The Panic of Fear (Book One of The Fearful Trilogy)

Chapter Twenty Four

  I hear the childlike laughter and know my death has come back for me. I feel something move and realize Zodiac must be waking up. "Hey Alex." He crawls out of my pocket and sees me curled up in a ball.
  "Are you okay?" The laughing gets closer. Zodiac looks up and screams. I cover my ears because a Floofic scream is super high pitched.
  It's like nails on a chalkboard, mixed with a whistle, and them amped up to highest capacity. In other words. Ear bleeding high pitch. When he thankfully stops I give him a look that could kill.
  "I was scared." He says. I put a hand to my ear and thankfully there's no blood. "You're lucky there's no blood." I pick him up and place him on my shoulder.
  I realize the thing is gone. It must not of liked Zodiac's scream. That makes two of us. I hate to be on the monster's side but that scream hurts. As we walk I pull out my flashlight and try to turn it on.
  Miraculously it turns on. "Thank you!" I'm so happy I could kiss the flashlight. After walking for awhile I find a door.
  "What's behind door number five?" I push open the door and jump back. Instead of the usual breaking down house I see a lab of sorts.
  There's papers everywhere, test rooms, and big tubes everywhere with people in them. I walk up to one and see probs attached to their forehead. "What the hell was going on here?"
  I see a horrified face on the person and feel bad for them. Some tubes are unoccupied. I'm tempted to try it out but when you're in an abandoned lab maybe not the best thing to do.
  The people I see in the tubes look incubated. Like they're floating underwater but somehow alive. I see tubes attached to the back of their neck and figure that's their nutrition tube.
  I don't want to know where they're waste goes. Or if they even have a tube for that. I step away from the tubes and see a table covered with papers.
  As I look through the papers I see names of people and what they're afraid of.

Jane Aniston
Fear: Suffocation
Status: Alive

Doug Garate
Fear: Spiders
Status: Alive

Yasmin Dream
Fear: Drowning
Status: Dead

  I sift through hundreds of names. Some alive, more dead. I shudder at the thought of who could do this. Zodiac has hopped off my shoulder and is staring a the people in the tubes.
  One paper makes me stop.

Trent Gooding
Fear: Needles
Status: Alive

  All I can think is. Not anymore. I start looking at the name plates under the tubes. Riley. Jill. Fexin. Trent. I stop and look up. He has a look of peace on his face. But he's dead.
  I don't know if I should feel good for putting him out of his misery or bad for killing him. He didn't deserve this. No one deserves any of this.
  Living through their fear. I'd hate to be hooked up to one of these. I'm glad I didn't try out those probs. I hear something and grab Zodiac.
  I dart behind Trent's tube as I hear someone muttering. "Where did I put Tracy's paper?" I hear papers being shuffled and silently pray he doesn't notice the papers I went through.
  "Found it." I hear footsteps coming closer and hold my breath. The footsteps stop and I pray he can't hear my heart beating wildly.
  "It's a shame that Stiches was killed. We could of used him." I feel angry. He's brushing off a death as an inconvenience. I want to go slap some sence into him but I stay still.
  All of a sudden I feel something prick my neck and someone whispers into my ear. "Next time. Pick a better hiding place." I fall into oblivion.