Chapter Seven: The Thing Beneath the Bed

Jake pulled Rebecca to her feet and stepped in front of her. Her arm was warm and shaking under his hand. The kitchen knife trembled in her fist.

The breathing stopped.

He stared at the gap under the bed and listened. A second went by. Then something whispered, "Please."

The voice was weak and hoarse. Human.

"There's someone under there," Rebecca whispered. "I heard the front door earlier. I thought I imagined it. I kept my eyes shut."

"Stay back."

"Jake, he sounds hurt."

"That's what worries me."

He crouched by the bed, weight on his heels. A strip of dark separated the bedspread from the floor. Just past it he could see a hand lying on the boards, fingers curled. A man's hand.

Jake reached for the bedspread.

"Don't," Rebecca said.

He pulled it back.

A man lay crammed under the bed with his knees pulled to his chest. His shirt was soaked in blood and his face was slick with sweat. Black veins ran out from a bite under his ear and down his neck, disappearing into his collar.

His eyes found Jake. "Help me."

Jake jerked back. The man dragged himself forward on his elbows, fingers shaking against the floor.

"Please. I don't want to die."

Behind Jake, Rebecca made a small, broken sound. "Can we get him out?"

Jake looked at the bite again. The skin around it had gone almost black. The veins weren't just showing through. They pulsed, creeping a little farther every time the man fought for a breath. Jake thought of the man in the suit in the street, and how fast he had changed after a bite just like this one.

"What's your name?"

The man swallowed. "Daniel."

Jake went still. He knew that name. The woman in the street had screamed it right before the man in the suit turned on her. But that Daniel was still out there somewhere, and this man didn't look like him. Not yet!

"Daniel," Jake said. "What happened to you?"

"I got bitten."

"By what?"

Daniel's face twisted. "I don't know. It came out of the dark. I thought it was a person."

He tried to sit up and fell back, choking.

Rebecca moved toward him. Jake caught her arm. "Wait."

"He's suffering!"

"I can see that."

"Then let me help him!"

Jake looked at her. He knew why she was angry. She had just been found alive in her own bedroom, and now there was another person on the floor begging for help. But something about Daniel was wrong.

The man's lips started to shake.

"Don't let it come out," he whispered.

Rebecca stopped. "What?"

Daniel clawed at his own throat, scraping bloody lines into the skin. "There's something inside me."

His back arched. A crack came from under his shirt. Jake stumbled away as Daniel's shoulders jerked and his spine rose in sharp ridges against the fabric. The man screamed, and the sound filled the room. Then his voice broke.

"Help me!"

It came out in Rebecca's voice.

She dropped the knife.

Daniel's mouth kept moving, but the voice belonged to someone else now.

"Jake, help me!"

The blood drained from Jake's face. Daniel clapped both hands over his mouth, tears running down his cheeks.

"No," he whimpered, in his own voice. "No, no, no."

Something shifted under the skin of his jaw. The left side of his face dragged downward while the right pulled tight, stretching his mouth into a crooked grin. Black veins crawled over his cheekbones and around his eyes. One eye clouded over, the white going dark from the edges in.

Daniel looked at Rebecca. "Run."

His own voice again. "Please. Run."

His jaw snapped shut with a sound that made Jake flinch. He grabbed his face with both hands and pulled like he could rip it out of himself. The skin rippled under his fingers. Something hard pushed out from his cheek and bent the flesh into a long ridge. His scream turned into a wet, clicking shriek.

Jake backed toward the door. He had seen people die. He had watched monsters tear through a street full of screaming strangers. He had felt his own body quit on him. But watching a man stay awake while his face turned into something that shouldn't exist was worse.

Daniel was still looking at them. Somewhere under the swelling flesh he was still in there.

"Don't let me hurt anyone," he begged.

Then the voice changed again.

"Don't let me hurt anyone."

This time it was Jake's voice, perfect.

A blue window flashed in front of him.

(HOSTILE ENTITY IDENTIFIED)

Designation: Hollow Crawler

Threat Assessment: Moderate

Behavior: Ambush Predator

Known Traits: Vocal Mimicry

Transmission: Bite-Induced Transformation

It was the first time the System had ever told him anything useful about one of them. Jake stared at the last line. He'd seen it happen in the street. Now he had a name for it.

"Rebecca, get out!"

She didn't argue this time.

Daniel's body convulsed. His arms stretched out inside his sleeves and his fingers struck the floor in sharp little taps. His legs twisted sideways. The bones under his trousers shifted with a grinding sound and pushed his knees into a new position. The human face was going away. One side had flattened, the cheek and eye sinking under a layer of pale flesh. A dark slit opened where the eye had been. Then another beside it.

The last human eye locked on Jake.

"Help me," Daniel whispered.

Jake couldn't move. The man's mouth opened, and for a second the human lips were still there, trembling around the words. Then a second mouth pushed through them.

Daniel screamed.

Jake grabbed the broken chair by the dresser and swung it at the creature's head. The wood cracked against bone. Daniel, or whatever was left of him, fell sideways into the bed frame and dragged half the bedspread down with him. Jake swung again.

The creature caught the chair.

Its fingers closed around the wood and it ripped the chair out of his hands. The pull dragged Jake forward. He stumbled into the dresser and pain flared through his bruised ribs.

The Hollow Crawler rose on its long limbs. It wasn't a man crawling on the floor anymore. Its body had thinned out, shoulders sloping to a flat skull. The torn shirt hung off its frame. Black veins still covered the last bits of human skin, but the face under them was something else. It tilted its head.

"Jake."

Rebecca's voice.

Jake grabbed the kitchen knife off the floor. The creature lunged. He threw himself sideways and its claws tore through his sleeve and cut his shoulder. He stabbed at its head, but the blade skidded off the hard ridge above its jaw. The Hollow Crawler hit the wall, twisted, and came at him again. Jake barely got the knife up in time. Its teeth snapped shut inches from his face. He drove his knee into its chest and shoved. It staggered, and that gave him enough room to get his feet under him.

"Rebecca, the door!"

She was already in the hallway. Jake backed toward her, keeping the knife between him and the creature. It followed.

Then Ethan showed up at the far end of the hall with his wheel brace raised.

"What the hell is that?"

"Get Claire!" Jake shouted.

Ethan didn't move. The creature turned toward him.

"Help me."

It was Ethan's voice. Ethan's face changed. He looked at Jake, then at the thing in the bedroom doorway.

"Oh, hell no."

The Hollow Crawler jumped. Ethan swung the brace into its head and knocked it into the doorframe, but its claws caught his shirt and dragged him forward. Jake charged and drove the knife into the soft spot under its jaw. The creature let go of Ethan with a shriek, slammed Jake into the wall, and the knife slipped out of his hand.

Ethan stumbled back, clutching his chest. "Jake!"

"I'm fine!"

"You are very clearly not fine!"

The Hollow Crawler reared back. Its mouth opened on rows of small teeth pointing inward. Black fluid dripped from its jaw.

Jake looked around the hallway. The broken chair lay by the bedroom door, but he couldn't reach it without getting past the creature. Ethan raised the brace again.

"Tell me you have a plan."

"Hit it until it stops moving."

"That's not a plan!"

"It's what we've got!"

The creature lunged at Ethan. Ethan swung, but it ducked under the blow. Jake grabbed a broken chair leg and hit its side with both hands. The Hollow Crawler staggered, and Ethan followed with a hard shot to the back of its skull.

It dropped to the floor.

Jake didn't wait. He picked up the knife and drove it under the creature's jaw again and held it there until the thrashing slowed. The claws scraped weakly across the boards. Then they stopped.

For a few seconds nobody spoke. Ethan leaned on the wall, breathing hard. Jake knelt by the body with his hands shaking around the knife.

The creature's last human eye stared at the ceiling. Its mouth moved once.

"Thank you."

Daniel's voice. Then it went still.

Jake slowly pulled the blade out.

Claire came up behind Ethan from downstairs. Her eyes went from Ethan's bruised chest to the body on the floor.

"What happened?"

"It was a man," Jake said.

Claire stared at him.

"Before. It was a man. He'd been bitten."

She crouched beside the body, careful to stay clear of its mouth. The black veins were still visible, spreading from the bite under its ear across what was left of the human face. Her expression tightened.

"His body changed while he was still awake?"

Jake nodded.

"Did he understand what was happening?"

"He was begging us to help him."

Claire looked away. Ethan swallowed. "So anyone bitten by one of those things can turn into that?"

Nobody answered. They didn't need to.

A groan came from downstairs. Claire turned toward the stairs. “He woke up a few minutes ago and told me his name’s Martin. We need to move him. Now.”

Jake wiped the knife on a torn piece of bedding and handed it back to Rebecca, handle first. She took it with shaking fingers. He looked once more at Daniel. The man had known what was happening to him. He'd recognized them. He'd begged them not to let him hurt anyone. And even after his face turned into a monster's, some part of him had still been able to talk.

Jake followed the others downstairs.

They gathered what little they had. Ethan checked the street through a gap in the curtains. Claire helped Martin sit up. Rebecca leaned against the wall, holding her hurt arm against her side. Jake stood by the front door, watching the street.

They had survived the Hollow Crawler. But one line from the System stuck in his head.

Bite-Induced Transformation.

The monsters weren't just killing people. They were making more of themselves.

"Jake," Rebecca said quietly. "Are we going to be all right?"

He looked at her. He wanted to say yes. He wanted to hand her something solid to hold, even if it was only a promise. Instead he glanced at the dark staircase behind them.

"I don't know. But we're not staying here."

Ethan opened the door.

A man stood on the porch. His clothes were torn and one hand was pressed to his neck, blood running between his fingers. He looked worn out, terrified, and painfully ordinary.

"Please," he said. "You have to help me."

Claire moved toward him. Jake caught her arm.

The stranger lifted his head. Black veins spread under his skin, branching from the wound on his neck. His mouth trembled. Then, in Jake's own voice, he whispered:

"Found you."