by Amy Cross
"Nonsense," Elizabeth says, "he never comes twice in one -"
Suddenly there's a creaking sound over by the door.
"He must have heard us arguing," Elizabeth continues. "He must be angry. Maybe he knows about the window."
"I can't go up again," Natalie says. "Not tonight."
Seconds later, a small block of wood is thrown down the steps, landing noisily on the stone floor. While the others stand frozen with fear, I hurry across and pick up the block. Turning it over, I see that there are three scratches on the underside.
"What number is it?" Elizabeth asks.
I pause for a moment. "Three."
"Then it must be you," she continues, with a palpable sense of relief in her voice. "I'm one, Natalie's two, you must be three. He wants you."
Looking up the steps, I see that the door is open, and there's a dark, large figure standing in the shadows, staring down at me.
"He wants you, Holly," Elizabeth continues. "It's your turn."
Ben Lawler
Today
"Say something!" I shout, plunging my arms into the bath before hauling Samantha out from beneath the ice. She can't have been in the water for more than a few minutes, but her skin is already freezing and her lips are starting to turn blue. As far as I can tell, her face wasn't below the water at any point, just covered by some of the surface ice, so I don't think she was in danger of drowning. There was so much ice in the bath, she was held fairly firmly in place. There also seemed to be a few faint wisps of blood curling between the frozen blocks, but so far I can't find any kind of wound on her body.
With no idea what to do, I set her down on the ground and check for a pulse. Once I'm certain that she's still alive, I get her out of her wet clothes and wrap her in a bunch of old, grotty towels that were left on the shelf long ago. It's not a perfect solution, but I need to get her core temperature up fast.
"Samantha, can you hear me?" I ask, opening her eyes and desperately looking for some sign of life. "Samantha, say something. If you can hear me, blink."
There's a pause, but just when I'm about to give up, her eyes move and she seems to focus on me.
"Samantha, it's going to be okay," I continue. "I'm going to get you to a doctor."
Staring at me blankly, she seems totally lost and confused. It's as if she has no idea where she is or how she ended up here.
"It's okay," I say, trying to reassure her. "Samantha, there's no reason to be scared."
"He..." she blurts out suddenly, barely able to catch her breath. "He..."
"He?" I struggle to support her as she tries to get to her feet, but finally she drops back down to the floor. Her eyes dart around the room, as if she's looking for something. "Where is he?" she gasps.
"Where's who?" I ask, even though I'm fairly certain she's experiencing some kind of hallucination. I guess the ice has brought on some kind of shock reaction.
"He," she says again, looking back at the ice bath. "He was..." She pauses, and then she looks past me again and lets out a horrified scream.
"What is it?" I ask, trying to get her attention. I look over my shoulder and see that there's nothing nearby. "Samantha, what do you see?" Turning back to her as the scream stops, I see that she's passed out. "Samantha!" I shout, gently slapping the side of her face in an attempt to get her to wake up. "You have to stay with me!"
As I'm about to pick her up, I notice a patch of blood soaking into one of the towels. Reaching down, I find that there's a cut on her lower left leg. Figuring that I don't have time to deal with everything right now, I scoop her up into my arms and start carefully carrying her out of the house. I dropped my phone back in the bathroom, but I just about manage to find my way to the top of the stairs without tripping. Eventually I get down to the hallway and within a few minutes I've managed to force the metal sheet away from the front window, and I clumsily manhandle Samantha out of the house.
"I'm going to get you to a hospital," I say as I hurry to my car. She's still not responding and I've got no idea if it's too late already. There's no improvement in her color so far, with her lips still looking blue and the rest of her skin seeming noticeably paler than usual. "I don't know if you can hear me," I continue as I struggle to get her onto the back seat, "but it's going to be okay. Just hang on a little longer!"
Half an hour later, with Samantha being treated in a nearby room, I sit in the hospital corridor and try to take stock of everything that happened today. I'm trying very, very hard not to be superstitious about the whole situation, but the fact remains that I can't come up with a single explanation for Samantha's experience. There's no way she could have filled an ice bath in the time between arriving at the house and being discovered; besides, there's absolutely no reason for her to do such a thing. I can't help thinking that if I hadn't got there in time, Samantha might have ended up dead and freezing on the side of the road, just like Brenda Baynes.
"Mr. Lawler?" asks a voice eventually, and I turn to see a doctor standing over in a nearby doorway.
"Is she okay?" I ask, getting to my feet.
"She's going to be fine," he replies cautiously. "She lost some blood, and her temperature was dangerously low, but you got her here just in time."
"Is she awake?"
He shakes his head. "She's going to need to rest. She's not totally out of the woods just yet."
"I need to talk to her," I continue, trying to step past him. "I need to know what she saw."
"Not right now," he replies, reaching out and holding me back.
"It's urgent," I say. "I have to know what she saw in there."
"There'll be time for that later," he says. "I should probably tell you that the police are on the way. They're going to want to know what happened."
"I found her," I say. "She was out at the house on Willow Road. She was in an ice bath with -"
"You should really save it for the police," he replies abruptly, interrupting me. "They're going to have a lot of questions."
"Of course," I say, before I notice that there's something strange about the way he's looking at me. "You don't think I had anything to do with this, do you?" I ask, shocked that anyone could think such a thing.
"It's not for me to say."
"I saved her!" I continue, raising my voice a little. "I pulled her out of there!"
"You have to understand," he replies, "that when a semi-naked eighteen-year-old girl is brought to the hospital with possible hypothermia and a significant wound to her leg, I have no choice. The police had to be informed, and the girl's parents are on their way as we speak."
Hearing a noise nearby, I glance over at the far door and see two police officers making their way toward me. Suddenly I realize how ridiculous my story is going to sound. Can I really expect them to believe that I slept in my car close to the house on Willow Road, and then I happened to spot Samantha Briggs making her way there on her bike, and then I found her in an ice bath and hauled her out? They can't seriously think that I did anything wrong, but at the same time I'm starting to realize that I need to get my story straight. At least she's alive, though. The house hasn't claimed another victim, even if it tried... and it did try. More than ever before, I'm now convinced that there's something lingering in that house, and that the only solution is to tear the place down. Either that, or burn it.
"Mr. Lawler?" asks one of the officers as they reach me. "I'm going to have to ask you to come with us."
Part Three:
The Ice Bath
Holly Carter
15 years ago
"What do you want?" I ask, standing in the dark kitchen.
Over by the doorway, his features hidden by shadows, the man seems content to just stare at me. Although I can't make out his face, I can see that he's fairly tall, with a stocky, bulky body shape. There's something long and metallic in his left hand, and I can't tell whether or not it's a rifle. The creepiest thing, though, is that since I came up from the basement, he's been standing and watching me for several min
utes. Suddenly all my plans to force my way out of here are falling apart, lost in the uncertainty of the moment.
"I don't know who you are," I continue, my voice trembling, "but if you let us go, we won't tell anyone. If you just let us walk out of here, we'll keep quiet. This has been a big mistake. We won't get you into any trouble."
I wait for a response, but there's nothing. The whole room is silent, and I can't even hear the guy breathing. I know that down below, beneath the floorboards, Elizabeth and Natalie are probably huddled together, listening to the muffled sound of my voice. I told them that I'd be getting us out of here. I talked a good talk, but right now I'm wondering if I can go through with it. After all, this guy seems very calm.
"We won't go to the police," I say after a moment. "You can blindfold us and drop us off somewhere. We won't do anything to hurt you. You just... You don't need to keep doing this. You can stop. We didn't do anything to hurt you, so please, you can stop."
Silence. He just stands there, as if he's waiting for me to do or say something else.
Looking across the room, I see that in most respects it's a very ordinary-looking kitchen. It's neat and tidy, and there's a table in the center with a small vase of flowers. The only light comes from a couple of candles burning over on the counter, so it's hard to make out too much, but in general I'm surprised to find that the place isn't decked out as some kind of torture palace. Then again, the normality of the place, and the calm way that the guy is staring at me, makes me wonder what he's got planned.
"You're scared," I say eventually, figuring that maybe I can reason with him. My heart's racing, but I keep reminding myself that I have to hold myself together if I'm going to have any chance of getting out of here. "I get it. You grabbed all three of us, and now you don't know what to do." I take a step across the room. The guy is standing in the doorway of the only exit, and my chest feels tighter and tighter as I get closer to him. I've got my eye on the set of carving knives on the counter; if I can get to them, I have a chance of forcing my way out of this place. "I guess you want to reset the clock, huh?" I continue, trying not to make it look so obvious that I've got a plan. "You can do that. We'll leave, and no-one'll ever come and bother you again, okay? I bet no-one's ever tried to understand you. Did you have a bad childhood? Bad parents?"
No response.
I look over at the knives.
"Okay," I say, trying to choose the perfect moment to make a lunge. I might only get one chance at this, so I need to make it count. "I've got an idea. This is what I think we should do. We should sit down and talk about it. We should just discuss your needs and what you want from us, and then maybe we can work out a way to help you. Does that sound good?" I pause for a moment.
Okay.
Three.
Two.
I smile.
One.
And that's when I strike. Rushing around the table, I grab one of the knives and turn to -
Suddenly something flashes past my face and I feel the most intense pain, cracking through my spine and jolting my body so hard that I jerk forward, bang my head against the wall, and then drop down, smacking my chin on the counter-top before collapsing to the floor. I have no idea where the knife landed, but right now I can barely even think at all. It's as if my whole body just had some kind of electric charge rip through its synapses, and when I try to get to my feet, I find that my arms and legs feel hopelessly weak. I can't move properly, and I can barely even breathe.
As I try to recover my composure, I hear a noise nearby, like a kind of high-pitched electronic whining sound. Something's recharging. I don't know what the guy just did to me, but it was the most painful thing I've ever experienced in my life.
After a couple of minutes, I find that I can just about get my arms and legs working again. Hauling myself up, I look over and see that the guy is standing just a few feet away. The long object in his hand is making a faint whirring sound, and I realize that there's a small blue light at the end closest to my face.
"What the hell is that?" I ask, trying to ignore the pain in the left side of my jaw from where I hit the counter. Using the side of the table to steady myself, I get to my feet. I'm still a little breathless from the jolt I received, and I know one thing for certain: I never, ever want to feel something like that again.
The guy stares at me. Even up close, it's hard to make out his features in the dark kitchen.
"Is it like a cattle-prod or something?" I continue, trying to play for time. "Is that what you're doing? You're using a fucking cattle-prod to push me around?"
There's a pause, and then suddenly he points over at a door that leads through to another room.
"You want me to go through there?" I ask, taking a deep breath. My heart is pounding, and I can't decide what I should do next. The most obvious thing would be to make another lunge for the knives, or to try running for the front door, but the guy's calm, confident manner makes me think that he's got all the bases covered. Glancing down at the cattle-prod, I realize my best option is to wrestle it from his hands and see if I can turn it against him. It won't be easy, but I figure I've got no choice. This guy is clearly a psychopath, and I have to make sure I get out of here as fast as possible.
Suddenly, without any warning, he holds the cattle-prod up close to my face, as if he's getting ready to use it again. The blue light is almost dazzling.
"Okay," I say, instinctively backing away. I turn and make my way slowly to the door, and I can hear the guy following me across the creaky floorboards.
As soon as I get through to the hallway, I see the front door just a few meters away. My first thought is to make a run for it, but I'm certain it'll be locked. Still, the house is so dark, I shouldn't have any trouble hiding and causing a little confusion. Hearing a tapping sound, I turn and see that the guy is using the end of the cattle-prod to bang on the stair-rail, which I guess is his way of telling me to go up to the next floor. I pause for a moment, and suddenly I realize that this might be my last chance to get away; if I go upstairs, I'll be trapped again, whereas if I make a run for it while I'm down here, I might manage to find a way out. It's not a great plan, but it's a plan, and right now it just might save my life if I time it right.
So I run.
Before the guy can swing the cattle-prod toward me, I duck out of the way and hurry to the front door. It's locked, of course, so I race through to the next room, and then the next. It's hard to see where I'm going with the lights off, and I almost fall over the back of a long sofa before clattering into a table and sending a vase smashing to the ground. With my heart pounding, I realize my best option is to sow the seeds of confusion and then find some way to overpower my captor. I duck down behind a large chair in the corner of the room, and then I pause to listen. I know he's going to come after me, and I know I'm going to have to face him at some point.
In the distance, the floorboards creak.
I wait, trying to work out exactly where the guy is walking. My heart is racing so fast, I swear I can actually feel it thumping in my chest and pounding against the inside of my ribcage, and my blood is running cold. Still, my mind feels completely clear, as if in my panicked state I'm focused solely on one thing: finding a way out of this house. I guess I've entered survival mode, and all the tears and screaming will come later.
The floorboards creak again, but it's hard to tell whether he's getting closer or further away. He's definitely not too close, and I think he might still be in the next room. Wherever he is, he doesn't seem to be in any particular panic, which just adds to my feeling that he thinks he's got everything under control. With the doors and windows carefully sealed, he's probably happy to let me tire myself out looking for an exit.
Suddenly I hear another creak, and it's definitely closer. Crouching a little further down, I carefully peer around the side of the chair. I don't see anything, but I feel as if he's nearby. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, and maybe I'm in some kind of hyper-alert state where I'm imagining things I can
't possibly sense, but I swear I can feel his presence. Part of me wants to come out from behind the chair and at least check to make sure he's not too close, while another part of me thinks I should stay here and wait for another opportunity to arise. Finally, I realize that there's no point just cowering here forever; eventually he'll find me, so I need to come up with another plan.
Taking a deep breath, I lean a little further out. There's still no sign of the guy, and I can't hear the floorboards creaking anywhere in the house. I swear, it's almost as if he's not bothering to look for me; it's as if he figures that the house is completely sealed, so he'll just wait for me to make a mistake.
Slowly, I start getting to my feet. I keep my eyes focused on the door at the other end of the room; I'm convinced that he's going to appear at any moment, so eventually I turn to look for something I can use as a weapon. I need to be able to strike at him without letting him get close enough to use that cattle-prod. A lamp might not be long enough, but I guess I could try to throw something at his head. Then again, the best approach might be to find a way to get Elizabeth and Natalie up here with me. After all, he can't use a cattle-prod on three of us at the same time. I just need to get back through to the kitchen so I can open the door...
Hearing a sudden electric whine from behind, I turn just in time to see that the guy has snuck up in the darkness. The blue light of the cattle-prod flashes right in my face and the pain hits me again, this time on my left cheek. The jolt sends me crashing back against the wall, before I drop to the floor in an agonized, breathless heap. This time, the electrical charge seems to have put the muscles in my face and neck into some kind of cramp, and I'm overcome by pain for a few seconds before it finally starts to pass. I try to reach out, hoping to find something I can use to defend myself, but I can't make my arm work properly. My body seems to be locked into some kind of spasm, and eventually I collapse and wait for everything to be over. Finally, I close my eyes and listen to the racing of my heart. I swear to God, if this keeps up, I'm going to have a heart attack. I'm just going to die right here.
