Midnight Memories

t h i r t y

"How little words mean when you're a little too late." - Taylor Swift

"What do we do?" I asked frantically. "They'll kill all of us."

I could see Remy was thinking deeply, trying to come up with a fast solution. Suddenly he gasped. "There's a secret exit!"

"What?" Jet asked. "Where?"

"Here, in the attic. When I bought this place, I remember the realtor telling me that this building has been around since the Revolutionary War, and there's tons of secret passages in and out of the building that the Patriots used in the case of a surprise attack by the British. He said there's one here somewhere, in the attic, but it was probably sealed off during the renovations."

"How are we supposed to find it if it's sealed off?" Niall raised an eyebrow.

"Um..." Reny looked around, his eyes landing on the fireplace, where a worn Polo mallet was laying on the mantle. "Hand me that mallet."

"But Rem, isn't that the mallet that the royal family gave to your grandfather?" Jet asked, looking shocked. "It's probably worth a lot."

"Jarret, i'm a billionaire. Do you honestly think I give a fuck about a Polo mallet right now? It wont be worth anything to me dead." Remy glared at him.

I was shocked by Remy's hostility towards his best friend, but there wasn't time to question it. I reached for the mallet and handed it to Remy.

"Thank you, Stella." Remy began tapping on the wall, obviously searching for the hollow spot. He would lean his head against the wall, then knock on it, becoming increasingly frustrated as his search didn't yield any results.

Downstairs, the voices were becoming louder and angrier.

"Where are they?"

"They have to be hiding here somewhere."

"We've checked every room!"

"What if they already left?"

"We don't have much time!" Jet whisper yelled.

"I'm trying, okay?!" Remy said angrily.

Suddenly, Ryder grabbed the mallet out of Remy's hand, walked over to the corner of the wall, and starting swinging. After about ten hits, the wall crumbled, exposing a massive hole.

"What's that thumping noise?" Came one of the downstairs voices.

"Come on! I found something!" Ryder yelled. "We have to hurry!"

All of us scurried over the corner of the wall, where Remy used the flashlight on his phone to illuminate the space. Sure enough, there was a set of stairs leading down into a dark void.

"How did you-" Remy began.

"People most commonly put bookcases near the corner of the wall. Whoever lived here back in the 1700's would have obviously wanted to conceal it with something. I was just taking a wild guess." Ryder shrugged.

"You're a genius!" Said Niall, climbing into the hole. "Come on, it wont take them long to figure out we're up here."

The rest of us followed Niall down the narrow set of stairs, the only light coming from Remy's phone. After a while, the stairs tapered out into a long, damp hallway. Every so often, there would be a scurrying sound, as if the tunnel was infested with rats.

"This is disgusting. It's as if no one has been down here since 1776." Jet said.

"Aw come on. Pretend we're in National Treasure or something." Said Niall.