Panic

by Lauren Oliver

Page 16

 

  They stood in darkness so heavy, Heather could taste it every time she inhaled: things moldering, rotting slowly; slippery, sliding, slithery things.

  Behind her. The footsteps stopped, hesitated. Floorboards creaked. Someone was following them.

  “Move,” Heather whispered. She knew she was losing it—that it was probably just another player exploring the house—but she couldn’t stop a terrible fantasy that seized her: it was one of the judges, pacing slowly through the dark, ready to grab her. And not a human, either—a supernatural being with a thousand eyes and long, slick fingers, a jaw that would come unhinged, a mouth big enough to swallow you.

  The footsteps advanced. One more step, and then another.

  “Move,” she said again. Her voice sounded strangled, desperate in the dark.

  “In here,” Dodge said. It was so dark, she couldn’t even see him, though he must have been standing only a few feet away. He grunted; she heard the groaning of old wood, the whine of rusted hinges.

  She felt Nat move away from her and she followed blindly, quickly, nearly tripping over an irregularity in the floor, which marked the beginning of a new room. Dodge swung the door closed behind her, leaning into it until it popped into place. Heather stood, panting. The footsteps kept coming. They paused outside the door. Her breath was shallow, as though she’d been underwater. Then the footsteps withdrew.

  Dodge turned on the flashlight app again. In its glow, his face looked like a weird modern painting: all angles.

  “What was that?” Heather whispered. She was almost afraid neither Dodge nor Nat had heard.

  But Dodge said, “Nothing. Someone trying to freak us out. That’s all. ”

  He placed his phone on the floor so the beam of light was directed straight up. Dodge had a sleeping bag stuffed in his backpack; Heather shook out the blanket she’d brought. Nat sat down next to the cone of light, drawing the blanket around her shoulders.

  All of a sudden, relief broke in Heather’s chest. They were safe, together, around their makeshift version of a campfire. Maybe it would be easy.

  Dodge squatted next to Nat. “Might as well get comfortable, I guess. ”

  Heather paced the small room. It must have once been a storage area, or maybe a pantry, except that it was a little ways from the kitchen. It was probably no more than twenty feet square. High up against one wall was the room’s single window, but the cloud cover was so thick, barely any light penetrated. On one wall were warped wooden shelves, which now contained nothing but a layer of dust and yet more trash: empty chip bags, a crushed soda can, an old wrench. She used the light of her cell phone to perform a quick exploration.

  “Spiders,” she commented, as her phone lit up a web, perfectly symmetrical, glistening and silver, which extended between two shelves.

  Dodge rocketed to his feet as though he’d been bit on the ass. “Where?”

  Heather and Nat exchanged a look. Nat cracked a small smile.

  “You’re afraid of spiders?” Heather blurted out. She couldn’t help it. Dodge had shown no fear, ever. She would never have expected it.

  “Keep your voice down,” he said roughly.

  “Don’t worry,” Heather said. She turned off her phone. “It was just the web, anyway. ” She didn’t mention the small blurred lumps within it: insects, spun into the threads, waiting to be consumed and digested.

  Dodge nodded and looked embarrassed. He turned away, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

  “Now what?” Nat said.

  “We wait,” Dodge replied, without turning around.

  Nat reached over and popped open a bag of chips. A second later, she was crunching loudly. Heather looked at her.

  “What?” Nat said with her mouth full. “We’re going to be here all night. Except it came out, “Weef gonna be hey all nife. ”

  She was right. Heather went and sat down next to her. The floor was uneven.

  “So waf do youf fink?” Nat said, which this time Heather had no trouble translating.

  “What do I think about what?” She hugged her knees to her chest. She wished the cone of light were bigger, more powerful. Everything outside its limited beam was rough shadow, shape, and darkness. Even Dodge, standing with his face turned away from the light. In the dark, he could have been anyone.

  “I don’t know. Everything. The judges. Who plans all this?”

  Heather reached out and took two chips. She fed them into her mouth, one from each hand. It was an unstated rule that no one spoke about the identity of the judges. “I want to know how it got started,” she said. “And why we’ve all been crazy enough to play. ” It was meant to be a joke, but her voice came out shrill.

  Dodge shifted and came to squat next to Natalie again.

  “What about you, Dodge?” Heather said. “Why did you agree to play?”

  Dodge looked up. His face was a mask of hollows, and Heather was suddenly reminded of one summer when she’d gone camping with some other Girl Scouts, the way the counselors had gathered them around the fire to tell ghost stories. They had used flashlights to turn their faces gruesome, and all the campers were afraid.

  For a second, she thought he smiled. “Revenge. ”

  Nat started to laugh. “Revenge?” she repeated.

  Heather realized she hadn’t misheard. “Nat,” she said sharply. Nat must have remembered, then, about Dodge’s sister; her smile faded quickly. Dodge’s eyes clicked to Heather’s. She quickly looked away. So he did blame Luke Hanrahan for what had happened. She felt suddenly cold. The word revenge was so awful: straight and sharp, like a knife.

  As if he could tell what she was thinking, Dodge smiled. “I just want to cream Ray, that’s all,” he said lightly, and reached out to grab the bag of chips. Heather felt instantly better.

  They tried to play cards for a while but it was too dark, even for a slow-moving game; they had to keep passing the flashlight around. Nat wanted to learn how to do a magic trick, but Dodge resisted. Occasionally they heard voices from the hall, or footsteps, and Heather would tense up, certain that this was the beginning of the real challenge—spooky ghost holograms or people in masks who would jump out at them. But nothing happened. No one came barging in the door to say boo.

  After a while, Heather got tired. She balled up the duffel bag she’d brought under her head. She listened to the low rhythm of Dodge and Nat’s conversation—they were talking about whether a shark or a bear would win in a fight, and Dodge was arguing that they had to specify a medium. …

  … Then they were talking about dogs, and Heather saw two large eyes (a tiger’s eyes?) the size of headlights, staring at her from the darkness. She wanted to scream; there was a monster here, in the dark, about to pounce. …

  And she opened her mouth, but instead of a scream coming out, the darkness poured in, and she slept.

  dodge

  DODGE WAS DREAMING OF THE TIME THAT HE AND Dayna had ridden the carousel together in Chicago. Or maybe Columbus. But in his dream, there were palm trees, and a man selling grilled meats from a brightly colored cart. Dayna was in front of him, and her hair was so long it kept whipping him in the face. A crowd was gathered: people shouting, leering, calling things he couldn’t understand.

  He knew he was supposed to be happy—he was supposed to be having fun—but he wasn’t. It was too hot. Plus there was Dayna’s hair, getting tangled in his mouth, making it hard to swallow. Making it hard to breathe. There was the stench from the meat cart, too. The smell of burning. The thick clouds of smoke.

  Smoke.

  Dodge woke up suddenly, jerking upright. He’d fallen asleep straight on the floor, with his face pressed against the cold wood. He had no idea what time it was. He could just make out Heather’s and Nat’s entangled forms, the pattern of their breathing. For a second, still half-asleep, he thought they looked like baby dragons.

  Then he realized why: the room was filling with smoke. It was see
ping underneath the crack below the door, snaking its way into the room.

  He stood up, then thought better of it, remembering that smoke rises, and dropped to his knees. There was shouting: screams and footsteps sounded from other parts of the house.

  Too easy. He remembered what Heather had said earlier. Of course. Firecrackers exploded here on the Fourth of July; there would be a prize for the players who stayed in the house the longest.

  Fire. The house was on fire.

  He reached over and shook the girls roughly, not bothering to distinguish between them, to locate their elbows from their shoulders. “Wake up. Wake up. ”

  Natalie sat up, rubbing her eyes, and then immediately began coughing. “What—?”

  “Fire,” he said shortly. “Stay low. Smoke rises. ” Heather was stirring now too. He crawled back to the door. No doubt about it: the rats were abandoning ship. There was a confusion of voices outside, the sound of slamming doors. That meant the fire must have already spread pretty far. No one would have wanted to bail right away.

  He put his hand on the metal door handle. It was warm to the touch, but not scalding.

  “Nat? Dodge? What’s going on?” Heather was fully awake now. Her voice was shrill, hysterical. “Why is it so smoky?”

  “Fire. ” It was Natalie who answered. Her voice was, amazingly, calm.

  Time to get the hell out. Before the fire spread further. He had a sudden memory of some gym class in DC—or was it Richmond?—when all the kids had to stop, drop, and roll onto the foot-smelling linoleum. Even then, he’d known it was stupid. Like rolling would do anything but turn you into a fireball.

  He grabbed the handle and pulled, but nothing happened. Tried again. Nothing. For a second, he thought maybe he was still asleep—in one of his nightmares, where he tried and tried to run but couldn’t, or swung at some assailant’s face and didn’t even make a mark. On his third try, the handle popped off in his hand. And for the first time in the whole game, he felt it: panic, building in his chest, crawling into his throat.

  “What’s happening?” Heather was practically screaming now. “Open the door, Dodge. ”

  “I can’t. ” His hands and feet felt numb. The panic was squeezing his lungs, making it hard to breathe. No. That was the smoke. Thicker now. He unfroze. He fumbled his fingers into the hole where the door handle had been, tugging frantically, and felt a sharp bite of metal. He jammed his shoulder against the door, feeling increasingly desperate. “It’s stuck. ”

  “What do you mean, stuck?” Heather started to say something else, and instead started coughing.

  Dodge spun around, dropped into a crouch. “Hold on. ” He brought his sleeve to his mouth. “Let me think. ” He could no longer hear any footsteps, any shouting. Had everyone else gotten out? He could hear, though, the progress of the fire: the muffled snapping and popping of old wood, decades of rot and ruin slurped into flame.

  Heather was fumbling with her phone.

  “What are you doing?” Nat tried to swat at it. “The rules said no calling for—”

  “The rules?” Heather cut her off. “Are you crazy?” She punched furiously at the keyboard. Her face was wild, contorted, like a wax mask that had started to melt. She let out a sound that was a cross between a scream and a sob. “It’s not working. There’s no service. ”