Survive the Night

9

Victoria ran upstairs to find the others while Bleak stayed behind, looking for some way to penetrate the locked door. They were all in their rooms as she'd hoped. When Victoria trampled into Kevin's room, he jumped erect from his bed. Sasha was hidden in the covers, but her blonde hair failed to hide her.

"What are you doing in here?" Kevin shouted, his muscular arms twitching nervously, making sure the blankets were covering the lower half of his body.

"I'm sorry," Victoria cried, covering her eyes. "Wendy's in trouble. She got locked inside the parlor."

"What?" Kevin jerked the covers and wrapped them around his waist, leaving Sasha squirming naked on the bed trying to veil her body with pillows. Victoria turned away rapidly.

"Shit, Kevin!" Sasha roared. "Asshole."

Kevin put his jeans and shirt on in the bathroom and followed Victoria downstairs. They heard Bleak shouting-"Breathe easy and slow, baby. Easy and slow. We're getting you out of there"-the whole way down the spirally staircase.

Victoria nearly tripped on the first step and fumbled beside Bleak. He caught her and shook her violently. "What are we gonna do?"

Victoria's eyes flickered back and forth from Bleak to the door. She didn't know. The entire hall was dark now, whatever they were able to see only permissible by their adjusted eyes.

"Wendy?" Bleak's hand slapped the door. "Are you there?"

There was a painful silence before Wendy's hollow voice said: "There's a window here. It's outside on the veranda. I can't open it."

Bleak's strained eyes lit up the room with faint hope. He tugged at Victoria's wrist and they ran outside, the rest of the crew-except Sasha, who was likely still dressing herself upstairs-met them and lagged behind. Outside, the cold, milky air bathed their skin and spines, and the sky was a purple soup with swimming clouds. A parade of footsteps bounced over the wooden boards of the veranda searching until Bleak shouted: "Here it is!"

It was a tiny square window, about the size of a laptop screen. Wendy's petrified face was pasted on the window, her skin pale white. She was breathing so fast that her head rocked up and down.

The window was high and Bleak had to move a rocking chair to stand on it. He nearly stumbled before catching himself on the wall. Geo and Kevin held the chair in place for him.

"We need to break it right now!" Bleak shouted. His voice was hoarse and demanding, a tone none of the others had expected to hear from him.

Winston and Mike ran back into the house and came out a minute later with instruments from the kitchen, and the shovel from the fireplace. They tried the shovel first.

"Move!" Kevin roared. He stood up on the chair and buried the shovel hard into the window. It made an eerie scratching sound, but it didn't break. He flipped the shovel to its end and tried again. A screech and nothing more. Several more times. Nothing.

"Let me try," Bleak insisted. He yanked the shovel from Kevin's hands and Kevin slipped over the chair, crashing to the floor. Bleak mumbled something that must have been an apology and climbed the chair again.

For the next few minutes he went wild on the window, with Wendy's face blinking behind it. Slamming the shovel against it to no avail. Only minor scratches. Wendy's face looked like a still-life painting behind the glass, like something that belonged framed on the wall.

"There's..." she said dimly from behind the glass. "There's someone in here with me."

She was very still, as was Bleak, as if not to disturb whatever presence lingered inside.