Language warning, by the way.
CHAPTER 6
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. This is beyond unbelievable.” Sean was pacing in front of the sliding closet doors inside room A7. Each of them had turned on their flashlights and rested in various parts of the room. “He claims innocence, we go through that whole thing, and then he pulls this shit? I can’t believe this!” she slammed a fist against one of the closet doors with a resounding boom. “Sean calm down! What is wrong with you?” Fred asked. “There’s no way he would do this again, something must have happened.” Sean continued to pace with growing irritation. “When, exactly? When is he supposed to have gotten kidnapped? In the five seconds we were all in here? He clearly slipped out while we were looking at Ann and now he’s out there hiding somewhere and giggling to himself at how badly he’s going to scare us.”
Hannah leaned against the peeling paint next to the hall
door, her flashlight at her side. “Well he was going on about how he scouted
the location thoroughly. He would know exactly where to hide to freak us out.” Hannah
saw Jennifer’s eyes shift from her to the open door on her right side. “… Jennifer,
what? Is Paul coming back?” She pushed off from the wall and turned to look
into the hallway. “C’mon Paul, we’re not scared of y-“Her last word turned into
a scream as she fell away from the door, crawling backwards until she hit Fred’s
legs. Fred stepped over her to search the hallway. He spun, and, seeing
nothing, came back into the room. “Hannah, what?! Why did you scream? There’s
nothing out there!” Hannah’s face had drained of color. She turned to Jennifer
as if she hadn’t heard Fred speak. “Jennifer,” she said breathlessly, “I saw
him.” Jennifer’s eyes were wide with terror. “I saw him too, Jennifer, oh God I
saw him too.”
“Who, Paul? You saw him in the hallway?” asked Liz
hopefully. Hannah shook her head, still catching her breath. “There’s no way
that was him.” “What are you talking about? It’s dark, there’s no way you could
tell,” Ann said, pointing her flashlight into the hallway, “It had to be him
trying to scare us. It had to be.” Fred kept his flashlight pointed at the
hallway door. “I couldn’t find anything. If he was there he’s somehow gained
superhuman running powers or something because there was nothing out there.” Sean
took Hannah’s hand and helped her to her feet. Hannah wiped some of the dirt
and dust from her pants, yelling, “I just know, OK? It wasn’t a person. It was
like a shadow of a person but with nothing casting it. It was darker than
everything else, I don’t know how, but it was. It was like it sucked in the
light from the air around it.”
“That’s exactly what I saw!” Jennifer exclaimed, “What if
something really is wrong? We have to find Paul; we can’t leave him alone with that
thing running around out there!” Sean sighed. “Fine, if you guys are really
going to be taken in by his bullshit, we’ll look for him. I doubt he went very
far. He’s probably just in the next room waiting to jump out and yell ‘BOO’
just to be extra retarded. Look, here’s what we’ll do. I don’t feel like going
back to where we came in and spending the rest of the night waiting for Paul to
stop being a douche. We’ll split into two groups and look for him. It’ll take
ten minutes, we’ll find him, kick his ass, and then we can finish the shoot and
get out of here. Does that work for everyone?”
“Nope, nope, I vote we just get out of here and call the
cops or something. Even if what Jennifer and I saw wasn’t real, what if Paul
really is hurt? What if there’s some kind of deranged hobo serial killer or someone
in here with us? We should call the police immediately and then figure out what
to do.” “Whoa, whoa,” Liz said, “Let’s not get crazy. We’re trespassing here,
remember? My parents would kill all of you and then me if we got caught. He’s
only been gone for, like, thirty seconds. If he had been attacked, we would
have heard something. If he had hurt himself, I guarantee he would’ve been
yelling for us the moment it happened. The only thing that makes sense is that
he’s pulling this ridiculously elaborate prank on us and we’re falling for it.”
Ann kicked a piece of plaster into the bathroom. “I’m with Liz, this is silly.
We’re getting all worked up over nothing here! Let’s just do a quick search so
he can scare us or whatever and get it over with. I really wanted to get some
good shots out of tonight and we still have plenty of time to do that if we
stop these shenanigans right now.”
Sean stepped into the middle of the group, her face set with
determination. “OK here’s how this works: Ann, Hannah, and Liz, you search B
Hall and get back to B11 so you can leave if there is trouble. Fred, Jennifer,
and I will check out the rest of A Hall and the Dining Room before we head back
to meet you. There’s almost no furniture in the rooms so it shouldn’t be hard
to find him. I guarantee he’s just in a closet or something,” she said
exasperatedly. She saw the looks of worry on the faces of both Jennifer and Hannah
and took a breath, her shoulders relaxing. “He’s fine you guys, I promise.
We’ll find him, or he’ll find us, and then we can never, ever, ever listen to
another of his shoot ideas ever again. Right?” Hannah nodded, smiling. “Right.”
Fred smiled. “Right. Besides, it’s like Liz said. He has to be pranking us.
What’s the worst that could happen?”
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