Bennie braced herself, with a bolt of new fear. All of a sudden, the box had started to vibrate. The scratching and rumbling had grown so loud they blasted in her ears. What was going on? The box shook harder, the noise intensified.
She hollered and pounded on the lid. Something was scratching on the lid. Just then she heard growling. It had to be an animal. Frantic, she pounded on the lid to scare it away, but it kept growling and scratching. The rumbling got louder and the shaking stronger. She kept pounding and screaming and fighting. She refused to die this way, spent, crying, broken, bleeding.
The growling and scratching grew frenzied, faster. It sounded as if the animal was trying to get away from the noise. She pounded harder, her heart hammering, her chest heaving, the wood shaking on all four sides.
Suddenly the scratching and the growling stopped, leaving only the rumbling, deafening. The animal had gotten away but she couldn’t. The box shuddered like an earthquake.
She screamed at the top of her lungs as the box shook, rattling her teeth, jolting her bones. She gave way to a terror she could never have imagined, the unknown. She had no idea what was coming toward her. It had the force of a tornado, the power of an express train. The clamor intensified to ear-splitting levels. Her head slammed against the box. Her shoulder banged against the side. Roaring surrounded her, obliterating all other sounds. She didn’t know if she was still screaming, because her cries disappeared into its unearthly maw.
Swallowing her whole.