Marcus Holloway's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Marcus pushed himself up off the dusty floor. The figure above him did not move. The lamp behind it threw a long shadow across the boards. He could not see its face. His chest still burned from running. The silence of the house pressed on his ears after the screaming halls. "Who are you?" Marcus asked. His voice cracked. "Please. I just need a quiet room. Somewhere the whispers stop." The figure stepped back. It bent and picked something up from a table. Marcus flinched. But it only held out a lamp and let the light fall between them. It was a boy, maybe ten years old, in a dirty orange shirt. His eyes were huge and tired. He looked as scared as Marcus felt. "You can't stay," the boy said. "It followed you. It always follows the noise." "What followed me?" Marcus asked. The boy pointed past Marcus to the door. On the wall beside it hung a carved wooden panel. A boy swung a tree branch at a huge monster frozen in the wood. A small girl hid behind the boy's legs. "My sister carved that," the boy said. "Before it took her. That's what's coming." A sound came from the porch. Slow. Heavy. Claws scraped the wood. Through the window Marcus saw it. A black shape taller than the door, on four long legs, with a mouth full of teeth. It sniffed at the house. The warm light did not seem to touch it. "The whispers were its throat," the boy whispered. "You led it here." Marcus's stomach dropped. The quiet he had chased was bait. Running had fed the halls, and the halls had fed this thing. He grabbed the boy's arm. "Is there another way out?" The boy nodded fast. He pulled Marcus toward a back hallway. The front door shook. One board cracked. A long claw split the wood and dragged down the center panel. They ran through a dark kitchen. The boy shoved a side door open. Cold air rushed in. Across a weedy lot stood a huge blue building, its windows black and broken, its paint peeling in strips. A school, long dead. "In there," the boy said. "It can't smell us through brick. Go quiet. Don't run." Behind them the front of the house tore open. The black beast forced its shoulders through the broken door. It fixed its eyes on Marcus. Marcus did not run. He remembered the halls. He walked. Each step slow and silent, the boy's hand tight in his. They crossed the lot one careful foot at a time. The beast's head swung, searching, confused by the stillness. They slipped through the blue school's doorway and crouched in the dark. Marcus had escaped the house. But the quiet room he wanted did not exist. The thing that hunted the whispers was real, and now it knew his scent.