The House

Chapter 6

That night, they drew straws for sleeping arrangements. After staying up half the night with Alejandra and Evan, Emily woke up the others and took Hayden's place on a couch. What seemed like five minutes after she closed her eyes, she was awakened by someone shaking her. She opened her eyes to see Hayden kneeling next to her.

"Something's happening up top." They whispered.

Emily rubbed her eyes. "Any idea what?" She yawned.

They shrugged. "A couple minutes ago there was a loud bang. There've been some noises on and off since then, but they're too quiet to figure out what they are."

She sat up. "Have you tried making noise?"

Hayden chuckled. "Why do you think we woke you guys up? Come on."

She looked around and saw Alejandra leading Ava upstairs, carrying the axe and wooden bat respectively. She followed Jeremy and the others downstairs to the storage room.

"Grab anything we can make noise with." Jeremy said, picking up the aluminum bat and handing it to Hayden.

Emily knelt down and started digging through the toolbox. She pulled out the four biggest wrenches she could find and handed two of them to him.

Evan held up the basement fire extinguisher. "What about these?"

Hayden looked up. "No, it'll make plenty of noise but we don't want to damage them in case there's an actual fire."

"Here." Jeremy picked up the crowbar and handed it to Evan.

"Thanks."

They headed up to the second floor, where Alejandra had chopped a hole in the ceiling, exposing a large section of metal, and was doing the same to one of the walls.

"I think I heard voices a minute ago." Ava told them. "Sounded like shouting."

Jeremy sighed. "I'd love a dog whistle. If law enforcement is looking for us they'll probably have dogs."

Alejandra stepped away from the wall, turned around, and started working on the other wall. "This'll have to do."

"Right." Emily started hitting the exposed metal wall with a wrench. "HEEELP!" She screamed.

Hayden, the tallest of the group, started hitting the ceiling with the aluminum bat. "DOWN HERE!" They shouted.

The others quickly joined in. A minute later Alejandra finished exposing the second wall and started hitting the exposed metal with the other side of the axe head.

They made as much noise as possible for as long as they could, but soon enough they started getting too tired to continue, and one by one they stopped and sat down.

"Fuck." Emily gasped, panting.

Jeremy chuckled. "You said it."

"What now?" Evan asked, looking around at the others.

Alejandra yawned. "I'm going back to sleep." She replied, standing up.

"Sounds good." Emily mumbled as she followed her. Evan got up and followed them both downstairs.

Emily woke up to find herself being carried by a pair of men in black clothes and masks, one holding her arms and the other holding her legs. Her eyes widened. Thinking fast, she bent her knees and lifted her hips, then kicked as hard as she could. The man holding her ankles lost his grip, grunting as he stumbled back. Emily got her feet under her and rolled over to face the man holding her wrists, twisting free in the process. She quickly looked around to get her bearings and saw Alejandra laying naked on her side with her hands and feet cuffed to one of the couches. Hayden and Jeremy were cuffed to the other couch, and Evan was cuffed to the kitchen table. Ava was nowhere to be found. Turning her attention back to the masked men, she saw the smaller of the two men pulling the safety cap off of a syringe.