XIII - Paige
"Paige!?" The voice barely managed to puncture the
bubble of confusion and fear that was building up around her as she sat in the
corridor. It was a familiar voice. She made a faint effort to reply, letting
out little more than a whimper. In her
mind she was screaming, David!
David, help me! You've got to
wake me up or shake me or something.
Please, David, tell me it's just a dream... Then a lanky figure stood above her and she
looked up at a youthful, attractive face, painted with concern, eyebrows
knitted together.
"Paige,
what happened? I heard you scream
and-"
She
was already curling back into herself, staring at the door.
"Paige! You need to tell me what happened. Did someone... something attack
you?"
She
looked back up at him, nodded faintly and then started to stand up.
"You? Did you see them too?"
"I
killed one... in the cemetery."
"This
isn't just a nightmare then? I'm not
just going mad?"
"I
don't know, but if there are more of those things then it can't be safe here."
Again she nodded. The boy in front of her - she realised she
didn't know his name - seemed strangely comfortable in the role he had
adopted. This wasn't like their talk
fifteen minutes ago, he wasn't play-acting the seducer, this was survival and
he seemed... capable. "Where can
we go? They were... they were coming
out of the walls! How can we
escape that?"
"I
don't know, but we should probably leave the apartments. This can't be happening everywhere."
Paige
nodded distractedly. She had heard something
on the other side of the door again.
The creatures were still moving in there.
"Is
your husband still in there?"
She
turned back to him, sighed.
"No. I couldn't find
him. I don't know where he's
gone."
"Do
you have any kind of torch or gas lamp, or anything like that?"
"There
should be a torch in the kitchen drawer, but I'm not going back in there. The kitchen is where they first came
from."
"We'll
need to be able to see better."
"I
don't care. I'm not going back in
there."
"It's
okay. I'll go in on my own."
He
stepped towards the door and placed a long-fingered hand on the handle.
"No,
please don't open it." Her voice
had risen into the range of the hysterical.
He
smiled awkwardly at her and began to turn the handle. "Stand back."
He said, then he pushed it open and disappeared inside, closing it
behind him.
Paige
stared at the door in horror. She knew
that he wouldn't come out of there again.
She knew it. He had entered her
nightmare briefly and now he had exited again.
Eventually she would run away, or she would give in to that horrible
consuming beast that is curiosity and she would open the door and look inside
and see him, body torn apart, limbs-
"Got
it!"
The
door slammed shut behind him as he stood panting in the corridor. A second later and the darkness was
illuminated by the strong beam of the torch shooting off towards the doors to
the stairwell. Paige just stared at him
in silent wonder.
"Now
let's get out of here."
XIV - ???
He
opened his eyes. The room was cold and
quiet. He breathed a sigh of relief and
stood, forgetting his moment of prayerfulness instantly. Just a nightmare perhaps? A delusion! There was nothing to fear.
There had been no flames. He had
fallen asleep as he read - after all candlelight could be very soporific - and
he had dreamt that the soot stain on the ceiling was becoming something else
and that in turn had startled him into a partial wakefulness. He had knocked the candle over and even
though it had snuffed out as it fell his dream-addled mind had concocted
another nightmare for him and-
It
wasn't ludicrous was it? He sniffed the
air. He could smell smoke.
Standing,
he made his way back towards the sofa and picked up the candle from the
floor. There were matches on the table
it had fallen from and he re-lit it.
The room was
charred.
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