“It’s a hard night for me, Ted. I’m grateful to have a friend like you to lean on.”

Ted tried to smile, but he couldn’t manage it. Just said, “I’ll see you in the morning.” He set his scotch glass down on a table and headed for the door.

ETHAN

ETHAN

Everyone went silent.

So quiet Ethan could hear the fire burning in the hearth at the back of the room.

The scratching stopped.

He heard the click-click-click of those talons again.

Retreating.

It made sense. Why would the abbies believe their prey had gone behind this door? They didn’t even know what a door was. That it was something that opened into another place. Most of them were probably still out on—

Something struck the door.

The room took in a collective gasp.

The bolt rattled in its housing.

Ethan straightened.

The door took another blow—twice as hard—as if two abbies had crashed into it at the same time.

He thumbed off the safety and glanced at Hecter, Kate, and the others.

“How many are out there?” Kate asked.

“No idea,” Ethan whispered. “Could be thirty. Could be a hundred.”

In the darkness behind them, children were beginning to cry.

Parents trying to hush them.

And the blows to the door kept coming.

Ethan walked over to the left side where the hinges attached the door to the frame. One of the rusted brass plates popped a screw.

Kate said, “Will it hold?”

“I don’t know.”

The next blow came—the hardest yet.

The entire top plate detached from the frame.

Still four more below it.

Ethan called Maggie over, and in the torchlight, they watched the housing for the bolt.

With the next collision, it shook but held.

Ethan went back to Kate and asked, “Is there another way out of this room?”

“No.”

The barrage continued, and the more the abbies hurled themselves against the logs, the angrier they seemed to get, now shrieking and screaming after every failed attempt.

Another plate broke loose.

Then another.

The end was coming. The thought actually crossed Ethan’s mind that he should go find his family now. Give them both a quick, merciful death, because once the abbies got in, their last moments of sentience would be owned by horror.

The passage outside the door went quiet.

No scraping.

No footsteps.

The cavern held its breath.

After a long moment, Ethan approached the door and put his ear to the wood.

Nothing.

He reached for the bolt.

Kate whispered, “No!”

But he slid it back as quietly as he could manage and grasped the handle.

“Maggie, bring the light.”

When she was standing behind him, Ethan pulled.

The two remaining hinges creaked loudly as they bore the full weight of the door.

The firelight brightened the passage.

It still smelled of the abbies—rot and death—but it was empty.