Gretchen McNeil - 3:59

“Hello?” she called into the shadows.

No answer. Josie shook her head. It had been so many days since she’d experienced actual darkness, her ocular membranes were no longer capable of adapting to the lack of light.

The generator whirred to life, flooding the warehouse in artificial glow, and Josie jumped.

“There’s no one here,” Nick said. He pulled the chain, rolling the gate back into place.

“Oh.” Josie peered into the back of the warehouse, now bathed in the orangey overhead lights. Nick was right. No one there.

After he secured the door, Nick wandered over to the fridge, mumbled something to himself, then closed the door without taking anything. Josie watched him, unsure what she should do next. He was clearly annoyed with her, angry almost. She felt like she was to blame, and yet how could she be? What did he want from her?

Nick plopped himself down on a sofa and picked up one of the books on interdimensional travel Penelope had left there. He flipped through the pages quickly, and kept his eyes focused on the book. The signal was loud and clear: I don’t want to talk .

Josie shrugged and sat down on the sofa opposite him. Suddenly, she was exhausted. The excitement at Penelope’s discovery had long since evaporated, and Josie was left feeling fatigued and sore. Every muscle in her body ached as if she’d run back-to-back marathons in stilettos. She leaned her head against the armrest and closed her eyes, wishing she had a sleep mask with her. The orange glow beyond her closed eyelids only enhanced the dull ache emanating from the back of her head. Never in her life had she craved the darkness so desperately. Josie’s breath began to slow. Sweet, calm black . . .

Josie didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep until she felt a hand over her mouth.

“Shh!” Nick hissed in her ear.

Josie’s eyes flew open and panic immediately welled up inside her. It was completely silent in the warehouse; the gentle, ever-present whir of the generator was gone. And though Josie could feel Nick’s breath against her cheek as he held his face close to hers, she couldn’t see him.

The warehouse was completely dark.

Josie lay there frozen, Nick’s hand still covering her mouth, his body pressed tightly next to hers on the sofa. She couldn’t see any movement in the warehouse, but as before she had the sensation of motion. A shuffling sound. A breath. Was she hearing things?

Nick made no move for the car. He was listening intently. He held his breath and didn’t move a muscle.

That’s when Josie heard it. In the distance.

The shrieks.

“Come on!” Nick yelled, all pretense at subterfuge evaporated. He grabbed her hand and hauled her off the sofa. She stumbled over the coffee table as Nick dragged her forward. The shrieks of the Nox intensified quickly, like they moved at light speed. Josie and Nick didn’t make it halfway to the car before the windows at the top of the warehouse exploded.

A coordinated attack, bursting in through several windows at the same moment, as if directed to do so. Screams filled the warehouse and in an instant Josie was surrounded by the sensation of flapping. The air beat around her as countless leathery wings swooped at them. Glass rained down from the roof, and though Josie could feel the broken shards crunching beneath her feet as Nick feebly dragged her toward the car, she could hear nothing but the deafening roar, the piercing screams of the Nox.

Josie felt Nick trip in the darkness, his hand ripped from hers.

She dropped to her knees, desperately searching for Nick as the wings continued to swarm around her. Her hand caught hold of his leg, motionless on the ground. As she blindly felt upward toward his face, she touched thick, leathery skin.

The Nox flinched when she touched it, but the monster didn’t move. It felt smaller than she’d imagined: about the size of a pit bull. It sat there, perched on Nick’s chest.

A predator claiming its prey.

She lashed out at the beast, punching at it fiercely with her fists.

The Nox shrieked, not the ferocious war cry that filled the rest of the warehouse, but a cry of fear and surprise. As if it didn’t know she was there.

Josie paused in confusion. Instead of attacking her, the Nox beat its wings desperately and flew away.

Josie had no time to contemplate her strange encounter with the Nox. She crawled on top of Nick, feeling for his face. Her fingers touched something wet and slick. Blood. She tried to feel for a heartbeat, for movement from his lungs, but the swarm whipped up to a frenzied pitch. The air whistled around her as if the Nox were circling above, preparing for a final attack. Just like in the woods that night. In the chaos, she’d completely lost track of where she was. Could she carry Nick to the car? Could she find it in the blackness? She heaved his shoulder, desperate to move him away from the attacking swarm of invisible beasts that seemed to fill every inch of space in the warehouse. She got to her feet, looping her arms under his, and lifted with every ounce of strength she had left. She staggered backward, dizzy and disoriented. She had to make it to the car. She had to. They were going to die if she didn’t. . . .

Suddenly, the weight of Nick’s body was gone. She felt him lifted upward by an unseen force. She grasped at his arm. The Nox had him. They were carrying him away.

“No!” she screamed. She clung to Nick’s arm, desperate to keep him away from the Nox.

A hand grabbed her wrist, prying it off Nick’s arm.

A human hand.

“Nick?” Josie yelled. He was alive. They were going to get out of there together.

“Quiet,” a voice said close to her ear. “Follow me.”

Josie stopped. It wasn’t Nick’s voice, but it was familiar. Harsh and raspy. She’d heard it before, whispering in her ear amid the chaos of a Nox attack.

The man in the woods.

9:05 P.M.

“WHO ARE YOU?” JOSIE REMEMBERED THE SHADOWS she’d seen in the darkened corners of the warehouse ever since Nick had first brought her there. A trick of the eye, an overactive imagination. Not so much. But where had the man come from? Materialized out of thin air? Magically risen out of the ground?

“Quiet!” he barked.

Josie shook herself from her daze. She reached out and felt his shoulder, tall and strong in front of her. He held Nick cradled in his arms.

“This way.”

Not that she had a choice. Stay in the warehouse and be eaten alive by monsters that live in the darkness or follow the mysterious stranger down the rabbit hole.

Mysterious stranger it was.

He led her across the warehouse to what must have been the far corner beyond the parking area. He moved slowly, unhurried, which seemed odd considering the swarm of creatures that continued to circle just above their heads. It took Josie a few moments before she realized they weren’t being attacked. It took her even longer to realize that while Nick had been viciously overcome within seconds of the Nox bursting into the warehouse, she didn’t have so much as a scratch on her.

The Nox left her alone.

What was going on?

The stranger paused, and Josie felt him bend down. Or so she thought. He continued to move forward and as Josie followed, she realized he was going down a set of stairs.

The steps were rickety wood, judging by the way in which each step sagged ever so slightly under her weight. Only a dozen or so, and Josie landed on a firm dirt floor.

“Wait here,” the stranger said. He squeezed past her in the passageway. He was tall—Nick’s height, at least—but broader and heavier. Josie’s eyes strained against the blackness of the space, trying to get a glimpse of the stranger, but other than an outline of a body disappearing up the stairs—even blacker than the blackness around her—she couldn’t make out anything.