“Sounds good,” Matt said. “Go take a quick peek and we’ll wait right here.”

“Hurry,” Amy said.

Basil headed for the corner, taking the light with him. Amy stood still and tried not to touch the filthy walls. She could taste the swampy stink coating the roof of her mouth, turning her saliva bitter and sending it trickling down the back of her throat.

“Are you still here?” she whispered.

For a single, terrifying moment, Matt didn’t answer. Then he illuminated his face with the pale blue glow of his phone. “Still here.”

Up ahead, Basil was pointing his flashlight around the corner. He hesitated, squinting into the darkness, playing the beam back and forth over something.

“Basil?” Matt whispered.

Amy heard it first.

It wasn’t quite a noise but a displacement of air, a feeling of something big that filled the hall, something big that was coming up from the depths. It was the sound of far-off movement. It was the sound of something coming for them. Amy broke.

“Go!” she said, turning around and running blindly into the dark, barreling back out of the hallway, shoulders banging into walls. Matt was right behind her, holding out his cell phone, supplying just enough light for them to see the doorway at the end of the corridor. Amy was certain it was going to slam shut at any moment, trapping them in the Beehive for good.

Then all at once they were outside, back in the clean orderly world of Orsk, back in the narrow walk-in closet, surrounded by the Mesonxic organization system. They kept running. They didn’t wait to see if Basil made it out. He was on his own. They barreled out of the closet and into the room display, hit the Bright and Shining Path at full speed, and didn’t stop until they swerved off and collapsed behind an island counter in a Kitchens display. Matt buried the glow of his cell phone in the folds of his hoodie.

“Did you see them?” he whispered.

“See who?”

“In that hall. There were people.”

Amy didn’t know what she’d seen and what she hadn’t. They crouched behind the island, ears straining for any movement in the dark.

“What’s that noise?” Matt asked.

Amy listened. She heard a gentle crystal ringing. Matt aimed his phone behind them at a shelf of Glans water goblets, all quietly chiming against one another. Then she felt the rhythmic vibration in the floor.

“Something’s coming,” she said.

Matt’s cell phone flashed white. Its screen shattered.

He lunged away from her, and shattered glass smashed to the floor all around them as something invisible swiped the shelves clear. Amy ducked and squeezed her eyes shut as a torrent of shards rained down. Then there was silence. After a moment, Amy looked up.

“Matt?” she whispered.