I banged on the door Alex had just walked through.

“Alex, come out!” I yelled. “This isn’t over! We aren’t leaving!”

I could hear some kind of murmuring coming from the other side of the door. It sounded like chanting.

“I think he’s calling someone,” I said. I banged on the door again. “Alex! We need to end this!”

The door slowly opened, and there was the tall man, the Monster. “PEEK-A-BOOO!” He said and started laughing.

The sound was so loud it made my eyes water, and the floor shook. The Monster started coming out into the hallway. We all backed into the other room. The Monster stood in the doorway, laughing. “I’M COMING TO GET YOU!”

The room shook so hard the glass in the patio door rattled. The Monster hunched in the doorway. In the bright light of the room they were in, he was in full shadow. I realized he was too large to fit through the door, but he began to try anyway. The whole time, he was laughing, making the room shake with the volume of his voice.

“THE CLOSET!” I yelled. “LOOK IN THE CLOSET!”

Dan and Greg both just looked at me. “LOOK IN THE CLOSET! NOW!”

Dan was closest to the closet. He opened the door and looked inside.

“There’s some kind of altar,” he said.

“BURN IT!” I couldn’t stop shouting. I realized then that I was still holding the bottle of water in my hand. The Monster was struggling to get through the door. He had come in headfirst and was trying to wiggle his arms through.

I could hear the chink, chink of Dan’s lighter in the closet. I was on one side of the Monsters head and Greg was on the other. I opened the water bottle and poured the water in the Monster’s face. It screamed, and I watched as its eyes, nose, and mouth melted away.

I looked over at Greg and shouted, “YOUR WATER! USE YOUR WATER!”

Even without eyes, the Monster was still trying to wiggle into the room. Its head had made it in, but its arms were stuck. The Monster was trying to get the arm closest to Greg in the room.

Greg opened the water bottle and poured it on the Monster’s shoulder. The Monster screamed again. This time, it shattered the glass in the patio door and knocked Greg and me to our feet.

Then I heard a WHOOSH! As Dan finally got the altar lit. Dan backed out of the closet as the room began to fill with smoke. The fire alarm went off, and the sprinklers came on and started dumping water into the entire apartment.

The Monster screeched but began to melt. The fire kept blazing despite the water raining down from above. Dan, Greg, and I ran. Well, slowly walked to the door because of all the clutter. I knew the fire would take over the entire apartment in minutes.

Once we were outside, I said, “We’ve got to get the people out of the other apartments.”

We split up and knocked on as many doors as we could. When we came back out to the parking lot where all the residents had gathered, I looked around for Alex, but I couldn’t find him.

“He didn’t come out,” I said.

Dan and Gregg looked at me, then at each other, and then they started scanning the crowd also.

“I don’t see him,” Dan said.

“Me neither,” Gregg said.

I found a fireman and told him there was still someone in one of the apartments. Then I told him the number of the apartment. The fireman said the blaze was contained to that apartment only, and no one could go in there now.

“I think he’s dead,” I told Dan when I made it back to my group.

Alex was gone. Carla was gone. There was no reason for us to stick around. We all left.