The glass of the laundry door didn't shatter; it spiderwebbed.
The pressure against the barricade had increased. The banging had stopped, replaced by a scratching sound. Like nails on a chalkboard, amplified by a microphone.
"They're trying to find a weak point," Jengo said.
Suddenly, the scratching stopped. A face pressed against the unbroken pane of glass near the handle.
It was a waiter. His face was pressed so hard against the glass that his features were flattened. His mouth was open, his tongue lolling out, black and swollen. But his eyes... they weren't rolling wildly anymore. They were focused. They were looking at them.
"Stage 1 is ending," Aris whispered. "The energy is burning out. They're transitioning. The adrenaline is crashing. They're becoming... Hunters."
The waiter's head tilted. He seemed to be listening.
Then, he smiled. It was a grotesque, human gesture that looked alien on his ruined face. He pulled back, and a second later, a fire extinguisher was thrown at the glass.
CRACK.
The spiderweb turned into a fracture.
"Get back!" Thomas yelled.
They scrambled behind the rows of washing machines. The glass shattered. An arm reached through, knocking the bottles of salt water Lucas had prepared off a table. They hit the floor and spilled, the white crystals spreading across the concrete.
The waiter tried to climb through, but he slipped on the salt.
He fell face-first onto the pile of crystals.
The reaction was instantaneous. The waiter's body seized. His limbs locked rigid. His back arched into a bow shape, his heels and head touching the floor. A sound like a high-voltage wire snapping came from his throat.
He wasn't dead. He was paralyzed. He was frozen in a rictus of agony.
"The salt!" Lucas shouted. "It works!"
But then, the waiter began to twitch. Not a seizure—a movement. He was dragging himself, inch by inch, his face grinding into the salt, his eyes locked on Lucas.
"It's not killing him," Jax said, raising his axe. "It's just slowing him down."