Mansion of Madness

CHAPTER THREE

Slowly and quietly we sneak up the stairs, the silence threatening to break at every step, and eventually it does when one of us places a foot on a stair which emits an especially loud creak. We all flinch and look in the general direction the noise came from.

"Sorry!" Chris whispers. I roll my eyes but then something catches my attention behind him. Something moving, outside the window. I can barely make it out through the reflection of the lights inside. A black silhouette creeping around the side of the house. My heart drops into my stomach when the figure stops cold in its tracks and turns toward the window.

Chris notices that we all stopped looking at him and started looking behind him. Confusion crosses his face and he slowly begins to turn around.

"It's him, isn't it." I say, my voice wavering with fear.

"What time is it?" Greyson asks. I glance down at my watch.

"Nine twenty-two" Chris answers before I do.

"He could just be going out to the beach early for some reason." I suggest.

"Wait." Scarlett says "Look at him." I glance over her shoulder, back through the window. He's pointing to something in his hand, I can't make out what through the reflection off the window though.

"Is that a gun?!" Lillian exclaims.

"Let's hope not." Logan replies

"Look!" Scarlett continues "Now he's pointing up." I look back over and sure enough the silhouette of his hand is pointing up.

"Does he want us to keep going up?" Lillian questions "What if there's someone up there waiting for us."

"Well, that's what we have knives for." Greyson reassures "And since we're assuming that he is the guy who's trying to get something from us and he's outside then he can't also be upstairs."

"Yeah, but this guy could also be working with someone else." Lillian replies.

"So there could be multiple guys here tonight?" Scarlett asks.

"Let's just go up. I mean if what he's holding is a gun then we'd better do what he wants." Gracie replies.

"Okay but do we really want to turn our backs on a psycho who might have a gun?" Logan protests, finally taking something seriously.

"We'll be fine." Greyson says "And like Gracie said, he can't get what he wants from us if we're dead, so he hopefully won't shoot us. Let's go."

We continue on our perilous journey up the staircase until eventually the window downstairs is out of sight and we've reached the second floor.

"The crash sounded pretty loud so it was probably on this floor. I think we should split up into two groups of two and one group of three to search for where the crash came from, so we can cover more ground quickly." Greyson suggests. We all collectively nod our heads in agreement seeing no problem with this plan.

Greyson continues, "How about Lillian, Gracie, and Logan in one group down that hallway." he says pointing to the left of the staircase. Lillian frowns at this proposal, not wanting to be in a group with Logan, which I can understand.

"Scarlett and Chris, you two can be in a group. You guys should look upstairs in case you find something." Greyson continues. I look over at Scarlett who begins to blush having been put in a group with Chris. "And that leaves Izzy and me." Which leaves me blushing as well.