Gingerbread by J.E. Erickson

Author:J.E. Erickson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: J.E. Erickson
Published: 2023-09-18T16:01:06+00:00

Chapter Nine

Maddy hid under the bed and waited for the voices to pass. Squeezing her eyes and tensing her stomach to force herself into complete silence and safety did little to quiet them, but it at least kept her from breathing too hard and giving herself away as more bloody little feet walked into the room, paused, then ran out.

“Stay and play with us,” the children called out, giggling, their feet scampering down the labyrinthine hallways as they went room to room, searching.

“Helllllloooooooo?”

“Tickle, tickle.”

Maddy held her breath and prayed they wouldn’t turn around and find her.

Silence reigned for a long time before Maddy crawled out from under the four-post bed, careful to not make any noise against the hardwood floor as she stood and stalked into the hallway in the opposite direction of the damp footprints, checking doors as she went. She needed a way out. To find the exit so she could make way back to Mickey and back home.

They had to be looking for her by now. It’d been hours since she took refuge in this horrible place from whatever creature chased her through the fog. Hours of walking down endless hallways filled with door after locked door of bedrooms and Victorian era sitting rooms. Her throat felt like sandpaper, and her stomach tightened with hunger. None of the rooms had food or running water; there wasn’t even a bathroom. She held her bowels and bladder as long as she could, but ended up relieving herself in the corner of a sewing room. The embarrassment and shame were enough to make her cry.

For the first few hours, she kept on searching for a way out, struggling with locked doors she couldn’t kick or beg to open. No hidden keys waited for her inside any of the desk drawers or dressers, like the puzzles out of the video games she played. The hallways all looked the same and different at the same time. It was like everything rearranged itself as soon as she stepped into a room or turned down a darker corner to check an interesting-looking door.

Frustration had her in tears more than once. When she got over those, she found a cold bed to crawl into and hide, its blankets stinking of moth balls and tobacco. Anxiety kept her from hiding for too long, though. Something or someone was watching her. She could feel it. And she headed back into the orange glow of the dangling Edison lights.

Once settled down, she turned her search into a sort of game. What’s behind this door? Two lamp posts and a chair. Wrong. It was a fireplace and a wardrobe. And this one? Empty except for a locked hope chest. She knew it was silly, but it helped stave off the growing loneliness and sense of isolation gripping her chest.

But when she found the doll room, Maddy wished she could go back to the blessed paranoia of the empty hallways.

She tried to push the memory of that room out of her mind while she checked doors and looked over her shoulder.

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