Chapter 11:
The Ringleader's POV:
Slowly I crossed out Lily's name on the chalkboard, smirking to myself as powdered white chalk sprinkled to the dirty ground.
These naive people were just too easy to freak out, all you had to do is show up every now and then and give them a pointless riddle or something. I already caught that Collin kid looking at this very chalkboard, which is exactly what I wanted.
I thought for a moment about everybody, and who I should circle to go next.
Smiling to myself, I quickly made my decision and circled the name, carelessly dropping the chalk onto the floor.
There was a shuffling sound by the door, and I looked over to see Harry, a little boy who died a horrible, tragic death about fifty years ago. He had been violently torn limb from limb, unfortunately living through most of the torture before inevitably passing away, only to be stuck here.
Grimacing at the ghastly sight of him, I looked at him sternly.
"Leave. Now." I ordered, and he bowed his head in respect, but before he left, he limped over and handed me a small tattered shoe box. I knew exactly what was inside the moment I took the box from him, and it excited me greatly.
Smirking, I quietly spoke out loud to myself, "Things are about to get a thousand times more interesting."
Cameron's POV:
I hadn't felt this good in months.
Not that I was happy that more people were trapped in here per say, and I certainly wasn't thrilled that more people were brutally tortured and killed, but in a sick twisted sense I was happy that I was no longer all alone with just my sister. I was elated that more people were here to help us all get the hell out, and I was excited that they appeared seriously determined.
"I... I think this is it," The one named Quil announced, sounding unsure of himself. He stopped walking and everybody else did too; Emily was walking directly in front of me, and she suddenly stopped, causing me to crash awkwardly right into her back.
Quickly grabbing ahold of her shoulders before she fell, I smiled as she looked up at me with her wide green eyes.
"Sorry," She muttered with faint embarrassment. I looked over at Tristen while he glared at me, and I had to hold in a scoff.
What the hell was that guy's problem? I couldn't figure out why Tristen seemed so resentful towards me, we've known each other for all of thirty minutes.
I shot him a look that said, 'what's your deal?' but he just narrowed his tired eyes to glare at me even harder. I shook my head in faint disbelief, before looking down at Emily again, and I smiled when I realized she hadn't pulled away from my hold yet.
"Yeah, I think this is it, I remember.... I remember the little girl," Collin stated, clenching his green eyes closed for a moment. I understood exactly what he went through; being in here for months has caused me to experience almost every tragic, torturous thing this house has to offer. At least, I liked to believe I'd already experienced the worst there was.
A cold hand suddenly touched my shoulder, and I jumped in shock while my heart instantly accelerated.
"Chill Cam... it's just me," Camilla said softly, removing her small hand from my shoulder. Letting out a deep breath I let go of Emily and turned to face her.
Camilla was everything to me now, being the older brother, I had always felt the need to protect her, but ever sense we got here the need has intensified.
~
*flashback*
"Dude this is gonna be fucking awesome!" My best friend Andrew exclaimed excitedly, playfully hitting me in the back. Chuckling, I gave him a high five as we walked up to the cool looking haunted house; I wasn't going to lie, this looked like some hardcore shit.
"Don't pee your pants this time Andrew!" My older brother, Jake, said knowingly. He was my other best friend, even though we were siblings, our friendship was strong. My brother's girlfriend, Kelsey, walked up behind us with a wide-eyed Camilla in tow.
"Hey! That was once smart ass!" Andrew retorted, scowling like a child. Jake and I burst out laughing, before I eventually turned to Camilla.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow at her. She gave me a frustrated look before huffing out a short breath, like she was irritated with me for playing the big brother role.
"I'm going to the haunted house... duh," She stated obviously, rolling her eyes at me.
"Umm, think not."
"She's fine Cameron," My older brother's girlfriend said, wrapping her arms loosely around Jake's neck. Jake nodded in agreement before leaning down to kiss her.
'Gross', I thought as I looked away. They really didn't need to suck face in public, at least that was my personal opinion.
"Yeah, I am! Now let's gooo!" Camilla chirped happily, running up to the creepy entrance of the haunted house that loomed before them.
*End of flashback*
~
"So, then I went this way," Collin announced, interrupting my thoughts. He pointed down a narrow corridor and started slowly walking that way, his face stone like and void of emotion. Everyone followed in his path and I made sure to keep my eye on Camilla, like I had been doing ever since we got here.
Tristen walked up and grabbed Emily's hand, strolling with her hand in hand like we were at the fucking park or something. Were they dating? For some reason, that thought angered me and made me feel a little... envious?
Now was not the time to start crushing on some girl I didn't even know, but I think I was more jealous of the fact that they had someone; they had each other. What did I have? Besides a younger sister to look after. A nuisance really, but I felt guilty even thinking like that.
Suddenly we were in a different hallway, a school hallway, with rusted lockers lining the walls and creepy florescent lights overhead. I didn't remember ever being here... and I realized it was even bigger than I though.
The smell was excruciating; it smelled like dirty nickels, which meant there was probably blood somewhere near, and that scared the shit out of me. What kind of secrets did this part of the household? I had no idea.
"What the hell," Collin mumbled to himself, furrowing his brows and breaking his stone like composure.
"What?" Nick asked, sounding slightly panicked by his older brother's tone. Hayley's tired eyes grew wide, and Jeff placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. It was kind of a weird sight, a nerd with a nervous complex reassuring a girl that could certainly beat his ass.
"Well, I was here, but I had to walk through a couple other halls to get to it... I'm just a little confused is all," He stated, rubbing his shoulder softly.
I sighed heavily; I learned a long time ago to not try and figure out how that happened, because this place was a maze.
"It just happens, we never figured out why," I said out loud and everyone turned to look at me, including Emily, "Sometimes the halls seem to switch up... like train tracks that change course, know what I mean?"
They all steamed on that for a moment, pausing their walking. I got a chance to glance over the group as a whole, and I felt pretty confident that we had a strong group of people here, but I had also thought that once before.
"Hello," Someone suddenly said behind me, making me almost jump out of my skin.
Collin's eyes widened significantly before he took a couple big steps back, holding up his calloused hands as of in surrender. The voice sounded slightly familiar, but also sounded pained, and I hesitated to face it, especially after gauging everyone else's expressions.
Turning around slowly, I gasped and jumped about ten feet back. Standing directly behind me was a girl, well, at least I thought it was a girl. She was standing tall, which was weird considering she was wrapped in a clear body bag, full of dark crimson blood.
She was frowning, well at least I think she was, but I couldn't stand to stare at her horrible, bloodied face for too long.
"Help me please Cameron," She whispered, reaching out to me specifically. I jumped back even farther and gasped again, my shoes making loud squeaking noises on the floor.
How did she know my name?
Camilla gasped loudly behind me and I turned around to see her big eyes watering, but there wasn't fear in those familiar irises, just realization and pain.
"Kelsey?" She called out to the corpse, taking a little step forward. I held my arm out in front on my younger sister, but also took a closer look at the bloodied girl wrapped in plastic.
It was Kelsey, my older brother's girlfriend.
Well, she was his girlfriend.
"Help me!" She suddenly screamed at us, blood pouring out from between her cracked lips and running down her chin. That was all it took for all of us to bolt down the creepy school hall and around the corner, leaning against the rusty locker doors once they felt they had put enough space between them and the walking corpse.
Taking in big gulps of air, I tried to calm myself down because now I felt a bit dizzy. Was that really Kelsey there or was it an illusion? How was that possible? What the hell was really going on here?
Tristen's POV:
"What the fuck was that?" I yelled out, quickly sucking in air like I was starving for it. Damn we just ran like bloody hell away from... well, bloody hell.
"It was one of our friends," Camilla whispered sadly, and Cameron wrapped his arm around her to comfort her while she let a few rogue tears slip.
I will admit I didn't really care for Cameron. There was no way we could really trust him; we didn't know him at all.
"Well, I remember her from last time," Collin said in between gulps of air, and we all looked at him in sympathy. He must've gone through hell before finding us, but I knew myself along with every else felt grateful to have him there.
"Let's go this way," He stated, straightening up and quickening his determined pace.
It was silent as we followed his lead, I kept Emily's cold, dainty hand in mine; it relaxed me greatly, and she didn't seem to mind too much either. I could tell by the way she was leaning slightly into me for comfort.
We hadn't slept for a while, about ten hours, even though it felt like weeks we'd been in here. Maybe it had been weeks, we just didn't know. It was easy to forget the time when you were trapped and fighting for your life.
We were now walking down a darker hallway, but every door was shut right and locked. Every room we passed Nick would try tugging on the door handle, but to no avail.
Finally, we turned the corner into yet another hallway and found a present on the floor. That's right, I said a present.
It was a box, about the size of the average shoe box, wrapped in shiny gold wrapping paper with a big, obnoxious gold bow on the top. It certainly appeared inviting, but I think we had all had the same feeling that it was a trap.
"What is that?" Jeff whispered, stopping dead in his tracks, and lazily pushing his broken glasses up on his nose. The frame was bent and one of the lenses was cracked, but he couldn't see anything without them.
"I don't know, but I'm about to find out" Quil announced, walking right up to it like the strong, determined cop he was. Camilla and Hayley crept up to the gift with him, while everybody else sort of just hung back to watch with wide, curious eyes.
"Are you sure you want to open it? You don't know what's in there," Emily said cautiously, and Cameron nodded faintly in agreement.
Quil ignored her and ripped the gold bow off, quickly working to get the shiny wrapping paper off too. Ever so slowly he lifted the box's lid off, and once it was off everything seemingly happened in a flash.
Hayley ran frantically back to us and hid her eyes, while Quil jumped a foot back, stumbling and falling right on Camilla so they both went crashing to the floor. They were a tangled mess on the ground as about one thousand little ugly parasites jumped all over them.
They looked like flesh-colored worms, only with sharp teeth and little red tails. They were instantly crawling all over Quil and Camilla; a hoard of them crawled right into Camilla's shrieking, agape mouth, and I almost threw up at the ghastly sight, especially when she started choking on the parasites. They forced their way into the corners of Quil's eyes, and he clawed desperately at his face to get them off.
They were both screaming blood curtailing shrieks, so Cameron and Collin ran over to help them up and attempt to throw the little parasites off.
"What the fuck are these?" Cameron screamed out, flinging the last the parasites off Camilla who was crying hysterically. The disgusting creatures crawled into the cracks in the wooden floor, and we all kind of stumbled out of the area.
"Cute, aren't they?" Someone from behind me suddenly said. I whipped around to come face to face with none other than Ryan.
"What the hell were those?" I yelled in his smug face, but he kept his annoying smirk in place. Everybody was glaring at him now, and my hatred for the bastard only increased as the seconds ticked on. Why did he find such joy in making our lives hell?
"Simians, they are pretty much parasites that eat you from inside out," Ryan stated casually, picking at his finger nail like it was nothing. Emily gaped up at him for a moment, before swiping her hand from mine and pointing it in his smirking face.
"What the fuck! Why do you have to make our time in here harder? I thought you were trying to help us? Well I'm guessing that was just complete bullshit," She yelled angrily in his face. Ryan simply smiled, and softly pushed Emily's slender finger out of his face.
"My dear Emily, I'm making your time in here easier, you'll see," He said knowingly, twirling around and leaving us all thoroughly freaked out.
"Now what?" Jeff asked quietly, stifling a yawn as the exhaustion crept up on him.
"We keep walking," Quil stated firmly, scratching at his arm.
It was strange though, because as we walked on, he never stopped obsessively itching it, ever. After a few minutes he started scratching his neck like crazy too, leaving the skin red and irritated underneath.
"Uhh Quil... are you ok?" Collin asked gingerly, gently placing his hand on Quil's shoulder.
Quil whipped around and I gasped in horror, pulling Emily back a few steps with me. Hayley screamed so loud it made my ears ring, and everybody else stepped back from the police officer.
Quil's scruffy face was scabbing up and a little bloody, but if you looked carefully enough you could see something moving around under his tanned skin.
The parasites.
"Help me!" He shrieked, and as soon as he did blood started to pour out of his mouth, through his teeth and down his chin. Hayley screamed again, and Nick covered up her bloodshot eyes by embracing her. I did the same with Emily and took a couple more steps back from the ghastly scene.
"What the hell!" Nick yelled out, the fear and confusion clear in his shaky voice.
"Help!" Quil screamed again, but nobody stepped forward to help him. We didn't have any clue what to do! Or what the hell was going on, let alone how to help.
"What do we do?!" Jeff yelled frantically, but nobody said anything; other than the fact that we didn't know what was happening to Quil, everybody was in shock. Quil began slowly dragging his foot and limping forward, making everybody jump back even more.
He abruptly fell right on his face, and slowly hundreds of parasites crawled out from beneath the surface of his skin. Camilla screamed so loud that dust fell from the ceiling, and she buried her horrified face in Cameron's shoulder.
Quil was no longer shrieking and yelling, so Collin ran over and flipped his limp body over without touching the parasites.
His eyes were still wide open, but he was completely still, other than having the parasites still moving under his bloodied skin. His uniform clad body was lifeless, and I noticed a few rogue tears trailing down Collin's solemn face.
"Oh my god," Cameron whispered, pulling Camilla away from the violent sight of their lifeless acquaintance. Quil was dead, and everybody seemed to realize that as soon as they glanced at his distorted figure.
"Let's go," Nick said sadly, walking around Quil's dead body after a long moment of tense quiet within the hallway. There was nothing we could do for him now, so we all moved around him in a shocked silence.
The only sound was of Camilla viciously scratching at her arm.