I brought my finger to my mouth to shush Aaron, and froze my body in place. I didn't dare to move a muscle or make the slightest noise. I just listened to see if the thing had noticed the creaking sound.

I heard nothing but the heavy silence that blanketed the hallway.

I decided I would count to ten and if no sound came from down the hall then we would continue our slow and sneaky trek. If something did make a noise, well, we'd have no choice but to run with all our might.

One, two, three, four, five, wait... I heard the sharp whistling that the thing had made earlier.

I couldn't stand it, I pulled the door violently open and we threw ourselves inside. Aaron let go of my arm then leaned over and exhaled deeply. I would have done the same, but I needed to see if the thing would show itself.

I brought my face right up to the narrow window on the door, which was only a few inches wide. Staring down the hall, I heard clattering coming from the room, and then... a head peeked out from the door. It was looking in the opposite direction, so that means it didn't know where we were. "Run!" my mind screamed to me, "Run now, before it does notice you! Run! Run! Run! Run! Run! Run! Run! Run! RUN!"

But I couldn't remove my face from the glass; my burning curiosity was even stronger than my animal instinct. I needed to see what had been in the room, what had killed those people... The thing slowly turned its head towards the door, and made me wish I had turned and ran.

In one word: horrific.

Although I couldn't tell very well in the dimly lit hallway, the creature's skin appeared to be as red as blood. But then, I thought, was that really the real color of its skin? Or was it actually covered in blood? That, of course, wasn't its most sickening feature. I had been right in guessing that the things jutting out from its face were its teeth. I had never seen anything like them before. Not in nature, and not in fiction either. From where I stood, they appeared to be at the very least half the length of my arm. They jutted almost straight out of its face from where the mouth was, uneven and crooked. They were all curved upwards, and by God did they look sharp. Coming out on the sides of the teeth, the mouth-line went in a curved pattern all the way up to its eyes. Its eyes... At first I mistook them for empty sockets, but as I stared at them longer, I realized they were just very, very small and from what I could see completely black. It had thick, heavy bags under its eyes, which sagged almost down to its mouth. As for a nose, I couldn't see any.

It stared at my direction and I stared back for what seemed like forever, and then the whistling abruptly stopped as it peeked its head back inside.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs and just let out everything that had been building up inside of me. But that would draw it out, and I did not want that.

I wanted anything but that.

"Quick, let's go right now!" I hastily whispered to Aaron, and started up the stairs again. I saw in his face that he wanted to ask me what was in there, but he knew he wouldn't get an answer.

I didn't bother taking my time; I couldn't with all that was coursing through my mind at that moment. Great, I saw what had killed the people. Just great. But that only brought on more questions than it answered. Just what in the hell was that thing? Where did it come from? How was it connected to this storm? This alone couldn't have caused all that destruction outside, so what did? Were there more? I shuddered at the thought, and as I did I realized that the manager had said "things". Plural. There were more. Judging by everything we had seen so far, it was likely that there were much, much, much more out there. And without anymore doubts, they were what had made the screams. They were what had killed those people in Boston. But what about the loud noise we had heard when we were coming into the city? Something that small couldn't make a noise that big, right? Then... what did? And what about the earthquakes? Why were they doing this? I was hit with a sudden realization that there must be more in this very building. We had heard sounds when we passed by the third floor, were the rest in there? I hoped so. I prayed that we wouldn't encounter any more on our way up... and what about our way down...? How in the hell did everything tie together?

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

Before I even realized it, we had made it to the top floor.

Jessica. She was here.

I sluggishly brought my hand to the door knob, but didn't turn the handle immediately. I was scared of what I would find behind this door, more than anything else in the storm.

I took a deep, slow breath, paused, and then let it all out as I opened the door and stepped into the room on the other side, with Aaron right behind me.

The first thing I noticed was that the room was devoid of people, living or dead. In fact, the room was completely empty save for a single potted plant. There were two doors in the room, one on the far end straight ahead and the other on the left. This room just appeared to be an entry way of sorts that led to the other rooms. But which one was Jessica in, straight or left? From the door on the left I could see a red light emanating from the crack under the door. It must have been another emergency light. From what I could tell, the door straight ahead was pitch black on the other side. I walked up to the door on the left, and brought my ear up against it. I couldn't hear anything on the other side, so I motioned for Aaron to come over and then I opened the door. Excellent, another hallway. Just great. Luckily, this one was much shorter than the last one and the only doors were the one at the end of the hall and a janitor's closet. We didn't bother sneaking through this hallway, though we tried to make the least amount of noise we possible.

I sighed with relief when we made it through completely uninterrupted. When we made it to the door, I noticed that there was a bright light coming from the other side. Was this where they were hiding? I put my head up against the door, but I didn't hear a sound. But of course, they wouldn't be making any noise in this situation. I couldn't help but smile. Jessica was behind this door. Everything would be alright in the end.

Aaron saw my smile, and he knew what it meant: we were finally here.

Then, like a fool, I swung the door wide open, all the way.

There in front of us, clearly illuminated by the light shining from the ceiling, thrown around the room like trash, were about a dozen human bodies.

The floor was completely covered in blood, some parts of the walls had even been sprayed. Oh God... there was so much blood. Most of the bodies hadn't been touched much, almost as if the perpetrators had just killed them as a side thought so they could find the others without risking them getting away. Although most had their throats slit cleanly, a few were in particularly bad shape. Some were completely covered in gashes, a few were missing limbs and a few... all that remained was a limb.

The scene in front of us was absolutely inhumane, the most brutal and offensive thing I have ever seen. I was surprised that my stomach didn't empty as soon as I opened the door.

Though there was a dozen corpses in front of me, killed in such a disgusting and unfair way, I only really noticed one of them:

Jessica.

Jessica was dead. I heard Aaron scream out to his mother next to me. Oh God, he saw it. He saw everything. It was too late to block his vision.

Jessica was dead.

Aaron had seen her dead.

It was too much for me to take in, too much for my mind to process. I squeezed my eyes tight, clenched my fists tightly and let out a maddening scream into the air.

As my cry echoed through the building, I heard something else mingle with it...

The screams.