He pried the doors open with his fingers. The car was there, thank God. He stepped in, punched "12," and held his breath.
The emergency hatch had a thin line of light around it. That light was now being broken by a shadow—something moving, blocking it piece by piece.
The hatch lifted a quarter inch. A single, pale digit—too long, with a knuckle that bent sideways—curled around the edge.
He sat down in the corner, knees to his chest. The silence that followed the skrbt was heavier than the darkness. He started to count his breaths to stay calm. One… two… three…
And the last thing Leo heard, before the dark took him completely, was that sound again, coming from inside his own skull now.
The ascent began with a whimper. A low, harmonic groan of stressed cables. Then, halfway between floors 6 and 7, it happened.
Leo pressed himself against the rear wall, his mouth dry as ash. He didn't want to see what made a noise like that. A noise that wasn't metal, wasn't bone, but something in between. A noise that had no business existing in a world of verbs and nouns.