She grabbed for the door handle and stopped. If she unbolted the door and threw it open, would the first thing be standing right there? She could run down the road to Grandma Billy’s, but would they chase her?
The house, which had felt like a sanctuary a moment ago, suddenly felt like a trap.
The one on the back porch blinked.
She saw the eyelids slide down over the enormous dark eyes and, oh god, it wasn’t a mask.
That’s its face. Itsrealface.
It’sreallystanding there and in a minute it’s going to reach down and grab the door handle and come inside—
It didn’t move. It was staring at her, but it didn’t move. Her heart hammered in her chest.
She moved sideways, along the wall, to the kitchen, and slid the silverware drawer open blind. She was not going to take her eyes off the thing at the door.
It blinked again.
Had she put the big kitchen knife on the right side or the left? She groped for it, found a familiar handle, and pulled it out. It looked stupidly small in front of her. She needed an axe or a gun or a swordor to not be here in this house with horrible things standing at the door—
She took a deep, shuddering breath.I have to bolt the back door. I can’t leave it. I have to bolt it. Otherwise it can just open the door and walk in.
In order to bolt the door, she would have to walk toward the thing. She would be only a few feet away, with only a thin layer of mesh between them.
Even if I close the door, if it breaks the window, it can still come in.
If it breaks the window, it’ll have to reach through broken glass to get me. I’ll have a few seconds. If it comes through the door, though, it’ll be in here with me.
The clacking started again, muffled by the thick adobe walls—clok-ock? clok-ock?
Oh shit, what if they’re calling more of them oh shit oh shit thiscan’tbe happening—
Copper snarled again, and again it broke the spell. For her dog’s sake, she could go toward the thing. It wasn’t courage, but that didn’t matter. Love and terror could stand in for courage if need be.
She threw herself across the room to the screen door, with Copper hard beside her, and the thing watched her and the light caught its eyes and made them flare flat reflective green and it clacked like a wind chime made of bones and another one answered from the front porchand if she turned her head, there was going to be one at the front window but she did not turn her head because she was slamming the back door in this one’s face and throwing the bolt and then she was running for the bedroom and shoving the chair under the door and there was a shadow cast on the wall from the one standing in front of the window there.
Clok-ock?
She shoved Copper into the bathroom and went in after. The door lock was a flimsy little thing, she could probably have kicked the door off the frame herself and who knew how strong those things were?
They weren’t human. They weren’t natural. She’d spent so long dithering over whether gods or spirits could be real, and here she should have been worrying about whethermonsterswere real.
This is what I get,she thought reflexively.I left Walter and the city and came out here where I don’t belong so of course—
She grabbed hold of that thought as if it were wearing a dog collar.Of coursenothing. You don’t get monsters clacking at you just because you broke up with your partner! That is not how life works!
She set her back to the shower tiles and held the knife in front of her. Copper stared at the door and growled as if she would never stop.
Outside, the clacking noises continued.
“Selena? Selena, hon, you there?”
There was daylight under the bathroom door. Selena jerked awake. Had she fallen asleep? It seemed incredible—or no, she’d had a dream, it must have been a nightmare—
She was in the bathroom with the big kitchen knife beside her, and Copper wedged into the little space between the toilet and the sink.
“Selena?”
Copper recognized a person she approved of and barked.
