Darwin's Game

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Carrick walked forward in a crouch, making slight thumping sounds as he went. The girl behind him propelled herself forward in an army crawl, making small thumping noises as she went as well. To them it seemed painfully loud, deafening in fact.

            The boy reached a sharp turn in the ventilation system and quickly pulled around it, and stopped. Shiloh followed Carrick around the bend, and then proceeded to slump against the wall as he did.

            Here they could only be found if someone followed them into the vent. It was also blissfully noise free.

            Shiloh swallowed nervously; both figures looked at each other. The door had stopped rattling, but they couldn’t hear any footfalls. Nothing. But the predator was there. His feet as light as falling snow.

            Skkrasshhh! The explosion of noise and sound sent Carrick’s and Shiloh’s hearts to pounding, and their breath to momentarily stopping. He was here, and he had found the vent’s discarded grill. What was he trying to do? Maybe he hoped to drive them mad and make them run out from where they hid, like the flushing of quails. Or maybe he had seen the grill and was coming for them. Maybe he would creep into the vent and would end their chances of winning, without a sound. No one to hear them scream. No one to help. No one to care.

            The wait was pure torture, as no one in the vent or otherwise moved. It seemed like forever to all three players as they all waited to be caught.

            Shiloh ached to rub as a cramp in the calf but kept still. The vent was chilly as cool air passed gently by them making them shiver.

            Skkershh. Both flinched from the gentler sound, their bodies too stiff, from the hard surfaces and cold to do much else. Because they were they didn’t make any noise that would have alerted the person in the room outside if their joints hadn’t frozen in place. All signs of breathing in the vent stopped.

            A face peered in the vent looking for them, but instead meeting the back of the vent right before it turned. Disappointedly the face withdrew, and not knowing what they had narrowly escaped, Carrick and Shiloh inched forward and away from the room.

            Like most vents the walls climbed steadily upward. Climbing became harder for Shiloh, crawling along on her stomach, than Carrick, whose shoes gripped the vent’s slick metal fairly well. Even so, he still slipped. He paused only to wait for Shiloh and to help when asked. Carrick quickly managed to figure out that Shiloh didn’t like help much, preferring to do it herself, unless absolutely necessary.

            After eleven minutes and one left turn the vent leveled out and continued on at no incline for six minutes with two right turns. The incline soon returned steeper than ever, Shiloh gripping at the raised seams where the vent was welded together as handholds.

            After five minutes of struggle Carrick took the left turn before him and breathed a sigh of relief when it revealed level terrain. He waited at the top for Shiloh and taking her hand, he silently and expressionlessly pulled her up to the top. Carrick was anything but calm, and Shiloh sensed it even through his reassuring demeanor. Neither wanted to face what was in their minds, instead choosing to put it to rest until they could be sure they were in the clear. Seven minutes later they faced two possible choices. The vent continued straight, but there was another turn that ambled on to the right.

            Shiloh looked to Carrick, only to find him already turning to her.

            “What now?” he mouthed to her.