Seth stirred from what he suspected to have been a terrible nightmare. He couldn't remember its entirety, and upon further reflection in his slurred, sleepy haze, he found himself unable to recall any visuals of the dream at all. He could remember the screams clearly, however; screams that had unmistakenly come from his daughter, too authentic for even his imagination. Seth's vision of the macabre had always been something that he found frighteningly striking, and it had helped him finish his first Times best-seller last fall.

But even for the deep well of his mind, the screams seemed too real and were the first thing to unsettle him in a vast amount of time. It was almost relieving for Seth to know that he still could be unsettled; that all of the scares he had written for his readers hadn't hardened him too much.

And now he lay in bed, watching the ceiling fan's perpetual spin as his heart rate gradually descended to its resting pattern. Seth's life since childhood had been haunted by nightmares, which he was normally forced into remembering, and he didn't need much recovery time. He'd become indifferent to them.

The screams, though, he thought. Might need a minute to get over those screams.

At the tail-end of this reflection, his bedroom flew open like a champagne cork. He nearly bounced from his mattress in a dual shot of surprise and fear but relaxed momentarily at the sight of his daughter, who wasn't screaming. He noticed that she seemed far beyond feeling unsettled; and though he couldn't read her face in the small time frame that she had entered the room, he guessed that it showcased pain, disgust, fear, or a sickening combination of the three. She then slammed the door behind her, turning the lock, and Seth's nightmare suddenly resurfaced from his subconscious to remind him of the scream from his "nightmare." He was beginning to realize that the scream may have been more real than he preferred.

"Daddy!"

She was screaming another chilling, genuine scream.

"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"

She was still repeating his name when she sprang across the room (an impressive distance, he later recalled,) as he was sitting up on his elbows in bed; knocking him flat to his back.

It was only after she hit him at a near sprint that he got a complete look at her. He saw how tired her young face looked, the fear in her strikingly blue eyes, and what looked to be dime-sized burns on her forehead. She really was a beautiful girl; her tired, tear-streaked face looking more like her mother than usual. Her mother had worn a pout as of late instead of letting her beautiful smile fly. She and Seth had been fighting again lately, and Seth was losing. She was in the guest room for the fourth consecutive night.

"Woah Rache, easy," he said in a tone similar to those ranchers use to calm horses. "What's the matter?"

He rubbed her back as she choked and gasped over her own sobs; burying her face deep into her father's shoulder and soaking through the flannel of his L.L. Bean pajama shirt.

"It's the… the walls, Daddy," she said. She was looking at him shakily, and he could feel her shivering. He had a feeling it wasn't the breeze from the ceiling fan that was giving her chill bumps.

"What do you mean the walls, love?" he asked, leaving his drowsiness on the backburner. His stomach did an uneasy turn over what she had told him, and though he was keeping his voice steady, he felt no larger than her.

"There was something in them…" she said. "Knocked my trophies… I heard a thumping... it came through the crack…"

He didn't need to ask, but he felt that he should. He wanted to be clear about what was happening.

"What crack, Evelyn? What're you talking…"

She interrupted him. "The monster, Daddy. The thing that was knocking on my wall, it broke through…" She began to cry then. "I saw it! It had claws and big teeth, and its eyes, Daddy. They were so terrible."

She resumed her exhausted, terrified cries after she managed her relatively slack explanation, but Seth had no questions. He knew exactly what had happened to her. She hadn't been the first of her family to meet the monsters that lurked in the dark between the walls.