The old man and Kingdom stood surveying the room while Alex and Metz worked on the cartridges. As Alex bent to fill the first, he froze. The salt definitely burned his fingers faintly. The plastic tub must have protected him. The sting wasn’t too bad. He gritted his teeth and filled the shell faster, resolving to worry about it later.

The scrabbling at the door had been joined by a faint, low buzzing. After a while, the dogs padded to the center of the room and sat there together. Watching them, waiting for the next shell to be filled, Alex realized Metz had stopped working. Glancing around, he saw the man was staring at the monitors, fresh horror spreading over his face.

“Eh, you okay?” Alex asked, knowing he wasn’t.

“There.” Metz pointed a shaking finger. “You see?”

Alex squinted at the old TVs. As far as he could tell, the display looked depressingly the same: the flashing plan of the house, like a terrible video game adaptation of Clue, the swarming dots moving around it.

Kingdom had noticed them. “What is it, Phil?”

“They’re here,” the man said, still pointing at the screen. His voice and his arm both shook. “They’re here.”

Alex, his grandfather, and Kingdom exchanged a worried look.

“Yes, Philippe,” Kingdom said gently. “We know. That’s why we’re all trying to figure a way out of here.”

“No,” Metz snapped. “They are here! Look! According to the monitor, they’re already here!”

The three of them looked at him dumbly.

“In the room!” Metz screamed, looking around wildly. “This room. They’re in this room with us!”

XXVIII.

SPIDERS, FLAME, WOOD

For a panicky few seconds they danced a silent twist in the old ballroom, ducking and turning rapidly to scan in all directions, finding nothing. Alex’s grandfather called them to a stop.

“Shhhhh.” He held up a finger. They froze. The scraping at the door kept up. The buzzing was louder. Nearer. The dogs suddenly stood, forming a circle around the spot where they had been sitting, all staring intently at the floorboards, ears up.

“Ah, call the dogs away from there, please, Evelyn,” the old man said. “Everyone, take what you need and back up to this side of the room.” Grabbing his Gladstone, he gestured toward the far wall, where the painting hung.

“What is it?” Alex said as they gathered under the picture, backs to the wall.

The old man scratched his forehead and winced apologetically: “Diggers. I’d forgotten about them.”

“You mean . . . ?” Alex stared back to the place in the floor the dogs had found so interesting.

“’Fraid so.”