Del worked until he could squeeze a shoulder between Bart and the wall and then locked his own legs against it and pushed. He could feel the give long before he heard about it. “It’s coming,” Bart reported. “My shoulder’s out. Keep going. Now my elbow—harder, Del!” The boy gritted his teeth and strained. “Here it comes . . . oh, Jesus . . .” His voice drained. Del turned, keeping a shoulder planted in his brother’s ribs to hold him, and looked at Bart’s arm.

It had cleared the hole. But it had brought something with it.

Reaching from the darkness of the hole, still clutching Bart’s wrist, was a hand or something that had resembled one once. It was thin and bony, the knuckles and joints protruding, nearly tearing the sallow skin that enclosed them, and it looked incap­able of the strength that held Bart in check. Its nails were ragged and long, but some had been torn to the quick from scratching away mortar and digging at the stone of the third wall. The flesh around the fingertips was brittle and split. There was no blood.

Bart’s legs began to quiver with revulsion. “Get it off me!” he yelled. “Get it off me!”

“Lock your knees!” Del ordered, slapping Bart’s legs until he obeyed. Then he slipped the nunchaku sticks from his brother’s belt and started to twirl them in the limited space, just as Bart had taught him. “Hold still,” he warned, as he brought the sticks down like an ax, striking the hand just behind the knuckles. Whack! The sound echoed through the cellar. The flesh there dimpled like a thumbprint in soft wax. But the hand did not let go.

“Again!” Bart was frantic. “Hit it! Hit it!”

Del dropped the Mag-Lite and swung the sticks with both hands, over and over, and the air was filled with the slap of wood meeting flesh and the crackle of metacarpals breaking. Del could feel them give even through the sticks. But the hand refused to loosen. The fourth blow split the flesh over the knuckles; calcium whiteness peeked through, but there was still no blood, still no sign of release. Bart was being pulled inexorably closer to the wall. “Give, you bastard!” Del swung again, this time for the wrist, and the bone there shattered with a satisfying pop. The hand opened and Bart tumbled backward to the floor, moaning, cradling his injured arm.

Del backed away warily, watching the hand flop and claw at the air and send monstrous shadows across the wall. Seeing it move like that reminded the boy to be scared; this wasn’t an old bear trap Bart had stumbled into. This was alive, or something like it. And its owner was just beyond those walls. Something. Moving.

The talon receded into the hole slowly, like a pale moray eel returning to its den. It disappeared into the darkness there.