“Hey Marco, where’s Carla?”
“Help me! Help me Marco,” Carla yelled in the distance.
The boys left the old man’s cold gray body sitting in the chair and ran out to fine Carla. They ran down the hall checking every room, but they still couldn’t find her. Carla yelled as loudly as she could and pounded at the door. At last they had reached the last door at the end of the dark hallway.
“Help me Marco, Help!”
“I’m coming Carla, I’m coming”, Marco yelled as he race franticly back do the hall.
Marco and Sammie pushed and pulled the door open, but they could not get it open. Carla lied behind the door crying, scared. But suddenly the door crept opened the boys saw Carla standing there with her eyes filled with tears crying and scare stiff as if she too had seen a ghost.
“Come on Carla lets go? Marco said. “We’re going home now, don’t tell mom about this or we won’t get to come outside again. But we found old man Gerber and we have to get help somehow.”
While Marco tried to comfort his sister a strange voice came from behind the boys, a dark cold voice, empty of feeling, evil to the ears. “You’re never leaving,” the voice uttered.
Marco and Sammie turned around to see an old man with long white hair flowing down the front of his face standing in the doorway. His face was wrinkled with time and his finger nails were long, his teeth were stained with what looked like blood. He smelled of rot and decade and the children were scared stiff. Carla crept behind Marco to hide herself peeking out from behind his back to see the frightening figure.
“You’re never leaving here.” The old man said. “You’ll stay here forever like the old man.”
“What did you do to old man Garber? Why wasn’t he talking?” Marco said demanding an answer.
“Hahaha dead people don’t talk silly child,” the old man replied.
“Dead!”
“Yes young man dead! Like you and your friends will be.”
“Marco I want to go home, I don’t like this game. I want to go home now,” Carla said sobbing.
“It’s okay Carla we’re going home soon,” Sammie said.
“Hey old man you better get out of our way or…,” Marco started to say.
“Or else what?” The old man said. “What can you children do against me? I’ve been a live for many years. You have no power.”
Marco didn’t know what he could do, but he knew that they were in great danger so he had to think of something. The old man had them trapped and the children didn’t know what to do. It was already getting dark and they all wondered whether or not they had been missed.
“You better get out of the way our parents…,” Marco said.
“Your parents, your parents can do nothing for you now. I have you and you will become my dinner and then my servant for all eternity.”
“Dinner I don’t want to be anyone’s dinner,” Sammie said in a cowardly voice. “Marco let’s try and get out of here now please let’s go.”
“I know Sammie, but how?”
The old man crept closer towards the children. They clung together as if it would protect them.
“Okay when he moves away from the door we’re gonna all run for it,” Marco whispered.
The old man crept closer towards the children, as he did they inched themselves closer towards the door. “Run” Sammie yelled and they all blotted for the door, the old man started moving faster but the children had escaped the room. All they had to do now is make it down the long dark hallway back to the crack.
“Come on Carla move it,” Marco commanded.
“I’m going as fast as I can Marco.”
“Marco is the still behind us?” Sammie let puffed out.
While they were running the old man was right behind them getting ever so closer.
“You will never escape me!” He yelled. “Minions come forth,” the old man cried out.
The children began to hear loud moans from the rooms that they had ran past earlier. Moans that did not sound as it came from something living or human.
The doors inched open to reveal the mangled bodies, of those neighbors that Marco wondered about the other night. They spilled out of the rooms; they even came from underneath the ground. Some of them looked as if they had tired fighting their awful faith but lost.
“Run Marco run,” Sammie yelled.
The old man minions chased the children grabbing and pawing at them for their master’s feast.
“Don’t let them escape,” he cried. “Don’t let them escape.”
The Adventures of Marco and Carla: The Dark Castle Page 3