The creature turned his attention to Melody, strategically trapping her between himself and the advancing fog on a plot of ground with open graves on either side. Owen yelled for her to jump, but she stood her ground. Crenshaw moved cautiously in as the miasma moved to within mere feet behind her. The old man’s hand shot out toward her chest. Owen yelled to her again. In a flash, she somehow grabbed the Ambrogio by the forearms. There was a sudden look of consternation on the pale green face. He couldn’t believe that her grasp and force had agency over him. She shifted her position as if she were about to throw Crenshaw into the mist. What she failed to notice was the clawed phantom hand coming up from under her arms.

As he witnessed the scene with a sense of horror, Owen heard a phone ring. The sound startled him, and he realized it was his phone. It looked like Melody had control of the beast but it also had her. His body vibrated throughout and he was brutally snatched back to himself. He woke in bed, shivering. The phone continued to ring, and he remained stunned. When he answered, he recognized Kiara’s voice.

“Sorry to intrude, but I can’t find the artist’s body anywhere. Everything else is still here in this creepy-ass house—the blood vats, the hanging dried-out corpses.”

“He’s there,” said Owen. “Somewhere. I know, ’cause Melody is right now wrestling him to the death.”

“I’ll go through the place one more time,” she said.

“Where are you now?”

“Could be the living room.”

The words “living room” set something off in Owen’s memory. He said, “Look up, over the couch. What do you see?”

“A big painting.” There was a long silence.

“You see, in the picture, there’s a chamber underneath the statue, and that statue is out back of the house. I ran into it the other night.”

“Oh, shit, I see it,” she said.

He heard her footsteps through the phone as she sped through the place. The entrance in the back of the house obviously had a screen door with a strong spring, as he heard the aluminum frame snap back and bang closed. The sound of Kiara breathing heavily followed.

“Look behind the statue,” Owen called out, but it was clear she couldn’t hear him. There were a few seconds of scuffling and muffled cursing before he heard her say “Yes” in a definitive tone. Next came her steps upon the concrete stairway, leading down. There was a gasp from Kiara and then that same growl he heard just minutes earlier in the cemetery. Two shots rang out and their sound made his phone vibrate. The growling came more fiercely, and then the whoosh of what he took to be the flamethrower. There was screaming.