Somewhere behind him, a faint, metallic scratch tickled the very edge of his hearing. He halted, straining his ears to make out the noise, but it disappeared as quickly as it had emerged. With a shrug he continued down the passage to the mess hall. He could see Holly and the children were already there, no doubt scarfing down the last of the mac and cheese.

Another growl from his stomach urged him forward. He stopped in the entryway to the cafeteria to catch his breath. Holly looked up from her tray. She had a strange expression on her face. Jamie looked up next. Her mouth opened and unleashed a bloodcurdling scream.

Timothy froze. They weren’t looking at him; they were looking behind him.

Scratch, scrape, scratch, scrape.

“Oh God.” He turned his head to see the two missing Spiders from the video feed. One of the creatures hung from the ceiling, where a loose panel dangled freely. The other continued to slide across the concrete floor, its claws scratching. Its compound eyes scanned them, and Timothy had the horrible feeling that it was deciding which of them to eat first.

He took a step back—a mistake, it turned out. The Spider seemed to finalize its analysis, and Timothy was clearly on the menu.

He closed his eyes and waited for the Spider to tear into him. But his right eye wouldn’t stay shut. The nervous twitch had returned, just in time for him to watch the claws descend.

The tunnel was dim, illuminated only by a few emergency lights. One flickered intermittently, reminding Overton of the red lights from the railway crossing in his hometown. Like a subliminal warning, the light blinked on and off, on and off. It shed an eerie glow over an idle escalator at the end of the passage. It was as if they were being warned to stay out of the tunnel.

Overton ignored the superstitious thought and secured the RVM on his back before leaping over the security lever at the top of the escalator. He began the descent into the darkness, blinking to enhance his night vision.

The green glow of the goggles’ night vision bled across his HUD, revealing zero contacts. All he could see was the vague outline of a metal gate at the bottom of the stairs.

Footsteps sounded behind him as he made his way down the metal teeth of the escalator. He didn’t risk turning to check on Sophie, for fear of tripping and falling.

A few moments later he reached the bottom of the escalator. With a simple push, the entry door creaked halfway open. He frowned at the sound echoing off the tunnel walls.