“Water…” gasped the old man tied to a chair in Josie’s garage. But of course it wasn’t really an old man. It was a shapeshifting squid from another dimension.

Channie, having watched Josie and Lewis sneak away upon first arriving at the house, had been covering for them ever since. There was only so long, however, that claiming Josie was in the bathroom was going to work.

“Ooow, you want this?” asked Mrs. Davis as she twisted open a bottle of water, cracking its plastic seal with a pop. She took a big swig. “Ah! So refreshing! If only there was a squid around here that wanted to share it with me!”

“Please…” the shapeshifter gasped.

It was almost convincing as a human, despite its limited vocabulary, but Mrs. Davis and the kids knew better.

Channie diverted her eyes from the scene. She didn’t want to have nightmares. Her gaze landed upon the fluorescent lightbulb at the center of the ceiling and stayed there until spots manifested across her vision.

Mr. Mays watched with his hands crossed in front of his chest. The creature was yet to out itself in front of him. He was becoming more and more disturbed by the possibility that everybody else was crazy and he was keeping a poor old kidnapped man tied up in his garage.

Channie sat down on the step that led up to the laundry room. The uncomfortable feeling of eyes on the back of her head drew her attention. She turned on the step and glanced through the open doors and down the dark hallway into the house.

She cursed the giant purple blotch left behind by the lightbulb. Before her eyes cleared, she saw motion—a head withdrawing behind the wall that concealed the stairs to the second story.

Josie?

Channie blinked several times, but the figure did not reemerge.

“Could you go check on Josie?” Mr. Mays directed the request to Channie.

That must have been her….

Channie nodded reluctantly. She climbed to her feet and wiped her damp palms on her jeans before setting off into the house. She was barely three steps beyond the laundry room when the garage door swung closed by itself.

Bang!

Channie jumped as it shut. A gust of wind blasted against the outside of the house, whistling through the eaves above.

She turned back around and continued towards the stairs, where she’d just seen the figure. The whole house was dark, apart from the limited natural light that made it this far back into the home. She felt along the wall as she walked, hoping for a light switch, but didn’t find any.

“Josie? Are you in here?” Channie called out.

A door creaked somewhere up above on the second floor, but no one responded to her call.

“Josie? Lewis? Is that you guys?” Channie raised her voice slightly louder this time.

Still, there was no response.

She started up the stairs. “This isn’t funny guys,” she said. “Where are you?”

Two-thirds of the way up, Channie’s eyes were elevated just high enough to see down the second floor hallway. A tall dark figure stood beyond an open door at the far end. It remained perfectly still, making Channie take pause.

She dropped down low to the stairs, out of sight. She was suddenly feeling stupid for having come to investigate all by herself. She lifted her head back up again slowly, locking her eyes once again on the shadowy shape. Her breath caught in her chest as she strained her eyes to make sense of what she was looking at in the darkness.

Channie shifted her hand slowly to her pocket, feeling for her butterfly knife. She was miffed to discover it missing.

“What are you doing?” asked Steph, suddenly at the bottom of the stairs behind her.

Channie dropped down again, spinning around as her heart nearly popped out of her chest.

Steph continued: “I saw Lewis and Josie run off before we came inside. And I saw you see them. No one’s in here, so what are you doing?” she asked again.

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Channie shushed her, with a finger pressed to her lips. “I thought I saw someone upstairs,” she whispered. She gestured for Steph to climb up and look with her.

Steph approached hesitantly, rubbing her elbow nervously as she climbed the stairs below Channie.

Channie’s eyes were finally starting to become better adjusted to the low light. She peered up above the plane of the second floor once more, searching for the figure in the darkness. The far doorway led into a bathroom. The shadow of a sink could be seen through the opening.

“What are we looking at?” whispered Steph upon reaching Channie’s side. She leaned forward with Channie, both girls lying on their stomachs against the stairs.

The shadow Channie saw had been much taller than the sink. She rubbed her eyes, momentarily questioning the authenticity of her experience.

Thump.

Something heavy hit the ground, sounding from within a distant bedroom. Channie and Steph exchanged a look of concern.

“Maybe they have a cat…?” whispered Steph.

An inescapable sense of dread suddenly overcame Channie—a little bit of survival instinct kicking in. “Nope,” she said. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m going back to the garage.”

Steph scoffed. “You don’t want to find out what made that noise?”

“After the day we’ve been having? No thank you.” Channie edged away from the landing, pulling herself back up into a standing position with one hand on the railing. “You go be my guest.”

As she turned back down the stairs, her eyes fell across an emaciated form inching around the corner at the bottom. It moved with slow, deliberate steps on all fours, moving ever closer on spindly limbs.

A hiss escaped its maw as it saw Channie see it.

Now I have to run up the stairs. People never survive in horror movies when they run up the stairs….

Channie couldn’t get her legs to move. They were frozen up with terror. Locked in place. She was screaming at herself in her own head to move. At the same time, Steph was literally screaming out loud but looking in the opposite direction.

All at once the desperation of the situation suddenly sank in for Channie. The creature pounced forward up the stairs, scampering at its prey. Fear slapped Channie in the face hard enough to spin her around. Steph was trying to muffle her own scream with one hand while she pointed towards a second creature coming out of the bedroom.

Steph resisted Channie as she grabbed her arm, but she dragged Steph up the stairs despite the odds. The creature down the hall sprang out fully into the hallway—an old wrinkled man, proportioned like a pale naked spider. It scampered forward on all fours like the other one.

Channie turned sharply into the first room, whipping Steph in behind her. Steph tumbled past her into Josie’s bedroom as Channie paused to slam the door shut behind them.

Wrinkled hands reached into the doorway. She grabbed the door with both hands and bashed it shut despite the fleshy resistance. Several white digits were severed, dropping to the ground, disjointed knuckles and all.

Channie clicked the lock shut as howls of pain erupted from the spider-people on the other side. The door shook with their pounding. It grew stronger until the hinges rattled and strained with their own groans. The growing pressure rumbled louder. The vibrations shook the fillings in Channie’s teeth.

She stumbled backwards as the sensation grew unbearable. She didn’t have time to turn away as the door exploded inward. The handle was left behind, broken off in the frame.

Channie fell backwards to the ground. There was nowhere to go. The slender monsters sprang at her angrily. They snapped at her ankles, gripping onto her before she could even attempt to scamper away. Their hands crushed her legs with such force that she whimpered in pain as they dragged her back out into the hallway.

She tried to grip onto the doorframe as she went by, but ended up with a fist full of severed fingers instead. She was yanked around the corner and slammed into the opposite wall. They pulled her into the back bedroom where there was more space for whatever they intended.

One kept hold of her legs while the other one jumped on top of her. It pinned her arms to her sides with its thighs and lowered its blood-slicked body against her slowly. She screamed as it dipped its angular face above hers. It looked eerily human, just twisted longer and brandishing a disgusting tangled beard that reeked worse than spoiled fungus in a garbage disposal.

It drooled into her face as it laughed a deep rumble of amusement. Channie’s scream was ill timed. Its spittle tasted as bad as its beard smelled. Channie retched immodestly.

When the creature pulled back away from her face she was grateful, but only for a moment before it began its strike. Both monsters tore at her clothing, ripping away at her midriff until her flesh was exposed, and then they kept going, tearing at her as they chuckled. Their nails were stony, slicing into her. The elongated fingers slid right into her abdomen and stabbed and groped at her organs.

She felt herself being disemboweled, right up until the moment that she found herself screaming, laying on her back on the ground in the garage. Everyone was standing over her. There were no monsters in sight—other than the squid thrashing about, now in its true aquatic form, still tied to the chair, of course.

Everyone’s faces held concerned expressions for Channie. She could hear herself screaming, but it took another moment before she could get herself to stop. She hadn’t been asleep.

It was an attack!

All the terror of her experience was just as present as when those monsters’ hands had been inside of her, tearing at her with malice and glee. It had all taken place inside her head, but it had not been her imagination. The only thing of which she was certain was that they were all in grave danger. In her heart she knew it true, the warning she delivered with dread to the group:

“The monsters know where we are!”

How dreadful! The group at Josie’s house has no idea what they are up against. Safety in numbers doesn’t really work when the enemy can put the terror directly into your mind. At least Channie is no sucker! The Dreadnaught knows where they are—it has seen inside Channie’s head—the Agares will be coming for real now! I, of course, already know what’s going to happen next, but you’ll just have to wait and see if Channie’s warning is enough to thwart the dark powers that are closing in.

Keep vigilant,

-Mr. Gray