“I-I don’t know,” Sam gasped, holding a hand to his side where it ached. “But we gotta get outta here.”
“How? It’s a dead end, and those things are behind us!” Theta said. Her eyes searched the claustrophobic space for a weapon, and she decided on a section of pipe, which she wielded like a bat.
Sam pushed through the fetid water to a set of rungs jutting out from the concrete wall. He peered up. “I think this ladder leads to a manhole and the street!”
Theta pushed against the water, moving toward the wall. She stopped suddenly.
“Theta, hurry!”
Theta shook her head. She gripped the pipe tightly. “Something moved. Under the water.”
Sam held perfectly still. He swept his flashlight beam across the murky brown water. “Nothing. It’s okay. Just keep moving.”
Theta took another step and stopped again. The water’s surface buckled; a glow came up from underneath, rippling out in waves. And then the wraith broke through, rising up in front of Theta, blocking any hope she had of reaching Sam and the ladder. It was big, well over six feet, and broad, with the build of a bricklayer or ironworker. Its eyes were milky, as if it had not seen light for a very long time, but its teeth were needle-sharp, and that mouth… that mouth opened with an unnatural elasticity, dark, viscous drool coursing down over a chalky jaw. And that sound—as if all the demons of hell were singing.
Theta’s throat constricted, forcing her breath out in short, shallow puffs. Fear tightened its grip on her, and a sense memory arose—nights spent listening for Roy’s boots banging up the steps, Theta staring at the turning doorknob, stiffening her body in anticipation of the blows.
“Theta,” Sam shouted. “Hold on!”
But Theta couldn’t really hear Sam. It was as if she were in danger of floating away, out of her body, away from fear and pain, the way she used to do with Roy, like a child crooking a finger inside her and showing her the way to a hiding closet. She was vaguely aware of Sam lunging, swinging the knife at the wraith’s broad back, vaguely aware of the knife sticking fast but having no effect. Her body shook as Sam thrust out a hand, screaming, “Don’t see me,” but the broken thing lurched toward Theta, undaunted.
“Dreamdreamhungrydream…” it said in that garbled, satanic voice.
The lamp on the front of the thing’s digger’s helmet flickered in Theta’s eyes, hypnotic keystrokes of light.
Roy’s voice rang in her head:
Where’s my dinner, Betty Sue? Were you flirting with that boy, Betty Sue? I saw you. Don’t lie to me. You know how I feel about lies.
The wraith latched on to her arm. It smelled of spoiled meat and curdled milk. Theta turned her head and shut her eyes. She thought of Roy coming for her with his fists and his taunts and his belt.
“Dreamhungrydreamhungry…” the thing growled. Unthinking. Unfeeling.
Its foul breath was on her neck, filling her nostrils.
Roy. Roy smelling of beer. Drunk on anger and disappointment and violence.
The trembling in Theta’s body had progressed to shaking. Her palms itched. Tears ran down her face, but she could not make a sound.
Don’t you cry or I’ll give you something to cry about.
The undead’s stinking, dangerous mouth was close.
On the bed. Him on top. Her mouth bloody. Blood in her nose. Close to choking.
With a cry, Theta put up a hand, a barrier between herself and the thing that wanted only to infect her with the shared dream, to stay alive any way it could, to break her as it was broken. Its skin was soft and oily against the thin cotton of her glove, like rotting fruit. Theta gagged, vomiting a little in her mouth. The itching under her skin caught, like gas finding flame at a stove burner. The temperature inside Theta rose. Rivulets of sweat poured down her body. The heat raced along her nerve endings, shooting out to her hand. The thing screeched as Theta burned it. It lashed and shook as it burned down to bone.