10-30-08 9 PM

The access panel that Reggie had just closed was nothing more than a piece of thin plywood with dry wall attached to it on a set of hinges. More of a door, it had a crude knob and latch that could be operated on both sides. It was a simple, but effective method for allowing people to get in and out of the access tunnels.

The area Reggie was now in was a stone lined tunnel that ran beneath the entire dormitory building so that maintenance workers could have access to water, sewage, and electrical systems. It wasn't very big, only five feet wide and barely six feet high. It consisted of a poured concrete floor and rough cinder blocks for a wall. With the pipes that ran along the tops and sides of the tunnel, Reggie really had much room than he'd hoped for. With the access door closed, the tunnel was completely dark.

As he sat down against the wall, Reggie could hear the fighting and chaos above him. He felt ashamed at hiding, but he was terrified after seeing first hand exactly what these creatures were capable of, and those images still burned in his head. Having no light in which to see allowed those images to easily pop in at him repeatedly. Each image was accompanied by the sounds of death, pain, and destruction above him from voices crying out for help, relief and, in the case of the attackers, bestial satisfaction and joy.

More and more the voices became easier to hear. Some of the screams and shouts were voices Reggie knew, but would never hear again. Each scream and each growl caused his heart to jump. Whenever the sounds of death or the footsteps of the creatures were closest to him, his skin would tingle and he would sweat profusely, sometimes breathing harder and audibly louder.

Although it seemed to have been an eternity to Reggie, after a few minutes of hiding, he could hear that more and more of those creatures were now on his floor. The sounds of doors being forced open and items being smashed and broken as the creatures searched for live victims hiding in closets or under beds hoping to be missed became a staccato of death and suffering.

He began to measure the seconds in screams and crashes, anticipating them eventually making their way to his own suite and his own room. The darkness began to weigh heavier and heavier on him, each death adding another stygian weight of survivor's guilt.

At its worse, he actually flinched and jumped with every sound. Sometimes he thought he could hear something stirring and moving at the other end of the tunnel. Many times he had to fight the urge to scream out in fear and defiance. He worried that he was going insane and although he could no longer keep any semblance of the time that was passing, he stayed in this state for over thirty minutes. When the pressure became to great for him, he fumbled for his back pack and took out his cell phone, turning it on to provide some light, some safety in which to hold back the madness and panic that were close to taken control of over him.

With the light from his cell phone on, the darkness seemed to retreat just enough to allow him to breathe more slowly and easy. The clock on the phone showed that it was almost 10PM; he couldn't believe how long he had been sitting in this tunnel. He tried to block out the noises around him by looking through his back pack. He found his cell phone charger, a notebook, half a bottle of water, a few pens and highlighters, his Christian Actions and Values text book, and his iPod and headphones. He went over that list of contents dozens of times in his head, trying to focus on memorizing them to block out the noises. This was successful until the creatures entered his suite.

When he heard the thick wooden door to his room break apart with a loud explosion of force and splinters, he immediately shut off his cell phone light, put it in his backpack and held onto the aluminum bat with everything he had.

Fear and adrenaline pumped loudly in his ears as the creatures completely destroyed everything in his dorm room. Reggie didn't know how intelligent they were or if they understood the things they were destroying as they looked to see if anyone was hiding. Their grunts and growls were gutturally deep and it seemed as though he could feel their vibrations through the stonework against his back.

It wasn't until after the door to his room was forced open that he heard them speaking in a low harsh language that he couldn't make out. For some reason he couldn't identify, he didn't think they were that smart. Even though they were talking in some kind of language, there were just as many growls and grunts and snorts mixed in to make him suspicious. He heard his computer and desk being thrown to the floor and smashed. Something big was thrown against one of his walls, and he could hear the mattress on his bed being torn into and thrown aside while they searched for him. As they were systematically ripping his room apart he realized that they didn't have to be exceptionally smart to kill and destroy.

His room grew silent as they apparently had destroyed everything they could possibly touch in his room. Reggie thought they were going to leave until he felt the shock of his closet doors being ripped apart by the hungry creatures.