They stood, hand to back, teeth together, feet apart, faces parallel to an unknown unseen. They waited for an attack. A tear came loose and trailed down Diane’s cheek. They waited.

A scream came from the shadow ahead of them, a scream like that of a terrified child.

Jackie crouched and dove through the hole in the shelves. Diane stayed, staring, streaks down her face as her mouth loosed itself open, silent, lip-synching the scream she was hearing. Her ears hurt. The scream burrowed into her head, splitting her brain, crawling down her throat, and coming to rest deep in her guts.

She felt a soft touch. Something was tapping lightly at her hand. It was wrapping around her little finger. She could not look. She wanted to follow Jackie, but she could not move. She was trying to scream, but could not find space for it in the continuing, sobbing scream from the shadow around her. The thing grabbed her hand tightly and pulled.

“Diane! Diane, please!”

Jackie, reaching through the hole in the shelf, was pulling on her hand. The moment broken, Diane crouched and crawled through the hole. The other side was bright, fluorescent lights and well-organized, clean shelves. She grabbed a stack of the tapes and used them to fill the hole they had come through. Jackie helped, and soon the hole was completely gone. The scream was muffled, but it continued.

They sat up, leaning against the opposite shelf. The scream stopped. There was no scream. No hiss. Jackie thought she still heard the quiet click of claws on the wood floor, but she couldn’t say for sure.

They exhaled, and then again, over and over until they were exhaling together, Jackie’s arm around Diane’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Diane said after however long, seconds or minutes, they had sat there breathing. “I’m sorry I froze. I’m sorry I brought you here when this is my problem.”

“No, man. I’m sorry I’m broken. I’m sorry I’m weighing you down.”

“Jackie, I know what that was.”

“Seriously?”

“When I was a child, I would, like all children, cry because childhood is traumatic and confusing. And when crying wasn’t enough? When I felt that despair children feel because they don’t understand and won’t be able to for years? Well, then I would scream. I would scream as loud and long as I could. That scream from the shadows was my voice. That was me screaming.”

“Diane, shh.” Jackie’s head rolled onto Diane’s shoulder. “Shh. Let’s just rest for a while.”

Jackie didn’t sleep, but she closed her eyes and wheezed through the pain. Diane looked at the way Jackie’s legs curled outward from the knee across the dusty floor, the way her right arm lolled loosely over her torso.