Below The Waves

Chapter Nine: The Ones That Were Crossed Off

"Shawn!" Ricky shouted. He had opened his eyes and Shawn had been opening the door and running out into the woods shoeless. "Shawn! What are you stupid?!" He yelled after his friend, struggling to keep up. He wiped the rain from his eyes and tried to see through the thick blanket of rain and blinding flashes of lightning. They raced through the mangled branches of the deep forest. Sharp thorns had scratched through his jeans that Shawn lent to him, blood staining it a dark red kind of colour. He blocked his face as he burst through a thick bundle of branches. On the other side he saw Shawn banging on the door of an old wooden cabin that looked as if it would tumble over just from the harsh wind itself.

"Open it! Open it!" His friend was screaming, banging and kicking at the door. His fists and feet were bleeding with thorns and branches stabbed into the bottom of his feet. "Open!" Ricky ran up to his friend and pulled him away from the door then tackled him to the ground. Shawn continued to struggle and punch Ricky, but Ricky never let him up, holding him down by his shoulders. The adrenaline was pumping through his blood, rushing over his body. Suddenly Shawn passed out, and Ricky was left sitting on the muddy ground. His breaths came in short gasps as he tried to calm himself down.

"What the hell man." He whispered, standing up weakly and turning towards the cabin. He glanced back at Shawn laying in the mud while I turned the door handle easily. He slipped inside silently and looked around. The cabin was a single room, no doors in sight. The walls were the same as the outside, frail and mouldy. The floor was covered with a thick, red, shag carpeting that had some sort of stain on the corner. A single grey couch was placed smack in the middle of the carpet.

Why is this here? It isn't even functional.

He walked along the walls.

Not insulated. Ricky shrugged and thunder rang through the woods, rattling the old house. He jumped and looked around, conflicted between bringing Shawn in before the real storm, and bringing him back to the cabin, due to his previous outburst. Lightning struck right after another ear shattering wave of thunder. The storm is to close not to bring him in. Ricky ran outside and dragged his friend through the mud, grunting as he pulled the football player in and closing the door. He was pretty thin and lanky, so it was a struggle to say the least. He sat down on the couch and put his elbows in his knees as he took deep breaths.

Shawn shot straight up, his eyes wide and bloodshot. "It's here." Shawn shot right up on his feet. "ITS HERE!" He screamed, and started to tear away at the carpet. Shawn ran up to the couch that Ricky was sitting on and flipped it over.

"Shawn!" He shouted as he tumbled back. He stood up and saw that Shawn was ripping the carpet off the wooden floor. "Stop!" He yelled running at his friend. Then he stopped dead.

"It's here." Whispered Shawn. He had come across the corner of an opening in the floor that had been hidden under a rug. He stood up on shaky legs and walked over to Ricky, the thorns still in his feet not even phasing him. "She said it would be." He breathed out. His eyes were wild, yet at the same time exhausted. "She knew."

Then he collapsed. Ricky gasped and checked Shawn's pulse, and sighed in relief when he knew his friend was alive. Ricky hesitantly walked towards the opening and peered into the darkness. Thunder boomed, causing Ricky to loose his balance. "AHHHH" he shouted as he fell into the hole.

Ricky blinked his eyes. It was too dark to see anything and the faint light from the opening wasn't helping. He dug in his pocket and turned on the flashlight on his now cracked phone. He scanned the room slowly and his mouth fell open. Right in front of him was a huge white board with pictures and newspaper clippings stuck on with magnets. The pictures were of 14 girls, no older than 8 years old, no doubt the killer's victims. Ricky slowly walked closer and saw that every picture had a huge red X over it. He raised his hand slowly and covered his mouth in shock.

"Oh my god." There were two faces that he recognized. The girls that had been killed. He scanned the board again. Black and white newspaper clippings and pictures of the girls with their mothers. At the mall, in a restaurant, those ones weren't even the most disturbing.

"I'm gonna throw up." He whimpered as he stared at more pictures, at pictures of the children through their bedroom windows, of them being tucked into their pink butterfly covers. Of them eating cereal at the breakfast table with their parents, some even a little brother, sitting in a high chair. Ricky swallowed hard.

"I can't do this." He panicked, his heart rate picking up as he clutched his chest. "I can't do it! I can't be here!" He shouted, trying to scramble up out of the dim basement. His trembling hands grasped for loose planks of wood, scraping them and receiving countless splinters. He fell to his knees and put his hands over his head.

"Ricky!" He faintly heard Shawn's voice from above him. "Ricky! What the hell?" He said, looking down into the opening. "What are you doing down there?"

Ricky whimpered, "You found this place. You said she knew." He pointed a shaking finger at his friend. "Come down here." Shawn hopped down into the dark open room with Ricky.

"This looks strangely like a dream I had." He mumbles as he turns the flashlight on his own phone. "Yea, everything is exactly the same, except there was a girl telling me how to come here." Ricky's mouth fell open in shock.

"W-was it one of these girls?" He asked, shining his light at the board.

"Whoa! Yea! It was her." He said pointing at a picture of a young girl with a X over her. "Except her hair was dripping wet. She told me that I had to come here, that there was something under the rug. After I woke up I couldn't understand what I was doing, I only knew that I was running and running." He said, looking at the board, with a terrified expression across his face. "She also said something about the other side..." He said slowly. Silently he grabbed the board and slowly flipped it over to the opposite side.

Ricky's breath caught in his throat. In the centre of the board there was a single picture. The picture of a girl, the same age as the others. There was only one difference.

She wasn't crossed out.