She was already on it. Over her shoulder was the dim light of an exit sign, with the reassuring figure of a little stick man walking down steps. She backed up toward it and it looked clear … but the hallway had looked clear when they’d come that way, too. The draug were more than nasty—they were clever. Really clever.

She kicked the door open, and saw nothing. Again. No choice, really; the draug were steadily advancing toward them now, and Shane was saving his shotgun blasts to make them count. Between the two of them they could take out maybe half of the draug that were facing them. Retreat was the only option.

“Come on!” she shouted, and plunged down the first six steps. At the halfway point, where the stairs turned, she looked back. Shane had backed through the door, and now he unloaded one ear-shattering blast from his shotgun, jumped in, and slammed the door. Then he hit the quick-release button on the flamethrower. Its heavy weight clanged to the metal floor, and he grabbed the loose nozzle and jammed it through the door handle to hold it shut. It wouldn’t stop the draug for long, if it stopped them at all, but he’d done what he could.

He was coming down toward her when she heard the sound … like water through pipes, but different this time. Closer. Echoing.

And she saw the wave flood down the steps from the next floor up, thick and murky.

It hit Shane in the back and knocked him off his feet. Then, instead of continuing to fall down the steps as gravity demanded, it just … stopped, formed a thick, trembling bubble, and consumed him.

He floated in the liquid, as if it had more density than real water. He was thrashing, but he couldn’t get leverage.

“No!” Claire screamed, and lifted her shotgun, but there was nothing she could do; firing at it was firing at him, and she couldn’t, couldn’t.

More fluid rushed down the steps toward her, and she saw his face through the distorted lens of the liquid drowning him, saw the fear and the rage and the horror, and she saw him say something. Maybe it was her name.

Maybe it was just run.

She ran.

The liquid snaked after her, more like tentacles than a wave now, grabbing and reaching for her as she flung herself forward and around the corner of the stairwell. Shane wasn’t in the way now, and she fired wildly up at the thing. The noise slammed her like a physical blow, and the hammer of the shotgun hit her shoulder with brutal force. She hardly felt it, because the real pain was inside, where she was screaming Shane’s name.

I left him. I left him.

The force of the shotgun blast pushed her backward, off balance, and she fell the last few steps. The silver spread hit the draug’s shape with awesome force, ripping it apart, but it only flowed up the stairs in retreat. It made a sound, a horrible, shrieking chorus.