The 5000 Fingers of Bob, pt X

I started suddenly as if I had drifted off to sleep. I looked up and saw Bob, looking at me with guileless eyes. I felt like a significant amount of time had passed without my realizing, but I don't think I fell asleep. Bob smiled, but said nothing and a nagging feeling gnawed away in the pit of my stomach, like something had happened I didn't remember. I let go of a breath in a loud gasp I hadn't realized I'd been holding, looking at my hands shaking uncontrollably even as I gripped my knees.

There was something. Something about stepping through a single door and going everywhere all at once, but before the thought solidified, the door burst in and there stood Jack coated in blood from the belly down. He had a vacant look in his eyes, but he stared at Bob, looking almost afraid to move.

"Is he still in there?" I heard Ed call from outside.

Bob's head snatched toward the doorway as soon as it opened. I looked at him and saw his face was almost a mirror of Jack's, but there was something different. He didn't seem to be looking at Jack so much as staring at the open space behind him.

"Shut the door," I said, a feeling of subconscious understanding rising in me. Jack stood rooted to that spot and a well of anger shot out of me and I screamed, "Shut the goddamn door!" That roused him and he leapt inside, slamming the door behind him. Bob's gaze immediately fell to the floor and he slumped down in his chair, deflated. We both stood there in silence, wondering what, if anything, had just happened.

Howie came in then, his hair white as snow and drenched in blood like he'd waded in a pool of it, Ed shortly behind.

"It's Glenn," Howie said.

'"We're gonna do this quick,' Jack whispered. The three of us huddled around him and he turned his eyes to Glenn, sayin', 'Ten minutes and meet us in the basement. Let's get to it.'

"Glenn made off, goin' up those rickety stairs like a coon dog on a scent. Jack hitched his head for us to follow, carryin' two cans of kerosene to our one a piece and we still had trouble keepin' up.

"'Shine that lamp over here,' he barked back at me. The door to the basement was locked, but he made easy work of it, droppin' the cans and takin' the hammer out of his belt loop and knockin' the knob off with one swipe. He tucked it back and jammed a screwdriver into the hole and turned it. He pulled the door open gently, took out the screwdriver and dropped it back in his pocket.

"I took the lead with the lamp and Ed fell in right behind me. Goin' down those stairs I can't tell you how many shadows danced around like they were gonna lift right up off the wall and swallow us whole. It was cold as a snowman's balls down there, but I sweated harder than on the hottest Georgia night. It felt like the air itself was puttin' its cold hands around my throat and squeezin'. I made all right with my one can, but Ed's sloshed around like he was havin' trouble carryin' it with his good arm.

"Some kind of light flew by me quicker'n a falling star.

"'The hell was that?' I heard Ed say before I had a chance to register it in my mind. I heard his can hit the floor.