Slaves of the Night

Chapter 15 - Ticking Bomb

Chapter 15: Ticking Bomb

Sam’s Point of View

  When I was eight, one of my friends had hosted a birthday party at their house. Normally I would’ve loved a good party--cake, candy, ice cream, and goodie bags. What kind of deranged little kid wouldn’t be happy about being invited to one?

  I had gotten dressed in my favorite pair of jeans and newest polo top so I looked just as cool as the other kids, but like most of the time they hadn’t noticed. The party was huge and over the top, especially for an eight year old, but I hadn’t minded because it had felt like I had been invited to a mansion, plus the cake was supposed to be amazing. Only ten of us showed up early and with the awkwardness that hung in the air since we obviously weren’t the birthday girl’s first choices to have come, she decided on a game of hide and seek.

  Since it was such a huge house I was thrilled to find a hiding place that no one would ever find me in. There were two floors and each had at least six rooms, making the possibilities seemingly endless. While the girl that was it was calling out numbers I had rushed up to the second floor, finding the most secluded corner and stashing myself in the closet. The moment I closed the door in on myself I had been surrounded by darkness, not even a sliver of light shone under the door because the carpet blocked the bottom.

  Though the darkness sent fear into me, I forced myself to sit down on the floor and wait out the turn so I could win the game. Time ticked by slowly, ever more so with each second I listened to silence. No one came running down the hall and not even another kid’s voice rang through the hall telling me to come out. Since this was supposed to be the biggest party of the year, I figured that more people had shown up and they all just forgot about me. Smiling, I got up and dusted myself off, ready to gloat that I had beat them all. But when I tried to open the door, it was jammed in the frame--warped from the heat vent being right by the wood.

  Trying to call out without embarrassing myself, I just knocked on the door and tried to get anyone’s attention, but no one was even on the second floor. My heartbeat had been going frantically, but the pace sky-rocketed when I started to hear the fire alarm go off. All dignity out the window, I screamed and pounded on the door. There were no lights, no openings, not even a window to look out of. I had been truly trapped, and freaking out because I thought I was going to burn alive in a stranger’s house.

  Eventually someone found me in that closet, hours later. The fire alarms had turned off--it had only been smoke from the barbeque. I was curled up in a ball on the floor of the closet, tears streaming down my face and blubbering something unintelligible about being trapped. They had taken me home right away and I had found solace in my mother’s hug.

  But never less I had never gotten over my apprehension of enclosed spaces.

  Now that I was locked away in Ian’s house, it was only worse because I was in real danger. Sure, I was older and more experienced than eight-year old Sammy Williams, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t just as jittery.

  The room was shrinking--I was sure of it. Every step I paced across the floor was only succeeding in making me more anxious. God only knows how many times I had tracked the perimeter of the room, determined to not let myself go insane from claustrophobia.

  Jay had come in three times since the first, and since he had an apple each time he came, I could only guess it had been three days. One piece of fruit a day. My stomach was concaving on itself and its growls broke the silence every few minutes. If this was anything like solitary confinement in prison, I could confirm that it would be easy to start hearing voices in a few weeks.