Whoever it was got up from the couch. She heard the heavy tread of his footsteps on the carpet and then the awful click as he stepped off onto the hardwood floors. Her mind spat up an image of the feet she’d dreamed—three thick toes and black, hooked talons.

Her nerve snapped. Daria heard a long, silvery scream rip out of her and even in her frozen state of terror, she thought it was a very Hollywood scream. Her brain seemed to be watching, bemused, as the rest of her flew down the remaining stairs and crashed into the door. She yanked at the knob half a dozen times before slapping the deadbolt free. She yanked another half a dozen times before registering the door still wasn’t opening. She looked up in dumb disbelief at the slat of wood nailed over the top of the jamb.

“Lindaria Cleavon.”

She whirled, flattening herself against the door in a pointless attempt to push her molecules right through it and out the other side. He was there, he was coming for her, his horrible clawed hand stretched out before him. She shrieked again, grabbed the coat rack from the corner and threw it, coats and all, right at him.

He caught it, stumbling back with an expression of surprise that would have been funny if only it weren’t happening right in front of her, and banged the back of his knees into the coffee table. He pinwheeled, waving the coat rack for equilibrium, and Daria seized the little end table that occupied the little space between the front door and the couch and threw that at him, too. He snatched it out of the air before it hit him, but lost his balance, drop-sitting onto the coffee table with explosive results. Daria ran screaming past him.

She tore through the kitchen in a frenzy, ripping up drawers in disbelief and staring at the total lack of knives, forks, corkscrews, spoons or anything that could be used as a weapon. Her dishes were gone from the cupboards. There were no cans of cat food or jars of spaghetti sauce. There was nothing! There was nothing!

He was coming down the hall.

Daria seized a box of crackers and a handful of Tupperware and threw them, still screaming, peppering his face and chest with the only ammunition she could find. He stumbled back a pace, slapping at pudding cups and sandwich baggies full of cereal, and Daria raced around the cooking island, through the dining room, and back out into the hall behind him.

He bellowed her name at a volume that could rattle walls, and then he was running after her, the thunder of his stride pounding in her ears.

She reached the laundry room door, slipped and fell through it, then slammed it shut and crawled to the back door. She was still trying to scream, but her voice was gone; her breath shuddered in and out of her in whistling gusts.

The back door was boarded shut. Not just nailed, either, but screwed into place. She tugged at the boards, sobbing, and managed only to get splinters in both hands. The windows were barred. Why hadn’t she climbed out her bedroom window? There were no bars on the second story windows. The worst that could have happened was her falling and breaking her neck, and that was lots better than this.

Daria put her back against the door, looking in tearful desperation at anything she could use for a weapon. The room, like the kitchen, had been picked clean of everything sharp, heavy, or remotely dangerous. She grabbed an empty paint can off the work shelf and held it out before her like a cross, shaking violently.

The door to the hallway was still closed.

Daria stood there, the empty paint can heavy at the end of her arm, and finally managed one wobbly step forward. And another. And a third. She reached out across miles of distance and touched the doorknob.

Silence.

She tried to turn it.

It wouldn’t budge. He was gripping the other side.

Daria sprang back and banged into the washing machine. She threw her paint can at the closed door and then slid down to the floor and huddled there.

Nothing moved. The door remained shut.

Daria picked up a sock that had somehow missed the hamper and hugged it to her chest.

The doorknob began to turn.

Daria tried to push even tighter against the washing machine, but the laws of physics prevented her. She twisted the sock in her hands and shivered.

The door swept open and the man peered in at her. Fury made his golden eyes smolder, but he did not fly at her. He glanced down at the empty paint can, nudged it aside with his foot, and then took a step towards her.

She threw the sock at him with a despairing howl and then clapped both hands to her mouth and waited for death.

He looked at the sock. He looked at her. He looked skyward. And then he looked at her again. “Do you know who I am?” he asked. His voice had the prick of irritation but he was keeping calm.

She didn’t want to know, but her brain provided the information anyway. She nodded, tears streaming over her fingers and splashing onto her chest. When he only waited, she pried her hands a little apart and whispered, “Tagen Pahnee.”

Something in the hard set of his shoulders relaxed slightly, but he still looked pretty pissed at her. He took one step forward and stopped again. “What else do you remember?”

She remembered him holding her hair while she was sick in the sink. The thought seemed to curdle somewhere inside her; her shivering body began to go slack, not with relief, but in defeat. “You’re not going to hurt me,” she sobbed, not believing a word of it.

“No. I am not going to hurt you.” He regarded her with a bitter intensity and took another step toward her. “And you are not going to throw things at me.”

“Okay, I won’t.” She looked up at him through a shimmer of tears. “Now please go away, okay?”

“No.” He took the last step, and then reached down and took her arm. He brought her inexorably to her feet and glared down at her, his claws still strong on her bicep. “I need your help,” he said, stressing the word ‘need’. “And I am staying until I have it.”

“No!” she moaned, and tried to pull away from him. In a moment of pure absurdity, she heard herself add, “I’ll call the cops!”

“I have the phone,” he countered, his eyes narrowing. He let go of her and watched as she inched away from him and hugged the dryer. “Do I need to tie you before you stand still?” he demanded.

She looked at him, her lip quivering. She shook her head.

He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then let it out in a sigh. His unnatural eyes glanced her way once more and then he turned his back on her and walked out. “When you are ready to listen,” he called as he left, “I will talk.”

Panic was a nice thing to have in bad situations. It numbed the senses nicely and kept one from having to come to real grips with horrible things. Unfortunately, it was not self-perpetuating. Without the continued presence of the stranger (The alien! The monster! The clawed, fanged, evil thing!) to feed it, panic slowly bled out of her and lucidity stole in.

Daria shuffled forward, keeping contact with the dryer as long as she could, as though it were her own private tether to normalcy. She stooped and picked up the sock she’d thrown and returned it to the hamper. She put the empty paint can back on the shelf. It was dulcet powder, and she’d need the sample if she ever had to repaint her bedroom.

The door was still open, inviting her back into her house. The stranger was nowhere in sight. Daria tugged her t-shirt down over her thighs, steeling herself, and finally stepped out into the hall.

He was in the living room, cleaning up the wooden shards that used to be her coffee table. He glanced at her when she crept in, but that was all.

Daria waited nervously for him to do something and when he only continued to ignore her, she moved past him and picked up the bills she’d dropped in front of the door. She had nowhere to put them, so she righted the end table and put them there. The coat rack went back in the corner. The coats were hung up on the rack. After that, she had nothing else to do but look at Tagen Pahnee, the invader.