Lurking in the Shadows
Chapter 3: Is This a Sick Joke ?
“Lyn, relax. I’m sure she just went up to check on Nick.”
“Joey, I don’t know. I have a bad feeling. Annie, will you go up to see if she’s there with me?”
“Of course. We’ll meet you guys in the lobby as soon as we make sure she’s all right, ok?”
“Yeah.” Kissing the girls quickly, Joey and Josh watched them as they rushed up the stairs, obviously worried that their friend would just wander off by herself. Upon coming to the room, Lynette and Annie stopped dead in their tracks and looked at one another. The only thing that could be heard coming from their room was screaming. A group had already begun forming to eavesdrop on the obvious fight. Sighing in annoyance, Annie went up to the group and shooed them away. This wasn’t a free show.
“Get out of here, don’t you all have anything better to do?” Looking back at Lynette, they braved up and knocked on the door, hoping to stop the fighting long enough to find out what was going on.
Neither Nick nor Robyn stopped yelling to see who was at the door, they just screamed louder.
“How stupid did you really think I was? I knew you weren’t sick. You saw the slutty blond with big tits and thought, ‘Hmm I’d like to tap that.’ So you feigned illness to go and fuck her! In our bed!” The girls could hear Robyn’s tears in her voice, even through the thick wooden door and knew they had to somehow get in. Pounding on the door once more, Annie was relieved when Nick actually opened up.
“What?”
“Don’t you dare get an attitude with me! You may be bigger and older than I am, but I will kick your ass.” Annie told her big brother, walking over to her friend. “What’s going on?”
“That whore of a hotel singer was in the bed with MY boyfriend.” Looking to where Robyn’s gaze was fixated, Lynette and Annie saw the other person in the room, cowering in the corner like a shunned puppy.
Annie couldn’t believe her brother was just sitting there like nothing mattered, like he did nothing wrong. Who was this man?
Shaking her head and wiping her tears away, Robyn told them she was going to go for a walk, try to work off some of her anger.
“Do you want us to go with you?” Lynette asked her as she began to exit the room.
“No, you guys stay here. I’ll be fine. I won’t be long. Promise.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” With that, Robyn was out of the room and Annie was staring her brother down, anger and disappointment evident in her facial features. If looks could kill, he’d be dead twice over.
“What, Ann?”
“You know damn well what, Nickolas! Do you even feel any sort of guilt over what you just did?”
“Come on, Annie. You know as well as I do that Robs and I have been over for a long time.”
“That doesn’t excuse it. I don’t know who you’ve become, but you’re not my brother.” Looking to the cowardly girl in the corner of the room, Ann found herself laughing and shaking her head. “I hope it was worth it.” Then she and Lynette walked out of the room, not thinking about what may happen to either of them. The future was not something they wanted to think about at the moment, so they focused on the present.
Ann’s brother was an insensitive prick who had just hurt their best friend.
They should really go and find Robyn, to make sure she really was alright, but they never got the chance. As the girls were heading down the hallway to the main staircase to meet Josh and Joey back in the lobby as promised, everything went black. All that could be heard was a few voices in the hallway but mainly silence as everyone tried to register the fact that they were all in an old haunted castle…now in the pitch black darkness.
“Annie?” Lynette found herself unable to speak any louder than a whisper, she was so scared. Clearing her throat she tried again. “Annie?”
“I’m here.” Lynette felt her best friend cling onto her arm for dear life and she felt herself doing the same to her.
“What’s going on? Is this a blackout or is someone playing a sick joke on everyone?”
“I don’t know, but I’m afraid to move. You know I can normally see in the dark but….its so black in here. I feel like there’s something lurking around, watching our every move. Just waiting for its opportune moment to attack.” Annie whispered in the darkness. She wished she carried a flashlight with her at all times, just for special occasions like this.
“Annie, no offense hun, but shut the hell up. You’re freaking me out even more.”
“I’m sorry, Lyn. I’m not doing it purpose, I just tend to ramble when I’m scared. You know that.”
Sighing, Lynette turned toward Annie and hoped she was looking at her face. “Annie, we have to find Joey and Josh. We need to figure out what’s going on and we have to get to Robyn.”
“I know that, Lyn. But tell me, do you have night vision? Can you see through all of this black and point us to the lobby? Because I sure as hell can’t.”
“Calm down!” Lynette heard Ann take a deep breath and felt her relax slightly. “Let’s just try and figure out which way we were heading, let’s follow a wall or something. Anything is better than standing here like idiots.”
“Okay. Let’s go. You can lead though.” Stifling a laugh, Lynette tried find a wall, slowly walking in the direction she believed to be where they were headed. Suddenly, not expecting anymore surprises, the girls hear a bunch of screams followed by loud noises that could only be described as old rusted gears shifting to lock down the entire castle. Lynette and Ann could hear the large sheets of metals bang closed on the outside of every window and door leading to their freedom.
They were trapped.
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Trying to figure out where she was, Robyn felt around her. Well, all that could be said was she was in the dining hall somewhere against a wall. Continuing to move along the wall, Robyn tried not to let her fear grip hold of her. She was in a big castle, reportedly haunted, in a blackout. There was nothing to fear. Except for of course the nagging feeling of being watched that made every small hair on her body stand on end and threatened to make her shake uncontrollably. No, she had to stay calm and she would fine. She would find Lynette and Annie and the guys and they would all get through this together.
Suddenly, the wall just vanished and she felt herself lose balance. She didn’t even have time to scream before she felt herself tumbling down a large case of stairs and rolling on a hard, cold floor that wreaked of mildew. She was in the basement again.
Alone.
How was she ever going to find her way back up to the main lobby where everyone else was most likely gathered?
Trying to stand up, Robyn winced in pain as she felt her back crack. She wasn’t in any horrible pain so she knew nothing had been broken, but maybe her ankle had twisted. Looking around herself, she felt the fear well up in her once more.
She couldn’t see a thing. Everywhere she looked it was pitch black and she had no idea which direction she had fallen from. Refusing to be a sitting duck awaiting her fate, Robyn began slowly moving through the labyrinth of a basement, trying to keep her weight off her hurt ankle as best as she could. She felt another wall and used it to guide her, certain she wouldn’t fall down anymore stairs.
After about twenty minutes of seemingly getting nowhere, Robyn let herself fall down to the floor. This was hopeless. She was in a huge basement in a blackout with no sense of direction what-so-ever. She began to shake as her breathing quickened. The feeling was back. The feeling of being watched as though you were someone’s prey.
Had the blackout in fact been a blackout? Or was someone playing a sick joke, lurking in the shadows awaiting the moment to snatch up its next victim? Standing up again, Robyn moved quickly through the corridors, desperately trying to find a way out. She couldn’t die, not now. She was so young, she had so much life left to live.
Calm down, she told herself. Thinking like that would get her killed. She just had to clam down a little. Nobody had cut the lights to use the darkness to their advantage. Her imagination was getting the better of her.
Turning a corner and coming to yet another seemingly endless hallway, Robyn stopped dead in her tracks. Right there before her, only a few feet away was a little girl. But she could see her there, and she was glowing. Was she a ghost from the past? The little girl who had been hunted and killed much like she herself felt like was happening to her?
The little girl just stood there, watching her every move. Suddenly her mouth opened and she spoke. “You can see me?”
Unable to form any words, Robyn simply nodded her head.
“You’re the first. You shouldn’t be down here, it’s dangerous.”
“Are you the little girl who was killed down here?”
“I am. You need to go.”
“I don’t know where I am or even where I came from. Can you show me how to get upstairs again?”
The little girl looked frightened, torn between helping the kind stranger or hiding back into nothingness where nobody ever saw her, much less spoke to her. This woman was asking for her help, she had to help as much as she could.
“Follow me.” The girl ran quickly and Robyn fought to keep up with her hurt ankle, but she managed to, only trailing slightly behind. Suddenly the girl stopped dead in her tracks, turning to look at her, panic and fright written clearly in her transparent eyes.
“Go! You have to get out of here, now! Run!” The girl began fading away, screaming for her to run, to find her way out of here. But Robyn had no idea what was going on, why was the girl leaving her? She still had no idea where she was and she was cast back into the darkness without the little girl’s light. Robyn continued to walk on, more slowly not being able to see anything.
She was going to die, she knew it. Nothing tonight had been an accident, it was all premeditated and there was a killer on the loose. She knew she was going to be the first to go, but she would fight it until the very end.
Picking up her pace, Robyn limped toward a destination unknown and just kept going. She began to get a prickly sensation on the back of her neck and knew someone was behind her, someone dangerous. She could hear whispering behind her, but was it a woman or a man? She had no idea. She felt herself slowing to a stop and suddenly the whispering was right in her ear. She could feel the body of someone right up against her and she still couldn’t tell if it were a man or a woman.
Finding the courage, Robyn slowly turned around, facing her attacker. Surprise and more fear ripped through her body as she saw the knife glistening the unlit hallway. The murder grabbed her hair and pulled her along. She knew it would do no good but Robyn screamed on top of her lungs, trying to draw any sort of attention from up above, trying desperately to free herself of the strong painful hold on her hair as she felt the pain rip through her body of being dragged along the hard floor.