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The warehouse I was standing in was a massive, sprawling room with very little inside it in the way of furnishings. In the center, I recalled seeing a heavier concentration of crates and boxes, but overall, the building was empty. However, when the match began, and the overhead lighting went out the room suddenly felt as oppressive and claustrophobic as a coffin! My breathing became rapid and shallow and I felt an instant spike in my heart rate, to the point that I could feel my blood pulsing in my ears. The pounding in my ears was the only noise that I could hear in the old warehouse.
That is, except for the laughter.
As the lighting had disappeared, signaling the start of the round, a freakish laugh had begun to echo through the halls of the metal structure. It was a slow, harsh sound that reeked of evil and malice. Hearing it sent chills down my spine and caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand upright. The cackling was disturbing in its own right, but it was especially appalling because of how eerily similar it sounded to Lanny Partay's maniacal laugh!
This place is too much, I thought, as I wrestled with the growing panic in my heart for control over my decisions. I need to pull myself together before the thing, It, making that laugh finds me!
“Peter! Peter, can you hear me?” The voice of Lanny erupted in my ear, startling me so bad it took a serious effort to keep from crying out in surprise.
“I hear you,” I hissed. “You better help me out quick before I wind up getting rubbed out by a homicidal clown!”
I could hear Lanny chuckling softly. “Oh, Pete. You always were the dramatic type. I have everything under control, remember? Just do as I tell you!”
Lanny's demeanor in this circumstance infuriated me. I was in a situation where I was facing real danger on his account, and he was telling me I was too dramatic! I wanted to scream in his face, and squeeze his thin neck until his eyes popped out! But I would save these feelings for later – assuming that I survived this ordeal!
I mustered all my reserves of tranquility and responded to him. “Okay Lanny, what do you want me to do?”
“That's better,” he replied. “Now, was that so hard?”
I bit my tongue as hard as I could.
“Now,” he continued. “The game is underway. Which means that the clown has been released somewhere within the warehouse. He typically appears from the center, so I wouldn't go there right now! For now, you should try and find a nice quiet place to hide so as to avoid getting discovered by the clown.”
“Why is that?” I asked. “Didn't you say you could make me invincible, or invisible, or both?”
“Yes of course,” Lanny hurriedly answered. “But you see Pete, my boy, it takes a moment for these things to take effect, and in the meantime you are, how should I put this, vulnerable.”
I felt the blood draining from me as he spoke these words. “Vulnerable. Of course. I should have expected as much.”