Jonathan and Clancy: Now
The headless thing darted spider-like across the ceiling to the far corner of the room so quickly that Jonathan's eyes could hardly follow it. The bees were everywhere, stinging his face and scalp, stinging his hands. He wasn't sure if he had an allergy to bees but Jonathan figured if he received many more stings it would hardly matter either way. Even now he felt several painful welts swelling all over his body and was beginning to find it hard to breathe. Clancy's face and arms were covered in a growing number of stings as well. Jonathan wanted to make a run for the door but the thing was crouched in the corner just to the right of it and seemed ready to pounce. Behind Jonathan, Clancy had wet a towel in the room's sink and was whipping it around furiously killing many of the bees that were swarming around his head.
Suddenly the thing from the ceiling attacked, leaping the full distance across the room in a single motion and forcing Clancy to the carpeted floor. It gripped the man's throat tightly with both hands and squeezed until Clancy's face began to turn first red then purple like a bruise. Jonathan tried pulling the creature off of the downed man but its body was greasy and slick and its grip was inhumanly strong. He tried kicking it off but only succeeded in tearing chunks out of its ribs and stomach. The gaping holes made by his boots were leaking thick fluid black as oil. The blood reeked like sewage. As Jonathan struggled to free Clancy, still being stung by the remaining bees, he noticed a pinkish substance bubbling up from the blackened flesh of the thing's severed neck. A single drop of the substance fell free and struck Clancy's face where the skin immediately began to bubble and redden. Jonathan was so busy with his struggle that at first he didn't hear the frantic knock on the door. His mind was beginning to grow hazy and he was finding it harder and harder to pull air into his lungs. He gradually became aware of the pounding on the door and the shouting coming from the opposite side. A voice, strangely familiar, was calling his name. Knowing that his only hope may lie on the other side of the door, Jonathan turned and ran for the door. Just as he reached for the handle an impact from behind flung him face first against the surface of the door and icy fingers gripped his throat.
Laura: Now
The man in the driver's seat of the huge truck was intensely focused, and Laura thought it best not to disturb him for the time being. He'd been very talkative at first. Explaining to her everything he could about the man who had captured her and the other women and Reginald as well. So much of his story sounded crazy, but somehow she knew it was all true. The legacy of murder and the obsession with this mysterious "dragon". It explained the trucker's odd behavior, the conversations he had been having with the air, and as much as she wished she hadn't she had seen the red scales covering the man with her own eyes. Now that he had explained it all and told her of his plan to try to catch up with his nephew whom Reginald expected to find somewhere in Connecticut, the man had grown silent. His mouth was a solemn line under haunted and distant eyes.
Initially the man had offered to drop her off at the nearest town but when they'd arrived at an exit she'd told him to keep driving. At the time she hadn't known why she'd chosen to stay in the truck, the same horrible vehicle that had served as her prison only days before. Now as the miles accumulated in there wake Laura thought she understood. She was here for Nancy, and for Charlotte and the others. The time would come for walking into a police department and blowing the lid off of everything. There would be news vans, and media spectacle when that cabin was opened that would exceed anything that had come before. There would be exploitative books written and even trashier film adaptions made she was certain, but before all that, Laura planned to see the matter to its conclusion. She owed it to the women who had died in that cellar. Whatever dark work had been put in motion by the man she'd killed, Reginald believed it wasn't yet over. The older man was confident that his nephew, this Jonathan, had picked up where he himself had left off. He believed that the boy would follow the path hinted at by his uncle's notes. He also believed that he had unwittingly directed Jonathan into one of the trucker's traps: a trap originally intended for himself. Maybe that was why Reginald had grown so quiet. Perhaps it was simple guilt.
When they arrived at the motel and Reginald had pulled the large vehicle to a halt he turned to Laura and spoke. "He's here. The pickup parked there in front of the door was mine, it would have been passed along to Jonathan after my apparent death was determined. We know not what devilment is waiting behind that door." He gestured toward the hatchet Laura had just picked up from the seat where it had been resting beside her. "Be ready to use that again." Laura nodded and the look in her eyes said that she was. They left the truck and approached the door to room 319. Before they had reached the door they heard the sounds of struggle coming from inside the room: a loud crash, yells of pain from more than one voice. Reginald ran to the door and began beating on it, screaming Jonathan's name. There was a loud smack as something heavy hit the door and suddenly the door was open and a man fell out into the parking lot, with an abomination attached to his back.
Many miles away the trucker sat up in the gravel where he had fallen, and the grin on his face was one of pure joy.
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