Limbo

Get The Hell Out Of Dodge

CC:

The girls are obviously kind of freaked out when they see the paper floating near Andy, but personally I'm pretty relieved. "So you know where it is, then? They didn't break in and steal it?"

The marker moves toward the paper again, and we all crowd around to see the words, "Of course I know where it is, how else would I show you? You'll need to help me get to it, because it'll take too long if I have to do it myself, but let me actually bring it out, I don't want any of you to get hurt."

"Lead the way, then, he only gave us two hours," Andy responds, and the pad of paper starts moving, leading us through the kitchen to a padlocked door next to the pantry. Charlie fishes his keyring out of his pocket and pops the lock, and when he opens the door, we see a staircase going down to the basement.

"This is probably kind of irrelevant, but how did you get it down there with the door locked?" he asks. "You may be able to go through walls or whatever, but I doubt that the medallion could."

"No, I pushed it under the door, then picked it back up."

"Makes sense to me," Jake says, as we start down the stairs.

When we get downstairs, we see that the basement is only partly finished, the paper floats to one of the further corners, hovering next to a big metal drum. "If you'll move this, I'll get the necklace for you," she writes. "But everyone needs to step away before I do, to be sure nobody gets hurt."

"What did you do, set a booby trap or something?" I inquire.

"I didn't exactly set it, I just made use of what was already there. It's the only way I could be sure that they wouldn't get ahold of it."

The three of us gather around the drum, and even though it's pretty heavy, we manage to shift it over, and see that there's a small door, a hatchway, really, set into the lower part of the wall. "Shit, I never even knew that was there!" Charlie blurts out, sounding rather startled. "I kept putting off moving that barrel, because it was so heavy, so I never even saw that hatch."

We all move away from the door, then the bolt that holds it in place slides back, and it swings open. I get curious and turn on the flashlight on my phone, shining it into the opening, then Bob, Jake, and Juliet do the same. For a few seconds, all we see is what appears to be a lumpy, uneven dirt floor, but then the necklace starts to float up into the air, and we're kind of surprised to see the "dirt" shift. Then the noise starts, faint at first, but getting louder by the second:

"Buzzzzzz"

Then it finally dawns on me that I'm not looking at dirt, I'm seeing what basically amounts to a fucking carpet of rattlesnakes, who have been disturbed by Rachel moving the necklace out of the middle of their pile. Everyone instinctively backs even further away, and Jake mumbles, "Holy shit, this takes the concept of a guard dog to a completely different level!"

The door finally closes, and the necklace hangs in the air for a second before she becomes visible to us again. And judging by how the girls are whispering amongst themselves, I'm guessing that they can see her, too. But as she moves toward us, I see that she's not quite the same; instead of energetic and vibrant, she's quiet and dejected, maybe even a bit wary.

She walks over to me and holds out the necklace, so I reach out for it and ask, "Where have you been? We thought that someone broke in while we were at the show and stole this. Everyone has been worried about what might be happening to you."

A look of surprise flickers across her face, then it closes off again, and she replies, "Really? Can't imagine why, since I'm sure you've heard what a horrible, evil bitch I am. I didn't figure anybody would want me around, so I've just been hanging out in there most of the time. When everyone is home and awake, at least."