Hide and Seek

Chapter 20: Nine

Since everyone usually seemed to hide on the first and second floor, I decided to hide on the fourth. It took me a while to get up there. I was pretty sure someone decided to follow me, and I had to stop on a few floors to hide before I could continue to move. Once on the fourth floor, I went in the opposite direction of Mr. Harmon's art room. I hid behind a statue of some sort.

Once settled, I started thinking about Caroline. I could never forgive myself for that. Ever.

While I crouched down to hug my knees, something fell out of my pants pockets. It was my cell phone. That explained why Mrs. Harmon was touching me so much. She was trying to find my pocket. I guess it was a bit hard considering I only had one. I didn't even feel the phone this whole time.

I turned it on, exposing a bright light. I quickly turned the brightness of it down then covered it with my hand, hiding the excessive light. I immediately went to the text messages. All of them were from Abby. I read them.

Two days ago: "Hey are you okay?"

"I'm worried."

"Should I be concerned?"

One day ago: "Okay, I told my parents about everything. They're a bit concerned as well."

"My parents said if they don't hear from you in 24 hours we're contacting the police."

Ten hours ago: "HEY OMG I GOT YOUR TEXT. WE'RE GOING TO THE POLICE STATION."

Two hours ago: "The police are looking into things. They don't think anything is wrong. They're as much help as a cat."

Forty-four minutes ago: "Me and my parents are coming ourselves once we get the information. I sure hope everything is okay."

I went to the sent text messages and found a text that said, "Help me." Mrs. Harmon must have sent it. She was trying to help.

I heard someone coming up the stairs. I quickly texted Abby, "Please come with cops. There are dead people." I then shut the phone.

Someone was on the fourth floor, and they were walking in my direction. The silhouette was now standing an arm's length from me. I know I shouldn't have, but I did: I shone the phone light to see who it was. It was the woman. She stared back at me. Moths were coming out of her mouth, and one landed on her head.

Why did she keep following me? She reached for my phone. I thought she'd break it or something.

All of a sudden she sat next to me and turned on my phone. Her head was anything but still. It rolled around like she had no neck bones. She started texting something into my phone.

"You have to save us, Emily. He's tortured us for too long."

I stared up at her then reached for the phone quickly and texted back.

"What happened to you? Why are you like this?"

"The book. Emily, please save us?"

"How?"

"Some1 is coming."  She texted, then shut off the phone off.

Someone else on the fourth floor with us.

"I found a dead body!" someone yelled out from downstairs.

The lights came on. In front of us was Jasper. He was holding a drill this time. The drill Caleb had. How did he get Caleb's drill?

I thought the worst.

Jasper smiled at me. He pulled the strings off of his lips once again. Blood dripped to the floor like a faucet turned on low. "This is for Caroline." He shouted, tears pouring down his face.

He walked toward us then raised the drill in the air.

The game was over; he couldn't do that!

The distorted woman raced toward him, aiming for the drill. Their hands were high in the air along with the drill, pushing one another here and there. Her back faced the stairwell. Jasper pushed the drill to her neck. He was obviously way stronger than her. He grabbed the drill, swung it back away from her the started drilling into her neck. A part of stairwell broke off from weight, falling along with the woman. The landing was loud and hard.

Jasper stared at me with empty hands. He attempted to run towards me but stopped. His eyes started to bleed and his bones twisted in his body. He screamed from the pain. Behind him stood Mr. Harmon with his arms crossed.

"Cheating kills you," he said.

Mrs. Harmon ran upstairs. She looked at his body and shook her head. "Wow, five dead."

***

Once downstairs, I found out Jasper murdered three other people: one of the masked kids, Mr. Harmon's father, and Violet." Now that Jasper was now dead too, that left nine. The nine left were Tate, Caleb, my mother, my father, the girl who crawled on the wall, one of the masked kids, the girl from my dreams, and me.

The cards were handed out.

Blank.

Boy, was I tired. I hoped Abby got here real soon because of this time, Tate gave me a real hard look.

"Light's off. Begin!"