The knock came again.
“Who’s there?” Amber called.
Alan turned a wary eye back towards the door, suspecting that it might all be a trick.
A woman’s voice came to them from outside. “It’s Denise Gault. I climbed over from my balcony. There’s something in the hallway.”
Amber shook her head. “We’ve heard them in the room next door. You’re not from there.”
“I’m from several rooms down,” the voice said. Her voice quavered, either from cold or fear.
“It’s another trick,” Amber whispered.
“Of course it is,” Alan said.
“Please?” the voice called. “Yours is the only light I’ve seen. I think the thing in the hallway is bad. I can feel it.”
“We said we would test,” Liz said.
“How?” Alan asked. “It’s not like we can open the sliding door a crack and look at her hand. How will we keep her out if she’s one of them?”
“Vote,” Liz said.
Amber didn’t have to think about it.
“Too risky,” she said.
Alan took a few seconds to deliberate.
“Too risky,” he agreed.
Liz bit her lip for a moment and then decided not to argue.
“Yeah. Okay,” she said. She moved away from the curtains and settled back to the edge of the bed. Amber clicked off her light again and took a few steps back. Alan patrolled over near the door to the hall.
“It took us a long time to trust our neighbors after what we experienced,” Liz whispered. “We had one good one, but the rest were all suspect. I know it affected Joe the most. We were afraid to let him play with any of the local kids. He seemed so fragile after his cancer scare.”
“Honey,” Alan said.
Liz frowned and shook her head. “I know. Cancer.”
Amber glanced at her and Liz explained. “We agreed not to call it a ‘cancer scare.’ Diminishing it like that is what people do and then you eventually get complacent. We agreed to always be truthful and honest with each other about what happened.”
“So far, it’s worked,” Alan said.
“You say that, but I don’t really know what the difference is,” Liz said.
“We haven’t grown complacent,” Alan said. “We still have our eyes open about the dangers around us. We still take precautions in October, regardless of how inconvenient it is.”
“And here we are,” Liz said. “Trapped in another nonsensical life or death situation. Maybe Amber is right. Maybe we should have risked it and moved away years ago.”
“Risked it?” Alan asked. “You mean Joe’s life?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Liz said.
The argument settled into an uncomfortable silence.
“Hello?” the voice outside called with a quick knock. “Please? Can you let me in?”
“We can’t risk it,” Amber said. “We can’t open the sliding door. Find an open balcony and come to the hall door. We’ll let you in there.”
There was no response for several seconds. Amber folded her arms and leaned against the wall, thinking that the voice from the balcony had given up.
“I can’t,” the voice pleaded. “There aren’t any open doors.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Alan whispered. “You said the windows of the honeymoon suite were open.”
“That’s separate,” Liz said. “There’s a big gap before that balcony.”
“No, I’m just saying that if those windows were open, it stands to reason that others would be as well. Amber said that these things can climb.”
“That’s right,” Amber agreed.
“So, that’s probably how they got into Jennifer’s room in the first place, right?” Alan asked.
“Okay,” Liz said. “Probably right.”
Amber took a step closer to the curtains.
“There must be other open balcony doors. Go find one. We’re not opening this one.”
“You’re going to leave me out here to die?”
“Who told you to go out on the balcony in the first place? Why is this our fault?” Amber asked.
“I had to,” the voice said. “My husband answered the door and they got him. They dragged him out into the hall. I had to climb out onto the balcony to get away.”
Amber shook her head. “Doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s complicated,” the voice said.
Amber kept shaking her head. She wandered back over to the bed and waved Alan closer. Liz joined the two of them.
“I thought they were clever, but I guess I didn’t suspect that they would be this intelligent. Should this change our plan at all?”
Liz answered first in a quiet whisper. “No. If anything, I think it strengthens our position. You figured that they wouldn’t break the window—you appear to be right about that. We survived the attempt at the door, so apparently they’re trying the balcony now. I think this means that we’re on the right track.”
“Because if there was a flaw in our door plan, they would have tried it again,” Alan said.
“Right,” Liz agreed.
“Unless all of this is a distraction,” Amber said.
Liz glanced at her phone. Low music still came from the speaker. Snatching it up, she fumbled with the display. It lit up her worried face in bright colors for a moment and then the music ended.
Alan heard it first.
“The bathroom,” he said, running for the doorway.
Amber followed fast, clicking on her light. She nearly ran into Alan, who was standing just inside the door. He moved aside and she pointed her light in the direction of the noise. They only heard if for a second before it stopped.
“What?” Liz asked, leaning close to whisper.
Amber turned to whisper her reply. “It was a light scratching. Maybe the sound of…”
Alan interrupted, finishing her thought. “Something scraping through the drywall.”
“That can’t be all that’s between the rooms,” Liz said.
Alan shrugged. “Maybe some insulation? I doubt there’s much more than that.”
“What do we do?” Liz asked.
“We either run or wait,” Alan said.
“Or attack first,” Amber said.
# # #
Ricky was dropped into the middle of his recurring nightmare.
In this nightmare, he was just a kid again and he had stumbled onto a book of ancient magic.
He was finishing the Ceremony of the King’s Flame and waiting for the purple light to appear, knowing it wouldn’t. It was a silly ritual that he had pieced together from several different sources. He was only doing it so that he could
