Chapter 3:
We were all terrified, and I do mean absolutely terrified. This was a walk-through haunted house, a simple Halloween attraction, were they really allowed to drag you away like that? Was that even legal? I sure didn't think so because we certainly didn't sign any waivers when we got here.
We rounded the corner, expecting to see Brianna sitting there safe, but she and the two headed clown were both gone. How was that possible? We were only two seconds behind them!
Jacob let out a sad little whimper, and usually I would have laughed, but considering the disturbing circumstances I didn't feel it was the right time.
"Jake, it's okay, I mean this is all fake right so they couldn't have gone far," Lily tried to assure him, rubbing his broad shoulder in a comforting manner. Jacob leaned slumped against the dirty wall before he slid down to the floor, placing his head in his large hands.
"Maybe one of us should go with him to look," Nick offered, looking down at Jacob with concern. I shook my head rapidly.
"No, we can't split up," I demanded, chewing my plump bottom lip a little anxiously; in ever horror movie I had ever watched, things always spiraled downward when the people split up. Nick looked back up at me, a determined expression on his handsome face that I had seen many times before.
"We have too."
"No."
"Emily..."
"No!" I said a little harshly, making sure my face was stern, "Nick we can't, I don't know what the fuck is going on, but I know they can't do that, so something is wrong. We can't split up now."
Hayley kicked the splintered floor a little, looking very uncomfortable. Nick just nodded weakly in understanding, knowing that there was no use in arguing with me, because I could be very stubborn.
I was suddenly very tired; I just wanted to find Brianna and get the hell out of this creepy haunted house. We hadn't been there long, but I was already over it, and I could see on my friend's familiar faces that they were too.
"Let's go find her," Jacob mumbled, standing up slowly and taking a couple shaky steps forward. We reluctantly followed, staying uncomfortably silent the whole way. I felt a cold hand gingerly touch my shoulder, so I placed my own delicate hand on top of it. I had assumed it was Tristen or even Hayley, but when I glanced to my left, there he was, with both of his hands shoved in his pockets.
A small lump formed in the back of my throat, and I stopped walking abruptly. Slowly I turned my head to see who, or what was currently touching me.
There, stood an unfamiliar man with beautiful brown eyes and long, straight brown hair. His pale skin seemed to glow in the almost blackness of the room, and his sinister smirk was heart stopping, but not in a good way.
"Helloooo," he said, stretching out the word in a sing song tone. I swallowed the lump in my throat and blinked a couple times, before inevitably I let out a scared scream. The man laughed coldly, lifting his rough hand from my shoulder, and grabbing my thin wrist not so gently.
I screamed again, and this time I heard muffled voices. My friends had gotten far while I was stuck standing there, but they returned back in no time.
"Emily?" Lily asked, her voice laced with concern. Her bright eyes widened in fear when she quickly realized what the problem was.
"Who are you?" Hayley asked shakily. The man smiled again in response, then he tipped his black top hat. The white silk gloves he was wearing added to his whole look. He had on a white dress shirt, a black vest, a black bow tie and stylish black pants. A long red jacket finished the unconventional look, and it was obvious to me what he was.
A ringleader.
He let go of my wrist, and to my horror, he ran his pale fingers through my dark red hair. I froze again at the unwanted contact, and I saw everyone else stiffen too.
"Ryan," he said smoothly, as if he were a normal peer of theirs. Tristen cleared his throat and glared at this Ryan character angrily. Ryan just smirked at the dark-haired boy's harsh expression and continued to pet me like a dog. I didn't know what else to do, except to let him touch me; it seemed innocent enough for now, and I honestly felt too terrified to move.
"What are you doing?" Nick demanded, scratching at his head. Ryan's condescending smirk widened, and he pulled me in close to his body by my shoulders. I didn't speak, but I shot all my friends a panicked look that said what the hell? I didn't understand why this creepy stranger was here acting like a boyfriend.
"Well, Mr. Boulders, I'm pretending," Ryan said, letting me go suddenly and pulling out a long stick that resembled a cane. Nick stiffened, and I realized why right away. Did we even say Nick's name in front of Ryan? Even if we did, I know we wouldn't have said his last name.
"How do you know my name?" Nick asked slowly, pointing an accusing finger at Ryan. He laughed in response, pushing Nick's shaking finger away from his grinning face.
"I know all of your names... Nick Boulders, Lily Parch, Tristen Smith, Jacob Marley, Hayley Lowen, Jeff Edwards, Emily Valentine and Brianna Williams," he said, sending a wink my way as he pointed to each and every one of my friends. I stiffened again and let out a little squeak of pent-up fear.
"How?" Jeff asked slowly, pushing up his cute glasses with a shaky finger.
"That doesn't really matter, does it?" Ryan said, chuckling nonchalantly with the same mischievous Cheshire cat grin. He turned on his heel, and abruptly walked away, his red jacket tails flowing behind him.
I was tempted to go around the corner and look for him, but I had a gut feeling that he was already gone.
"Let's just keep going," Jacob said after a prolonged moment of tense silence, stepping forward and opening another one of the many doors within the hall. It was dark inside, and Jeff blindly reached inside to gingerly look for the light switch. The fluorescent lights flickered on with a faint buzzing sound, and I realized that it looked just like a scene from the horror movie 'Saw'.
The walls surrounding us were a bright white, and so was the tiled flooring. The hanging lights continued to flicker as we realized there was another vile, decomposing body smell nearby. Probably because that's what was in there.
Jeff froze, staring at the gory mess inside the small room. There were rusty chains hanging from the ceiling, some still holding decomposing bodies to the wall. Some of the chains just had bloody hands with stumpy wrists. Thick, crimson colored blood was smeared across the white walls, and I noticed it looked fresh, even giving off the familiar metallic smell of the bodily fluid.
In the corner, on the counter were jars and jars of what I immediately believed were eyeballs and maybe even organs. They were stacked on top of each other, the mason jars all holding cloudy liquids that must help preserve dead body parts. Lily started to gag as they investigated the jars further, and hastily ran back into the hallway to puke. I was surprised Jeff was as calm as he was, being as he usually had a weak stomach.
Walking over, I slowly picked up one of the cloudy jars, and confirmed my suspicions. Eyeballs of all colors floated around as I shook the contents inside the jar in my hand. One stuck out to me though: a little speckled hazel eye almost seemed to stare back at me, and it surprisingly looked familiar.
Just like the doll's creepy eyes from before.
"What the hell... is that?" Hayley choked out, plugging her nose, and pointing to something on their left. I set the disturbing mason jar down and looked around, searching until I found what she was talking about. It was a figure, a small female body seemingly. Most of her hair was pulled viciously out of her scalp, her eyes were gauged out and her mouth was dripping with fresh, deep red blood. The girl's face had scratches all over, making her unrecognizable for the most part.
This time, Jeff did throw up, right in the middle of the floor where they currently stood. So did Hayley, and eventually me. I almost vomited twice just looking at and smelling what came up from my stomach, so I quickly ran out into the hall for some fresher air. Although, the whole entire house seemed to smell liked death.
Everybody else followed, and Jacob slammed the door shut, turning to look at us frantically.
"You don't think that was fucking Brianna, do you?" he asked, a chill running down his spine at the thought. Salty welled up uncontrollably at the corners of my tired green eyes. I was just hoping, praying that it wasn't her. Nothing made sense anymore, not that it had made sense when we first stepped into this house of horrors, but now the line of what was real and what wasn't seemed significantly blurred.
"I don't think so," Tristen lied, running a cold hand through his dark, messy hair. Everybody turned to glance at him in disbelief, but no one dared to argue with him. We were all okay with that being the final answer, even if we knew it could possibly be our bubbly brunette friend sitting dead in there.
Nick walked over to another door, and hesitantly opened it. Peeking inside, he quickly shut it and shook his head to say Brianna wasn't inside. We slowly walked down the narrow hall, glancing over our shoulders every two seconds with paranoia and peeking into dark rooms, before each door was slammed closed without further investigation.
We came across the last door in the hallway, a small, dark green door that looked almost untouched. Jacob hesitantly opened the door and we all filed into the small room obliviously. I was instantly hit with the smell of sweet flowers, which was refreshing considering the scents we've come across previously, but I still felt skeptical.
It was a cramped room, with pink floral wallpaper and fluffy white carpet. The little pink bed had a flowing white net that hung above it, and the curtains had small roses and lilies on them. It was unlike any of the other rooms we had seen so far, seemingly safer, but I could tell I wasn't the only one of my friends thinking this was too good to be true.
We silently snooped around, and I immediately went for the middle area of the floor. There was a round, plastic table with fake teacups and cookies placed on it, as if this were a little girl's bedroom. A small brown teddy bear with a light blue bow tie sat on one side of the table, a bunny with a pink dress on another, and in the last chair was a girl, with wild brown hair and a frilly white dress.
"Hey guys?" I called out gingerly, and eventually every single one of my best friend's gaze's fell on the girl sitting at the round table with fake teacups.
Her back was facing us, and she wasn't moving, which made me feel a strange sense of absolute fear. Lily cleared her throat, yet the little girl still didn't move from the tea table. She wasn't even that little, it just appeared that way because she was wearing a dress and sat at a small child's table.
There was also slow, creepy music playing faintly from somewhere in the room. It reminded me of scary movies with possessed kids, and I shivered at the images, but it also reminded me that this was a haunted house, which gave me a passing sense of faith.
"Little girl?" Nick called out hesitantly, taking a small and slow step toward her unmoving figure. The sandy blonde jock and Hayley were the only two willing to get closer, while the rest of us simply held our breathes and watched.
There was still no answer.
"Hello?" Hayley tried, walking around to finally face the unresponsive female. Her eyes grew wide with horror, an expression I'd never seen on her heart shaped face before. Next came Hayley's shrill scream of devastation that was so loud I felt my ears ringing painfully. Nick clutched his ears tightly just like I did, and confusion swept Jacob's panicked face.
"Hayley?" Jacob asking running up beside her in concern. His brown eyes grew wide too as soon as he glanced down, and he suddenly yelled out, "BRIANNA!"