Heather was the last to reach the top of the stairs. She gasped at what lay before her. Defeat sunk in as she glanced about the large, white circular room with no doors or windows. The only exit was the stairwell they’d just come up. But that wasn’t an option.
She knew where they’d come from, and her mind could only imagine what waited for them down there. She’d heard the whispers, the creepy voices trailing them through the hallway. Evil little fairies, their feet barely touching the ground as they half-ran, half-flew over the floor and walls.
Instead of the pretty Disney-esque fairies that Heather had watched in so many movies, they had dark ashy faces, long mouths with sets of jagged teeth, beady black eyes devoid of light, hunched backs, and long necks pushing out and forward.
Instead of pastel pinks and blues, they wore brown and black, their clothing tattered and rough. Wings like bats.
As she thought these terrible things, she watched Reid finally let go of Clint, the weight too much to bear. He eased him to the floor and collapsed beside him into a heap, panting. His eyes rolled back until his lids closed.
“All that for nothing,” Reid strained. “Down that hall and up those stairs, and here we are in a room with no other way out.” He took a deep breath.
“Looks a lot like a hospital, all white and clean and bright.” Heather glanced around the room.
Something about it was so familiar it tugged at her mind.
Clint coughed, a racking painful sound. “I think I need a hospital.”
The familiarity of the room dawned on Heather. “Reminds me of when I was in the hospital, after that football game we played. Remember?”
No one replied.
“Guys?” she said. “Douchefaces!" She turned to Reid. "You must remember that, Reid, don’t you? My wrist? That was some kind of sack.” The last words rolled off her tongue rather snarkily, and she wished she could take that tone back.
Reid avoided her glare.
“Even smells like a hospital,” she said. “All medicine-y.”
She waited, but no one said anything, so she let it go. She was talking just to make noise, anyway.
Heather turned back to Clint and put the back of her hand across his forehead. She pulled away quickly, shaking it out.
“Wicked hot! He’s burning up, for real.”
His skin was bright red, almost glowing. It made her think of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and she almost giggled. Except this was her friend Clint. The burning body boy. She could feel the heat coming off him when she kneeled over him. It pulsed in time with his heartbeat. Sweat glistened all over his face. Big droplets pushed out of his pores, trying in vain to cool his burning. His head rolled to the side as if his neck couldn’t support the weight of it any longer. His eyes also rolled back before the lids slammed shut. He let out a long, shaky breath.
As Heather reached out to him, she felt a hand on her own, drawing it back. It was Alex. Her eyes shot him the question.
“Let him rest,” he said. “Just give him a sec.”
She nodded and attended to Reid instead. “Wicked impressive feat of strength.” She stared at the heap of Reid on the floor. “Never thought you had it in ya. Reid the Hero.”
He shook his head. “No hero. Just wanted to get the hell up those stairs. Figured if I was carrying the sick kid, you guys would let me go first.” He took a deep, even breath. “Those things. Those whispers and footsteps…” he shivered. “I wasn’t gonna wait around.”
She shot him a sideways glance and bit her lip. “Nice, ass-wipe. That’s the Reid we all know.”
“Dick,” Alex said.
Reid’s gaze shifted to the side and he shrugged. “What can I say?”
When he looked back, his eyes widened. Heather followed his gaze and turned around. Clint, who only moments before was nearly passed out, now moved toward a hospital curtain at the other side of the room.
“Where’s he going?” she asked.
Clint pushed aside the curtain. There was a gaping hole in the wall, like a doorway. A dark one.
“Hell no,” she said.
A large, white wooden door formed within that dark hole in the wall. The only thing that made it stand out from the rest of the white room was the chipped, peeling paint, well-worn and beaten from years of facing the harsh New England winters.
Heather gasped. “Isn’t that the door to Clint’s basement?”
Alex nodded. They both turned to Reid, who seemed like he was shaking off an invisible chill.
“You’re wrong,” he said. “It’s the hatch to my attic. Again.”
“No, it’s not,” Heather said. “I don’t know what you think you see, but it’s clearly the worn-out white door to Clint’s basement. Duh.” She rolled her eyes.
Heather worried as Reid shakily got to his feet. She thought about reaching out to help and then thought better of it. That douche-face would only slap her away. Macho dick.
She was pretty sure that was the door to Clint’s basement. But what was Reid seeing, then? Didn’t he know what his own attic door looked like?
“Seriously, Reid?” Alex scoffed. “It’s the basement door. How can you mistake that for the hatch to your attic?”
“It’s a goddamned hatch,” Reid snapped. “My attic, dipshit!” He paused as if contemplating something huge, scratching his head. “Maybe we’re all seeing different things. Like the house is showing us something that applies to each of us?”
“But how?” Alex asked.
“Danny?” Clint said.
He moved to the hatch, reached out and grabbed the handle.
“Clint, don’t!” Heather shouted.
He wrapped his other hand around the handle and gave it a yank. It fell open and he lost his balance. When he regained it, he shuffled forward like a zombie and disappeared inside, leaving the door wide open.
Heather watched, dumbfounded as Reid made a beeline for the door. He reached for Clint’s shirtsleeve but missed.
He turned and gave her a smirk and a nod. “Time to split up, it seems.”
Then he ducked through the hatch, after Clint, and yanked it shut behind him.
Heather thought her jaw would hit the floor when she realized she and Alex were alone.
She shook her head. “He left us. He left us here. That fucking bastard!”
“I don’t think it was like that.” Alex stepped in front of her. “I think he was trying to help Clint and protect us in the meantime.”
“He’s a selfish prick, Alex. When are you gonna see that? He wasn’t looking out for us at all, just—”
A noise from the stairwell caught their attention. Small scratching sounds. Heather hoped it was only rats, but she knew better. If only it were rats.
She watched the fear creep across Alex’s face as he too realized what was happening. The evil fairies. The ones that’d followed them down the corridor. They were coming up the stairs. Coming to get them.
“You hear that, Alex?”
Sounded like thousands of tiny footsteps shuffling up the steps. Shrill giggles pierced Heather’s eardrums. She tried not to imagine them, picture their feet, all claws, scraping up the steps, searching for something to shred.
Before Alex could answer, the whispers came again.
“Watching…”
“Waiting…”
Heather turned from the stairs, grabbing Alex’s hand. She gave him a sharp tug when she saw the hatch still there. It was indeed the hatch to Reid’s attic. How had she been so mistaken before? How could she and Alex have thought they saw the door to Clint’s basement?
“Watching…”
But she couldn’t stop to care what kind of door it had been before. She had every hope that once inside, they’d find Reid and Clint. But even if they didn’t, she’d be able to put some distance between them and the little creatures giving chase.
Hand in hand, Alex and Heather scrambled through the hatch.