Switching the flashlight off so she wouldn’t be seen, Emily clambered up onto the desk and shuffled forward on her knees until she could see out through the tiny window into the front yard.

Simon had not moved from where she had last seen him. He was still swaying back and forth. The disconcerting grin had been replaced with that emotionless nonexpression. She could see the moon glinting off his eyes as he, unblinking, continued to stare at the front door. She felt a chill run down her spine, chased by a frigid drop of sweat. Even though she was sure it was impossible for him to see her hiding there in the darkness, she had the distinct impression that he was aware of her presence. It was almost as though the door and the walls and the distance did not matter; she could feel his awareness of her. She supposed it should scare her. Instead she found herself angry, pissed off at the thought of yet another one of these intruders on her world trying to frighten her, trying to kill her and the kids.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the man standing out there was the children’s father, she would risk storming outside with the Mossberg and facing off with the thing that hid in the shadows behind Simon. That was, of course, assuming the thing even had a face.

She had to curb her instincts to blow the thing away and think about the safety of the children. She had no idea if Simon was still alive or dead, but after her past experience, she would not place bets on the first option. There was no way she was going to jeopardize the children, and she surely didn’t want to be seen as the person responsible for Simon’s death in the kids’ eyes. At this point, she had to consider Simon a lost cause and concentrate on figuring some way of getting the children to safety.

Emily looked up to check on Simon one final time and screamed. Simon had moved, and he had moved fast. Now he was standing just a few feet from the house, directly in front of the door, staring through the window at her.

“Oh, shit!” she squeaked as she stared back at the man outside the door. This close she could see the three tentacles, each as thick as her wrist, snaking up over Simon’s head. Jesus! The thing must be on the roof of the house, she thought as her eyes followed the barbed tubes up until they disappeared above the rain gutter running along the edge of the roof.

Simon continued to focus on the little window. Emily stared at Simon, unable to look away, fascinated by what she was watching. As she continued to watch him, she saw the muscles in his face convulse once…then again. His dry, chapped lips began to move, only slightly at first, but then his mouth opened and closed repeatedly. Emily could see his tongue, white and flaccid, begin to twitch behind the wall of his teeth.

Simon spoke.

At least, he tried to speak. What came out of his mouth was a weird half yell, half-slurred cry, like a deaf person trying to enunciate clearly or a child trying to grapple with a particularly difficult word for the first time, sounding out the vowels and consonants individually.

“Chaaaaadaaaaannn.”

Whatever it was he was trying to say was utterly indistinguishable, the word too slow and slurred for her to understand. Simon’s mouth contorted asymmetrically, the right side of his upper lip moving upward while the rest of his mouth stayed rigidly still. She watched in horrified fascination as Simon tried again; this time he seemed to have more control of his lips.

“Chaalldraannnn.”

There was no look of frustration or annoyance on the man’s pale face. His eyes remained facing forward, his body unmoving. Another pause, and then he spoke again. This time, although still distorted, Emily understood exactly what he was saying.

“Chhilldrennn.” The single word came out as a whisper, as though he was checking the feel of it against his tongue and lips. Her mind raced to grasp the implications of the situation: was he trying to lure them out there? The shadow of the thing she had seen standing behind Simon in the darkness, the owner, she presumed, of the tendrils attached to him, had seemed massive, far too large to get into the house. But why would it need to use Simon to lure them to it? Maybe it was too slow, or wanted to take them alive? Simon had taken forever to stumble jerkily across the lawn when they’d first arrived, but he (and whatever was controlling him) had made it from his stationary position on the gravel to the front door as fast as a normal person while she had been distracted. So maybe the thing was getting used to operating its host, like a human becoming familiar with a new car. Whatever the reason, this thing was able to control a human and assume complete authority of his mind and functions, controlling him as if he were a puppet. It spoke of a whole new level of weird…worse, it spoke of a dark intelligence, an intelligence that was motivated.

“Children,” Simon yelled suddenly, the word enunciated perfectly this time, shouted rather than whispered. Simon’s voice had returned, and that single word held all the warmth and emotion that she had heard whenever he’d spoken to Ben and Rhia over the past couple of days. But his face remained as impassive and unemotional as a statue, the black tubes attached to his back a hideous reminder that the words were not his own. It was like he was simply repeating a recording; he was a mechanical entity regurgitating the words perfectly.

“Children,” he called again, his voice rising to the point where there was no doubt the two kids could hear him. “It’s Daddy. Come on out here.”

Emily stumbled back from the door. She could still see Simon’s silhouette through the small glass window.

“Ben? Rhee. Ann. On? Come out. It is okay. Daddy is here.” Simon’s voice echoed down the hallway and into the house, pushing the silence aside. While it reached the same emotional amplitude she had heard Simon use with his children, it sounded false, almost robotic, to Emily.

A gruff bark from Thor and the padding of paws and feet alerted Emily to the children heading her way.

“Daddy?” Rhiannon’s voice called from behind Emily. She turned and illuminated the little girl with her flashlight at the opposite end of the corridor. Ben was next to her. His sister’s arms wrapped around his fragile frame as they both blinked in the beam of the torch.

“Jesus,” she muttered, realization flooding her mind. This thing wanted the kids, and it was using their father to lure them out. It must know that she was here with them, and there was no way she was going to surrender either herself or the kids, and there was no way it could get to them while they were holed up in the house. So it would pull the kids to it, knowing that she would not be far behind. And if it couldn’t lure them outside? Then it would be only a matter of time until it figured out how to get inside.

An even more frightening thought crossed her mind: What if he was still aware of what was happening to him? What if behind those eyes he was aware of the pain of each cracking bone as his body was reorganized to his captor’s will? What if he was aware of the motivation of this thing that wanted to use him to lure out his children and…what? Kill them? Consume them? Make them like him? And what if there was nothing he could do about it as he was bent and molded to the will of the thing controlling him?

Emily had read about a bird called a shrike. It would impale its prey on thorns and wait for it to die, slowly consuming it over time. She glanced back at the tentacles extending from Simon and the row of barbs running along its length. She searched Simon’s pale face for any sign of the man she had met, but all she saw were his lifeless eyes and marionette-like stance.

She made an instant and unemotional decision.

Emily stalked down the corridor and crouched down in front of Rhiannon and the boy. Ben still refused to look at her, hiding his head in his sister’s shoulder, but Rhiannon stared right back at Emily from the dimness of the shadowy corridor. Emily could see that the child understood what was coming next—maybe only on some subconscious level, but she understood.

Emily took a deep breath and spoke, not even sure what words to use. “Your daddy is very sick,” she began. “I know you can hear him outside and I know you want to go to him, but he’s not feeling very well and I’m afraid that he might”—she paused as she searched again for the right words—“I’m afraid he might make you sick, too. So, we’re going to get out of here and, when your dad’s better, we’ll come back for him, okay?”

Ben’s sobs grew louder. Rhiannon pulled her brother closer. “It’s all okay, Benny,” she whispered. “It’s okay. Daddy’s going to be fine. We have to go with Emily right now, though.”

Ben’s sobs stuttered and finally stalled. Emily’s heart wanted to break for these two kids whose life she was sure had been changed forever this night. She resisted the urge to reach out and stroke the little boy’s hair; that would probably set him off again. His cries had faded to the occasional sniffle, and she was not exactly the flavor of the month with him right now. Instead, Emily smiled at Rhiannon. “All right, kids. We have to be really quiet from now on. Let’s go.”

Emily held her breath and shone the flashlight into the corridor, searching for the hook with the car keys she thought she had seen when she’d first arrived.

There it was. She could see the glint of the keys hanging from a hook plugged into the wall. She plucked the keys from the hook, noting the embossed Dodge logo on the black plastic fob. These had to be the right ones.

Emily turned to the children and moved her forefinger to her lips. Both kids nodded they understood, and Emily was relieved to see that Ben’s tears had dried up, his big hazel eyes, bloodshot and pitted in the beam of the flashlight, gazed back at her with just a hint of trust behind the fear and pain. She pushed the door to the garage open. The former owner must have been handy with the WD-40 because the creak of dry hinges she had expected never materialized. She ushered the children and Thor past her as she held the door open. When they were all safely inside, she closed the door again as quietly as possible.

The big Dodge SUV was exactly where she had seen it when she’d first arrived at the house.

The handle was locked. Her thumb was hovering over the alarm disable button on the key fob when she stopped herself. If she used the key fob to turn off the alarm, wouldn’t it make that whoop-whoop sound she’d heard so many times on the streets of New York? She couldn’t risk any noise alerting the Simon-thing to the fact that they were at the other end of the house.

If she used the key to unlock the door manually, would that have the same effect? She had no idea, but the door had to be opened. She slipped the key into the lock and turned it. The locks unlocking sounded like gunshots in the silence of the garage, and the sudden illumination from the automatic interior lights sent flashing motes zooming across her eyes, but there was no alarm.

She reached back and pulled open the rear passenger door. “Come on, kids. Quickly, jump inside,” she hissed.

Thor didn’t need to be asked twice. Tail wagging frenetically, he leaped into the back row of seats and positioned himself behind the front passenger seat. Rhiannon helped to get Ben up onto the kick plate with a push on his butt. He clambered the rest of the way inside and was met with a barrage of licks from Thor that teased out a giggle from the little boy.

Well, that was a good sign. At least he was not irreparably damaged. Rhiannon pulled herself up into the backseat next to her brother and immediately pulled the seat belt across him, fastening it into the receiver, then clicking her own belt into place. Sure that the two children were safely locked down, Emily pushed the door closed as quietly as she could.

Climbing into the driver’s seat, she pulled her own door quietly shut behind her. Now came the hard part.

She had no idea what any of these dials, switches, and levers did. She mentally kicked herself in the ass again for not having taken any driving lessons. At least she knew what the steering wheel and gas and brake pedals were supposed to do. She looked down between the driver’s and passenger’s seats—thank God it was an automatic and not a stick shift.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Now what?”

Emily found the ignition on the steering column and slotted the key into the receiver. She turned the key and felt it slip into the first position with a reassuring click. Instantly the interior lights turned off, replaced by a neon-blue glow from the dashboard instruments. Emily breathed a sigh of relief. Part of her had been sure that the battery would be dead.

She took a few seconds to familiarize herself with the layout of the cockpit. The gearshift handle was on her right, a lever jutting from the left of the steering column. It had some kind of a twistable selector at the end of it, covered in white icons. They obviously represented headlight settings, so she turned the selector to the first position. The interior of the garage lit up, pushing back some of the shadows. She twisted the switch to the next setting and was pleased to see the headlights become even brighter, illuminating the entirety of the garage and the flat metal of the retractable garage door in front of her.

The garage doors…Shit!

How was she supposed to open them without any power?

If this were a movie, she would probably just start the car, rev it up, and burst through them before speeding off into the darkness. This wasn’t a movie, though, and the shuttered metal looked pretty strong to her. There must be some way to manually open them, she reasoned. After all, what would happen if there was a power outage? Were people expected to be locked out of their garages?

“Stay in the car, kids,” she said, turning to face the children. “I’ll be right back.”

Emily took a deep breath to steady her breathing and exited the vehicle, her heart thumping in her chest. She made sure the SUV’s door was ajar, then checked that the door leading from the interior of the house was still closed securely; she didn’t want the Simon-thing creeping up behind them.

A large plastic box was fixed to the ceiling right above the Durango’s roof. A thick chain, much like the chain of her bike, ran from the box along a metal beam to the door. Fixed to the garage door was a curved arm that extended upward, connecting to the pulley system that raised and lowered the door. That was how the door would open normally, but how the hell was she supposed to raise it now? She spotted two aluminum handles at the base of the door, near the floor. She grasped one and gave it a gentle tug. The door rattled, moving up about an inch but then hit resistance and refused to budge any farther. Looking up at the arm attached to the door and the pulley illuminated in the beam of the SUV, she could see there was some kind of hook attachment that meshed into the chain like the spokes of a gear. A nylon cord with a red plastic handle at the end hung from the arm, swinging back and forth gently.

The handle screamed, “Pull me!”

Again, she found herself holding her breath as she grasped the plastic handle in her hand and tugged. There was a very distinct click as something disengaged from the chain, but there was no other indication of anything else happening. Was that it? Only one way to find out, she told herself. Emily moved back to the door and, ever so gently, pulled the same handle.

This time the door continued to move past the stop, rumbling and rattling along its tracks. When the door was a foot off the ground, she stopped. What if Simon was outside right now? Waiting for her. He could grab her legs and pull her under the door, and that would be it. She let the door drop to the floor with a clang of rattling metal.

There was no doubt in her mind that whatever controlled Simon was going to hear them trying to escape. When it did it would do whatever it could to get to them. What would happen if she opened the garage door and it was waiting outside? She would have a matter of seconds at most to get to the vehicle, figure out how to drive it, and get out of there. And then what? Where would they go? They had no supplies. Everything, including her bike, backpack, and sat-phone was at the other house.

That was the least of her problems.

She needed to figure out whether she should lift the garage door first and then hope the car started before Simon found them. Or did she start the car first and hope the garage door would open?

“Jesus,” Emily hissed. Despite the cool night air, she felt sweat trickle down the insides of her arms.

It made no sense to raise the barrier between them, she reasoned, only to find that the Dodge would not start. That would leave them completely exposed. Car first. Then worry about the garage doors. She climbed back into the driver’s seat and looked at the kids. “Okay, you two, here we go.” Reaching for the ignition keys, she twisted them all the way forward.

Nothing happened.

“Shit,” she cried and thumped the steering wheel. The engine was dead. They had been through all this only for the fucking SUV to not start? You had to be kidding.

“You have to step on the brake,” said a voice from the backseat. Emily flashed around to face Rhiannon, trying to keep the anger and disappointment from her voice.

“What?”

“You have to step on the brake to start the car,” Rhiannon repeated. “It’s a safety feature,” she added proudly, probably repeating some tidbit of information she had learned from her dad.

Emily looked down at her feet. Which pedal was the brake? It had to be the larger of the two, she reasoned and pressed her left foot down and twisted the ignition key again.

The big V-8 engine of the Dodge Durango exploded into life. It was incredibly loud in the enclosed space of the garage. Emily flipped around and shot a huge smile at Rhiannon, all anger dissipating with the deep roar of the engine. She could already smell the acrid stench of the vehicle’s exhaust seeping through the open driver’s door and gave a little cough. It wouldn’t do to breathe this crap in for very long, but she needed to leave the door open, every second would count. Sorry, kids, she thought as she leaped from the driver’s seat and ran over to the garage door.

She grasped the metal handle again and began pulling with all the strength she had. If there had been any doubt that Simon would not be alerted to their escape attempt, it was quickly dispelled as the door rattled along the tracks, even louder, it seemed to Emily, than the rumble of the SUV’s engine. With the door halfway up, Emily dipped her head under the gap and scanned the area beyond the garage. The light from the SUV illuminated the ground directly in front of the garage, pushing the darkness away. There was no sign of anything waiting outside to grab her. Thank God.

Flipping her grip on the handle she began pushing the door up rather than pulling it. The door was almost at its zenith when Emily heard the clattering of dislodged roof tiles as something huge scrambled over the roof toward her.

“Oh, shit! Oh, shit!”

What was she supposed to do now? The door was still only three-quarters of the way up. She let go of it for a second and watched as it began to slowly slide back toward the ground. She grabbed the handle again and began pushing. There was no way she was going to get back into the car in time to figure out the controls and get out of the garage before the door closed on them again or the thing scrambling across the roof reached her.

Run, her frightened mind screamed. Just leave the kids and run.

No way! There was not a chance in hell that she was going to do that. She would rather just—

She felt the metal garage door click into place. Looking up, she could see the hook had engaged itself again onto the stud on the pulley. She let go of the handle and the door settled back slightly but stayed exactly where it should be, suspended above her head.

“Thank you,” she sighed and sprinted back to the SUV. She was about to clamber into the driver’s seat when a cascade of adobe-colored roof tiles fell to the concrete just outside the entrance of the garage, shattering like broken plates across the drive. Before the last broken piece had skittered across the concrete, a shape dropped from the roof, landing low to the ground just on the other side of the door, red eyes staring unblinking into the lights of the SUV.

“Simon,” she whimpered as she leaped into the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind her.