The metallic tapping echoed off the damp concrete.
"...eighty-seven... eighty-eight... eighty-nine..."
Zarek stood three feet from the reinforced door, his sword resting against his thigh. His grin faded as he studied it.
He looked at the details instead: the heavy industrial deadbolt, the steel frame set deep into poured concrete, the rusted vent grille six feet up the wall.
Beside him, Elsa had backed against a stack of wooden crates, knuckles white around the pry bar. She kept her eyes on the dark corridor leading back to the loading docks, her breath coming short and quick.
"Zarek, please." It barely carried over the hum of the lights. "We have the food. We have the medicine and the water. We can leave before whatever’s upstairs comes down here."
He didn’t answer right away. He was looking at the grille.
"What do you notice about that voice?"
She blinked. It wasn’t the question she’d expected. She made herself look at the door again. "He isn’t screaming," she said slowly. "If someone were trapped in there, they’d be pounding. Yelling for help. He’s just counting. He doesn’t even care that we’re standing right here."
"Good." A faint smirk touched his mouth. "You’re using your head instead of panicking."
He wasn’t praising her. She was finally looking before reacting, which made her more useful than a screaming liability.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
"...ninety-two... ninety-three..."
He took two quiet steps back, placing each foot carefully on the oily floor, then stopped in the shadow of a steel rack.
The tapping continued for three beats, then stopped. For almost ten seconds, the bay was silent.
He stepped forward and set his heel down hard on the concrete, a flat, deliberate slap.
The tapping started again. "...ninety-four... ninety-five..."
He didn’t go for the handle. He slid sideways and put himself behind the concrete pillar left of the frame, out of line with the grille. The moment his footsteps left the middle of the room, the knocking stopped dead.
He’s not just trapped. He can tell where I am, and he decides when to make noise.
"Let’s go." Elsa had edged up to his shoulder. "It’s a trap. It has to be."
"Information has value." His eyes stayed on the frame. "A man who sits in the dark and counts out loud isn’t panicking. He’s waiting for something. If he knows anything about this place, or what’s crawling through it, I want it."
Walking away with a full stash was what a scavenger did. He wanted the edge.
A faint, wet scraping came from the far end of the bay.
He put a finger to his lips and gave Elsa a look that froze her. He pressed his back against a shelving unit and pulled her into the dark behind him.
From the corridor by the trash compactors, something slunk into the light. It was about the size of a large dog, but stretched wrong, hairless, pale skin sagging over its ribs. It moved on four jointed, needle-thin legs with its head low, its bare snout twitching in the damp air.
It didn’t rush. It stopped by a puddle of dirty water and tilted its head toward the reinforced door.
Thump. Thump.
The knocking started again, faster, a sharp double tap.
The creature’s head snapped toward the sound, and its tail whipped against the concrete. It took three slow steps toward the door, nostrils flaring at the seam under the frame.
Elsa tightened her grip on the pry bar. Zarek caught her wrist like a vise and shook his head once.
He watched the thing instead. There was no rage in it, no blind hunger. The sound pulled at it like a hook.
It reached the door and pressed its snout into the gap at the bottom. A wet hiss. Its claws dragged across the panel.
Tap-tap-tap-tap.
The man inside changed rhythm: four quick strikes.
The creature shrieked and drove its head into the steel. The frame groaned and a shower of rust flaked off the hinges.
Inside, the knocking stopped.
The creature stood there heaving, pale eyes darting over the dead door. With no more sound to follow, it lowered its snout and began nosing along the wall in confused circles.
Maybe the noise winds it up and the silence throws it off. Maybe.
He picked a rusted iron bolt off the shelf beside him and tossed it into the dark behind a row of pallets, twenty feet to their left.
Clang.
The creature’s head whipped around. It growled and lunged for the pallets, leaving the door behind.
Zarek stepped back into the shadows. One test wasn’t proof. But the sound had pulled it off the door as easily as it had pulled it on, and whoever was behind that steel might have worked that out already.
He waited until the creature had crawled away into the dark behind the compactors. Then he went to the door from the side, sword up, standing clear of the frame in case it swung open fast. He tapped the pommel against the steel, once, softly.
Silence. Then, from behind the panel, two quiet taps answered.
Now he’s listening to me.
"He brought that thing here on purpose," Elsa whispered from three paces back. Her voice shook, but she said it. "He wanted whatever was outside to get killed."
"Or he wanted to see if whoever was out here could handle it."
He laid a palm flat on the cold metal. A heavy manual bolt secured the door. He closed his fingers around the rusted handle, wondering whether his new strength would be enough to wrench it free.
Before he could put any weight on it, the voice came through the grille. It wasn’t counting. It was thin and cracked from thirst, but steady.
"You’re not the one I expected."
Zarek stopped. He kept his hand where it was and let the silence stretch.
A rattling breath came through the grille.
"But you might work."
He glanced at Elsa. Her face had gone white. She was shaking her head and mouthing no, no, walk away.
He turned back to the door. The corner of his mouth lifted, and his grip on the handle tightened.