Dead End >> c.h au

Chapter Eight

        “No!” Calum cried. “Sally, come back!” he punched the door. He waited for mere seconds, but the silence made it feel like hours. Sally had left him. “Damn it…”

                Calum turned around and slid down the door, pressing his back against it. He hit the ground hard and buried his face in his hands. He couldn’t believe it. Sally had actually run off with Leo and left him alone in this murder castle.

                He didn’t really mind, though. At least this way Sally could get out. As long as she was safe, Calum would stay in the hotel for eternity if he had to. He’d do anything for that girl. He just wished she knew that.

                Calum felt a cold breeze wash over his body and he leapt to his feet, terrified. He whipped his head around, searching for something that might have caused a draft; a door, a window?

                Of course, he found nothing. But, he thought he saw a brief flicker of pale light at the end of the hallway. He stared towards the spot and wondered why it seemed so far away. He, Leo, and Sally had walked for what felt like decades along the carpeted floor. The end should be much closer than it was.

                Suddenly, the walls started vibrating. Calum started forward and jumped away from the door. He started to panic. He stared forward at the door and watched it rattle, like someone was trying with all their might to get it open. Calum thought it might be Sally, but he knew better than to hope for something like that. Calum looked to the other end of the corridor, in the direction of Luke’s room, and then heard a noise above him. He looked up to the ceiling.

                And he froze in fear. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. All at once, every single door on the floor was locked; Calum could hear the deadbolts click. The sound echoed through his ears in high definition as he stared forward.

                The ceiling was closing in. The roof above his head was slowly moving down the walls towards him, getting closer with every second. Calum looked around desperately, trying to measure the distance between himself and the staircase, praying he’d have enough time to reach it.

                He turned on his heels and sprinted off towards it before he could change his mind. He pumped his legs harder and faster than he ever had before, but the staircase wasn’t getting any closer. The ceiling was gaining on him quickly, threatening to press him into the ground. He pushed upwards with his hands as he ran, desperate to keep the ceiling where it was supposed to be.

                Calum’s heart was beating faster than his feet. He thought of his friends, he thought of home, and he thought of Sally. He thought of how poorly he had treated her. He realized he really was a dick most of the time. He shook his head. He took a deep breath and stopped running.

***

                The lights flickered off and Ashton and Michael were thrown back onto the ground after the table had been cleared. Ashton immediately shoved his fingers down his throat and begged his body to regurgitate the organs he had been forced to eat. Michael cried out, too traumatized to move his limbs. Every time he blinked he saw Luke and he cried even more.

                Michael closed his eyes and clapped his hands over his ears to drown of the sounds of Ashton’s gagging. He fell over to his side and curled his knees into his chest, clawing within himself for a sense of security. He felt like he would never feel safe ever again.

                Michael felt the temperature drop drastically and he shivered. He squeezed his eyes shut and sobbed into himself. He heard Ashton calling his name, but he didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

                A loud, industrial groaning sound echoed through the room. Michael sprang into a sitting position immediately, but was almost knocked back over right away. The floor beneath him was moving quickly like a conveyer belt.  The momentum made it difficult for Michael to stay upright.

                “Ashton!” Michael called out.

Michael’s voice was raw and broken. It made Ashton want to cry when he heard it. He sounded distant, getting farther away with every passing second. “Michael, what’s going on?” Ashton listened to his own words bouncing off the walls.

The floor started moving quicker, bringing Michael further and further away from what might be his last friend alive. Ashton was still in the same place, squinting through the dark desperately. Michael called out again, but didn’t receive an answer. He felt a sharp pinch on the back of his neck mere seconds before he lost consciousness.

***

Sally took the stairs two at a time, bounding into the unknown. Leo followed close behind her nervously. He apologized profusely for making her leave Calum behind, but she hardly heard him. Leo had been right, after all. She didn’t need Calum.

The air got colder as she descended into darkness. She stared ahead determinedly. She could be charging directly into a trap set by whoever had killed Luke. She didn’t understand why she wasn’t more afraid. She heard faint music playing in the distance, but she figured she was imagining it.

Sally nearly fell when the stairs ended. She had been so used to climbing downwards she temporarily forgot how to walk on a level surface. Leo had caught her before she hit the ground, though. She smiled and stepped away from him to see where they had ended up. The music was still playing, louder now.

A light flickered in the center of the space and Sally gasped. The light was pale blue and seemed to glow. It began to take the shape of a woman dancing with a man. Sally stepped closer to them involuntarily. She recognized them, but she didn’t know why.

The apparitions twirled along the floor and Sally realized she was in the ballroom. She saw the bar on the far wall and felt like crying. She heard Luke’s screams in her ears. The light of the apparitions reflected off the broken glass on the ground. Sally’s chest tightened and she needed to run. She wanted to get out of there.

Then the music stopped playing. Sally turned to look at the dancing couple and saw they were no longer dancing. The woman was trying desperately to get away from the man. She thrashed against him, pounding on his chest. Her mouth was wide open, as if she was screaming, but Sally heard no sound. The man gripped her tightly, painfully, and didn’t let her move.

Sally watched on in horror as the man pulled a knife from his jacket and slit the woman’s dress all the way down the front. The fabric fell to the floor and the woman began to cry. The man punched her in the side of the head and she stumbled for seconds before collapsing to the ground. The man immediately pounced on her, straddling her waist.

He pressed the blade into the chest of the unconscious body beneath him and dragged it downwards slowly. Sally’s heart leapt out of her chest. He was skinning her alive.

Then, all at once, everything fell into place. She gasped. Sally was watching the owner of the hotel killing his wife in the ballroom. She couldn’t believe her eyes. She didn’t want to.

“Holy shit,” Leo muttered beside her.

The moment Leo spoke, the man’s ghost snapped his head towards them angrily. His eyes were burning holes in Sally’s head. The man began to stand, brandishing his knife in Sally’s direction, peeved that he had been interrupted. She didn’t waste another moment. She was running away before the man could move another inch. She didn’t wait to see if Leo was following, she just ran and didn’t stop.