“And another thing,” Nicole burst into the hall, nearly tripping over the tub, “if you think—”
“Shh,” Alex cut her off, listening.
“Don’t you ‘shh’ me, you little jerk!”
He ignored her, and instead tilted his head back and forth. “Shh.”
“I can’t believe this!” Nicole said. “Why don’t you—”
“Shh!” This time it was David who cut her off.
She turned red and her eyes went wide. “You listen to me, David! If you saw—”
“I hear it too,” Kaitlyn said, wandering away from the group. Hannah stuck to her like glue, warily watching Shadow just five feet away.
Nicole looked at the faces of the people around her. “What are you all—”
“Shh!” they all said in unison.
Nicole grew enraged. She let out a frustrated growl and everyone turned to look at her. “Why don’t you all just—”
She stopped short when she heard it too. A very faint noise coming from the bottom of the stairs. A tiny, jingling, ringing sound, coming from the bell on the new collar of Ryan’s little cat.
“You’re lucky,” she whispered, as she passed Alex and headed down the stairs.
NICOLE
Nicole suggested that Alex put Shadow back in ‘her room’ since she would make finding an already-scared cat much more difficult. The girls waited at the bottom of the stairs.
Except for the lobby, the first floor was almost identical to the second: same doors on either side, same non-functioning bathrooms, same fountain. There was one extra door at the bottom of the stairs; it led to the basement. One of the remaining doors was for the kitchen, another to some kind of lounge, and one to the largest room which served as the karate school. The rest of the doors were locked. Behind at least one of them was a door that led to the backyard. Nicole, Alex, and David had all seen it while using “the hard way,” but without a key it was useless and anyway, the fewer ways in, the better.
Because the first floor was used so rarely, all the supplies that David, Nicole, and eventually Alex, had found, but not bothered to take upstairs, crowded the hall in haphazard piles.
The first floor had no hallway window, and so remained pitch black. From that darkness came a crash, then a scrambling noise.
Nicole locked her eyes on the spot the noise came from, and waited. When David came with flashlight in hand, she grabbed it from him. As she shone the light down the hallway, she said, “There.” Two little green lights reflected back at them before disappearing.
“Was that him?” Alex asked.
“I hope so,” David answered. “If it wasn’t, we have other problems.”
“What? Like goblins?” Kaitlyn asked, sarcastically.
“No, not goblins!” David answered, indignantly. “Some other animal or something. Like a coyote, or a raccoon!”
“Raccoons don’t live in Sydney,” Kaitlyn pointed out.
“Of course they do,” Hannah corrected her. “Lots!”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen raccoons around here,” David said.
“Where did you see raccoons?” Alex asked, excitedly.
“Well, I never actually saw them,” David replied, “but—”
“Will you all shut up!” Nicole whispered back over her shoulder. “We’re in the middle of something, remember?”
Everyone grew silent, looking at the now-empty pool of light in front of them.
“Where did it go?” David asked.
“Farther down the hall,” Nicole answered.
As if in reply, a board that had been leaning against the wall fell over.
“Yup. That’s him. And he just went that way.” She pulled the light to the right and started down the hallway.
Everyone stuck very close to Nicole and the light. They stopped right where Nicole stood, facing a pile of boxes in front of a door.
“Where does that go?” Kaitlyn asked.
“I dunno,” David answered, looking at the area around it. “It can’t be another room, ‘cause there’s not enough space.”
“Maybe it’s a closet,” Kaitlyn guessed.
“Yeah, maybe,” David answered, as he got closer. “It has a bunch of locks on it. That’d be weird for a closet. Maybe it ... crap.”
“Maybe it crap?” Nicole asked.
David shoved the boxes out of the way. The bottom panel of the door was missing. “Someone was super lazy and put boxes here instead of fixing it!”
“Well,” Alex said with a smile, “now we know how the cat got in, so ... can we go back upstairs?”
“You can go whenever you want,” Nicole said quickly, “but this doesn’t tell us how the cat got in.” She shone the light into the hole in the door. “This does not go outside.”
David peered through the hole. “Stairs,” he said after a moment. “It’s stairs. This is another door to the basement.”
Nicole could feel the tension take hold of the group. The idea of going into the basement sounded like a very bad idea. They had seen horror movies and knew that searching the basement was an easy way to get killed.
She could sense that David, on the other hand, was actually excited. He had been down there and searched it thoroughly just a few days prior. Spaz hasn’t ever watched a movie long enough to see anyone get killed in the basement, she realized, shaking her head.
The door was locked, and none of them could fit through the missing plank, so David led them all to the other basement door. When he opened it, Kaitlyn and Hannah backed away.
“Is it okay if we go upstairs?” Kaitlyn asked.
Nicole sighed. Haven’t any of you ever watched a movie? Don’t go in the basement and don’t split up! She didn’t want to have to answer for everyone, but since no one else would, she felt she had to. “Well ... the dog is up there.” She looked right at Hannah when she said it. Her face must have been telling.
“We can stay here,” Hannah said.
“Fine,” Nicole replied, peering into the thicker darkness of the basement. “Just call down if you need something.
