House of Monsters

Chapter 8: Surprise!

  Warning! This chapter contains blood and is a bit graphic! I warned you!

  "I see something!" Amber's voice echoed as she enthusiastically pointed ahead. 

  Evey pointed the flashlight where Amber was pointing.

  "I don't see anything." Evey countered. 

  The hallway ahead was the same as it had been for the last hour. Amber stopped walking and took the flashlight. She waved the beam of light around, trying to find what she had just seen. 

  "Strange,  I swear I saw something..." Amber muttered before handing the flashlight back to Evey. 

  We resumed our walk, brushing off the false sight.

  "What'd you see anyway?" I asked, kicking along a small pebble I found.

  "I dunno, I could only see the silhouette. It didn't look like the monster at all, so I think it was just a large rat or something else. Or maybe it was just me seeing things." Amber replied, thinking out all the possibilities of what the thing she'd seen could be. 

  We returned to silence, our hollow footsteps resonating all around us. The flashlight was kept on the watch, flickering slightly every now and then. 

  "Guys!" Evey eagerly said, starting to speed up, gradually accelerating into a run. "I think I see an exit!" 

  Amber and I broke out of our separate trances and looked where the flashlight was pointing. At the end of our vision, an end to the tunnel could be seen. 

  "Finally!" Amber hysterically said and went to catch up to Evey. I went right behind her. 

  Right before we reached the end, the flashlight began to flicker heavily. 

  "Quickly!" I said, putting my energy into the last stretch of the run. And that's when the flashlight went out. 

  "Dang it!" I could hear Evey say as she walked the rest of the way.  I put my hands out, feeling the wall for any door, ladder, or anything of that kind. 

 "Aah- Oof!" Amber blurted out as she fell.

  "Are you okay?" Evey asked. 

  "Yeah, I just tripped on something."

  "Oh, okay." 

  Now all three of us were groping around in the dark, trying to find something on the wall. After trying in vain for way too long, Evey started to whack the flashlight.

  "Come on," She urged the flashlight to turn on. "Are you guys sure that you don't have another flashlight?" She was whacking the flashlight harder now, trying harder to activate the only light source we had left, one we had paid for with a life.

  "I'm positive I didn't bring any source of light with me. Too bad." Amber bitterly responded.

  "Mine broke, rem-" I was cut off when the flashlight finally turned on.

  Evey shone it on the wall. The wall was damp, had bits of dirt and fungus clinging on, and...

  "WHAT?!" Evey said in a shocked voice.

  On the wall, scrawled in blood was the word 'Sike' in messy writing.

  Evey spun around, trying to find something when I let out a high-pitched scream. Evey and Amber looked where I was pointing, and let out equally terrorized screams.

  On the ground before us was a bloody pile of severed limbs, torsos, and heads, from Adeline, Sahithi, and Anika, with Caroline's bloody eyeballs, teeth and fingers scattered on top of the pile as if they were sprinkles on a cupcake. Some of it had been knocked off, which explained what Amber had tripped on.

  I didn't even know Anika had been killed until now.

  We stood in silence, staring at the gruesome sight with wide, eyes, unable to close them when the flashlight flickered melodramatically and shut off for the final time. The only thing positive was that we couldn't see the pile of death anymore.

 None of us could talk, bewildered from everything that had happened in only the last couple of seconds.

  Little echoes of sound could be heard coming towards us from the other end of the tunnel, swiftly making it's way closer and closer.