They will break down the door, soon. We can’t stay here.
The survivors were clustered around the centre of the lobby, watching the shadows on the windows and listening to the thumps of the door.
We can’t, said the clerk, in barely more than a whisper. Everyone heard him anyway.
We must.
… We can’t…
That door, said the man once a shopkeeper, with a gesture to the opposite side from where the moaning and banging of the deceased could be heard, Is seven-inch steel. It can keep them out.
The clerk looked unsteadily at the barrier. It was as dark and uninviting as ever.
But what about the things it keeps in? They sometimes start up on their own, you know. You wouldn’t have heard, but I’ve worked here, I’ve seen the reports. Guards have been killed by them before.
Even the monsters outside sounded uncertain during the pause.
We will move quietly…
So did the guards! screamed the clerk, who began sobbing. So did the guards…
Near silence, again.
They’re all back there, you know, the clerk began again. Everything from the stories. The Talos rebuild, Doctor Apple’s harvester, all the remaining fragments of Mont Noir… All we’ve been trying to hide and deny for a hundred years, everything we’ve been too enamoured with to destroy yet too fearful to use. But out there… I can’t bear to see my wife like she is now.
He sobbed again.
I will unlock the door.
Nobody looked cheered by this.