Chapter 17 Violet #2
The first ten girls file in through the front door until it closes behind them.
The sound of a heavy lock clicking into place follows seconds later, and my entire body tenses.
They lock us in? They seriously lock us in?
! Panic coats my insides, my fight or flight already kicking in, though I force myself to stand still.
And then I hear it. Screams of absolute horror.
“Let me out!”
“I’m done! I’m done!”
“Fuck you, Jagger! You owe me a new dress!”
As he glances at Roman, Jagger’s mouth twitches and I swear they read each other’s minds. If only I shared the same talent. What the hell is going on in there?
“Keep moving!” Roman yells through the heavy iron door.
Unaffected by the threats echoing from inside, Jagger announces, “Eleven through twenty. Line up.”
Seems it’s my turn.
Okay. Okay, okay, okay. It’s fine. It’s totally fine.
I’ll be fine. If I can just…get my heart to take a chill pill, that’d be great.
But nope. It’s freaking galloping. Hell, it feels like it might literally give out at any second.
Breathe, I remind myself. I push past the feeling while praying I don’t pass out.
Wiping my sweaty palms against my jeans again, I shuffle closer to the porch.
My shoulder bumps into someone else, jostling me and pushing me forward so I’m at the front of the group like a sacrifice.
Perfect. Because the first person never dies in a horror movie. Great strategy, Violet. Not that it’s a voluntary one, but here we are. Front. And. Center.
“Open the door,” Jagger orders.
Roman steps forward, unlocks the lock and tugs open the heavy door.
The iron hinges scream in protest, revealing nothing but darkness.
It’s so black, it’s like a hole. Like a portal to another world.
Another universe. A dark underbelly. My bottom lip trembles as I peek to my left, despite my best intentions.
Jagger stares back but doesn’t utter a single word, his expression just as unreadable as always.
Instead of letting his lack of empathy bother me, I dig deep and mirror the emotion.
It’s only a haunted house.
“Go,” number fourteen urges behind me.
Forcing my body to move, I step inside. Something crunches beneath my feet.
My stomach bottoms out. What the hell? Another body pushes into my back, and I step forward again, my senses on overdrive.
Okay, this is terrifying. Seriously, I can’t see anything inside the building.
Not one freaking thing. A quiet rustling echoes around me. I can’t place the sound. What is that?
In a twisted game of deja vu, metal scrapes against metal as the lock clicks into place. And then, something hits my head.
A lot of somethings.
My shoulders bunch around my neck and ears as I lift my hands, covering myself as much as I can, but it’s too late.
Whatever it is, it weighs almost nothing.
Like confetti. But there’s so much more of it.
Blinded by the lack of light, I scrape some of the debris from the top of my head and bring it close to my face, trying to place what it is when a girl screams beside me.
The blood curdling sound makes me want to vomit as whatever’s in my hand tickles my palm.
It’s moving.
“Bugs!” someone shrieks. “Get me out of here! I’m done! I’m freaking done, you asshole!”
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to keep my shit together, no matter how impossible it feels as something jumps off my head and into the dark abyss. A cricket, maybe?
Holy freaking shit. They dumped live creatures on us!
What the hell is wrong with them?
Keeping my head down to protect my eyes, I slowly shift to my right while attempting to block out the crunching of insects under my sneakers.
A shiver races its way along my spine and across my limbs.
Okay, this is so disgusting. I need to keep moving.
Keep. Moving. Inch after inch, I make my way to the right side of the room or entryway or…
wherever I am. It would really help if I could freaking see.
When my fingers graze the wall, I let out a slow breath and move forward, scuffling out of the crowded entryway and, hopefully, toward a safer area, but I’m not exactly holding my breath.
Not if this is simply the first room. Something jumps onto my face, and I wipe at my nose, hitting it off as quickly as possible, my stomach rolling in disgust. It’s the smell that does me in, though.
Earthy. Grassy, almost. With an undertone of dust. My nose wrinkles, and I try to hold in my sneeze, but it’s no use.
“Achoo!” The sneeze hits like a wrecking ball while more bugs fall off my head and onto the ground.
I force myself to put one foot in front of the other because there’s no way I want to stick around with all the creepy crawlies.
Keeping my fingers on the wall, I blindly move forward until I feel an opening.
It’s a doorway of some kind. I step into the room, but wait at the entrance, trying to block out the screams and cursing behind me as I listen for clues as to what might be waiting for me inside.
The problem is, I can’t see or really hear anything outside of what’s behind me.
It would really help if I could freaking see something! Anything.
I wonder if…
My hands tremble as I reach along the wall inside the room, blindly searching for a light switch.
When my fingers brush against some kind of button, relief washes over me, and I push it.
The same familiar metal scraping metal echoes.
A door clicks into place behind me, locking me inside.
The room stays dark. And the screams? They’re muffled by the metal door separating me from the main area.
I squeeze my eyes shut, desperate for…anything else.
Anything at all. Anything that’ll give me a clue as to what I should do next so I can get out of here.
Then, I hear it.
What is that?
I tilt my head, straining to place the familiar sound. It’s…breathing.
Shit.
I’m not alone.