A Gothic Horror

4

The three students went into their apartment.

"Hello? Josh? Are you in here?"

No answer.

"Jooosh!"

They went through every room but he was nowhere to be found.

"Maybe the man from yesterday really took him..." Ashley said gravely.

"Don't say that!" Sarah said, grimacing, "There has to be some other explanation why—"

Suddenly, the lights went out. Everybody screamed.

"Alright, guys, calm down!" Ashley yelled, "It's just a blackout! See? The lights in the other houses went out too!"

Sarah breathed in deeply and tried to calm herself but her heart rate stayed extremely high.

"What if he's dead?" she said, taken by a sudden panic, "What if Josh's dead? We... we aren't safe here, are we? That man from the other night... He's still out there! And... I don't understand what happened to that woman! I really don't... But... We saw that man strangle her in that apartment! We all saw that! And... what if he is after us, now? What if he... What if he killed Josh?"

None of them said a word.

"We should go check that apartment!" — "Sarah..." — "Just to be sure! We know that that guy painted some pentagrams on the walls... maybe he wants to sacrifice Josh to the devil or something! We need to check if Josh is in there!" — "Sarah! Even if that guy is in that apartment... Wouldn't it be safer if we all stayed together in here? I mean... There's only like... two scenarios! Either he killed Josh and potentially wants to kill us too or something entirely different happened to Josh and that man is not in this house anymore... I don't know... I think we should just stay in here and wait! If that man is out there and we leave the apartment... Couldn't he sneak in somehow and hide and then kill us one by one?"

"Wouldn't we hear him open the door, though?" Chris asked.

"Did you hear him leave our apartment, yesterday?" Ashley replied and shook her head, "No! No, this man has some strange abilities... I'm not even sure he's human! No, we should definitely not leave this apartment!"

"No, I'm definitely going!" Sarah said defiantly.

"Did you listen to anything I just said?!" — "I have to know if Josh is alright! Maybe he's hurt and he's lying somewhere in the apartment of that psycho — or just somewhere around the house, for that matter! It would be completely irresponsible to just sit back here in the dark and wait until the lights go up again!"

"It would be completely irresponsible to just walk around a house with a psycho killer hidden somewhere inside while you can't see shit because the lights don't work!"

"Do whatever you want but I'll go! I just have to!"

"You can't go alone," Chris said, "That would be way too dangerous!"

"But someone has to stay in the apartment to make sure the killer can't get in here and hide somewhere!" Ashley shook her head.

"Why don't you go with Sarah, then, and I'll stay here and make sure no one besides the two of you gets in!" Chris said, "That way we make sure that none of us just disappears like Josh did!"

"Hmm..." Ashley muttered, "I don't know..."

"I'm going with or without you," Sarah said.

"Well... I guess you leave me no choice, then!"

#

"All, right," Sarah said, taking out the keys Mr Schwartz had given them at their request, "Here we go!"