Infected

Chapter 8

After the horrific situation in the garage, Ivy and Ethan head towards the door that leads to the main hall. The key piece they needed was in the garage on the walkway that had the ladder attached to it, and if it wasn't for the box of shotgun ammo that Ivy found, she'd have cursed up a storm.

The main hall is a very large room with two sets of stairs that lead up to the second floor, but the two siblings decide to search the first floor first, finding a few things hidden around the large room. Ivy quickly spots a shotgun on the far side of the main hall, but when she tries to take it, the door slams closed behind her, making her scowl as she puts the bigger gun back in order to be free again.

Ethan finds a trap door that seems to only be activated when the right object is placed in front of the light to cast a very specific shadow, but the two couldn't find anything in Ivy's bag that matches the shadow needed. This only further frustrates Ivy, who punches the wall as she follows her brother towards the front door that leads outside.

Only for the phone next to the front door to start ringing, and wanting to finally get some damn answers, Ivy snatches up the phone, hearing Zoe's amused chuckles coming through the line. "Did my daddy give you both a hard time?"

"Fuck, that's your dad. Shit, I feel sorry for you." Ivy replies rather bluntly, making Ethan smack her in the arm with a scowl. "What? The bastard's tried to kill us twice now. Sorry for not feeling sympathetic towards the man."

"Well, don't worry, Ivy." Zoe states, bringing the two back to the conversation at hand. "He used to be my father."

"I'm sorry. He's dead, now." Ethan tells her sympathetically, though Ivy still doesn't believe that they've seen the last of Jack Baker. She can't really explain it, any of it really, but she just knows that Jack's not dead yet.

"Well, you two might actually be able to pull this off." Zoe chuckles, hope filling her voice, and Ivy furrows her brows in even more confusion as she shares a look with her brother.

"Pull what off? We just want to escape." Ivy says as she turns back towards the phone.

"There's something you need to do, but I can't explain right now. You just need to get out of the house. I'll be in touch." Zoe orders before hanging up the phone again, and Ivy scowls at it before slamming it back down.

"When I get my hands on her, I'm thrashing her into the next century." Ivy snaps before heading towards the front door, only to find that it's locked because the three heads to the dog on the door are missing. "That's it. I'm killing myself."

"Don't be so damn dramatic, Ivy." Ethan says as he grabs the gun that she'd been about to put against her head. "I'm sure the heads are around here somewhere."

"Ethan, I'm not about to go on a scavenger hunt for three dog heads. Why can't we just break open a window?" Ivy asks as she follows her brother over towards a door that's covered in fake scorpions, both siblings discovering that they need a scorpion key to open it. "Okay, who the fuck built this house?"

"I don't know, but you can shoot them when we find out." Ethan tells her as he grabs the Clock Pendulum from the clock next to the door, though Ivy wonders why he decided to take it. "The one in that smaller living room doesn't have one."

"How did you-"

"I don't know, but it was like I could hear your thoughts." Ethan says as equally confused as his sister, but it's the truth. It wasn't a loud shouting, nor was it a regular voice of sound, but more like a faint whisper in his mind, allowing him to just barely hear what Ivy was thinking.

"Well, let's just add that to list of fucking weird shit we've had happen to us tonight." Ivy comments before she starts to head up the stairs. "You go put that on the clock. I'm going to look around upstairs."