Chapter 5 - THE SECOND DOOR

Mara forced Caleb into the bedroom and locked the cellar room behind them.

“You need to let me look at your other ear.”

“No.”

“If there’s another one—”

“There isn’t.”

“Then prove it.”

Caleb paced, panicked and increasingly hostile.

“Stop treating me like a patient.”

“You were screaming ten minutes ago.”

“That thing is out.”

“One thing is out.”

Caleb turned sharply.

“Don’t say that.”

Mara lifted the otoscope.

“Sit down.”

For a long moment he refused.

Then he sat.

Mara examined his right ear.

At first, nothing.

Then she saw a thin black filament disappear behind the curve of the canal.

Her stomach dropped.

“Caleb.”

He stood so fast the chair fell backward.

“No.”

“I saw it.”

“You imagined it.”

“I know what I saw.”

He shoved the otoscope from her hand.

“I’m sorry.”

His voice sounded like himself again.

Then another voice came from his mouth.

“Don’t touch us.”

Mara backed into the wall.

Caleb clapped both hands over his mouth.

His eyes filled with terror.

He had heard it too.

The thing inside him was no longer whispering only into his ear.

It had used his throat.

Mara grabbed the medical kit.

“We’re getting it out.”

Caleb shook his head violently.

“It’ll hurt.”

“Yes.”

“It knows what I’m thinking.”

Mara paused.

“What?”

“It knew you were going to grab the kit before you moved.”

Something scraped inside the wall.

Then another scrape answered from the ceiling.

The cabin seemed to wake around them.

Caleb whispered, “Mara, I think the first one wasn’t trying to stay in me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think it was trying to get out.”

A bang shook the bedroom door.

The doorknob turned.

Once.

Twice.

Mara raised the iron fireplace poker.

The door opened an inch.

No one stood there.

But on the floor outside sat the black creature they had pulled from Caleb.

It should have been dead.

Instead it had grown.

And wrapped around its body was a tiny strip of fabric.

Blue cotton.

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Mara recognized it immediately.

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