New Title 1 by Smith Bryan

Author:Smith, Bryan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bitter Ale Press
Published: 2015-12-05T05:00:00+00:00

7.

Simone stopped at the second floor landing and aimed the beam of light down a hallway. The weak illumination made it difficult to tell for sure, but she sensed the hallway was a longish one. There was something about that darkness beyond the edge of the lighted area that suggested significant depth. As she stood there and contemplated the darkness, she began to perceive other qualities within it, sinister things. She told herself it was just regular darkness, a mundane absence of light, nothing more. The sense that it pulsed with a malign supernatural intelligence was just her fear sparking paranoid delusions.

Terry joined her on the landing and said, “See anything?”

Simone jumped at the sound of his voice. “Jesus! You scared me.”

“Sorry.”

Simone sighed. “It’s okay.”

It really wasn’t. Her heart was still slamming in her chest from the fright he’d given her. But she knew he hadn’t startled her on purpose and so chose not to rebuke him again. Besides, she was too creeped out by this house and the mystery of her missing friends to risk upsetting him. If she’d said anything too mean, he might have elected to head back out to the SUV and leave her up here alone. And now that she was up here, she wasn’t sure she could face down that deep darkness without someone with her.

A silent moment elapsed as they stood there and stared down the dark hallway.

Terry cleared his throat. “So…are we just gonna stand here all night?”

Simone didn’t answer right away. Her fear was not abating in the least as the seconds rolled by and turned into minutes. To the contrary, it was intensifying. She felt sweat in her armpits despite the cold suffusing the old house. The trepidation she felt at venturing farther down the hallway was such that she briefly considered passing the phone back to Terry and asking him to lead the way. She liked the idea of having a buffer between herself and any potential threat lurking up here on the second floor. It was a selfish, mercenary impulse and she felt bad about it, a little, but not so deep down inside she knew she wasn’t above allowing someone else to step into harm’s way in her place.

In the end, though, her fear of relinquishing control over their only light source was even greater than her fear of being attacked by monsters or ghosts or whatever. Besides, she still suspected the truth of the situation was that Spence and the others were pulling some kind of lame prank. Right now they were probably hiding away in one of these rooms and keeping quiet, waiting for just the right moment to jump out at them and scream boo!

And if that happens, Simone promised herself, I’ll kick Spence in the balls so hard they’ll fucking explode.

“Stay close,” she said, glancing at Terry.

He smiled. “No problem.”

It was all Simone could do not to roll her eyes at that smile. Of course he didn’t have a problem with that. Being close to her was his favorite thing in the world.

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