by Vaiya Books
Anger flashed across Ian’s face, even as goose bumps spread across his body at Kenn’s creepy tone. “So why’d she let me win?” he asked, gritting his teeth together, not even caring to argue the point as it hadn’t helped any last time. “Tell me that.”
Like a dark warrior, gaze steady and unflinching, Kenn twisted his mouth into a diabolical smile. “Because she doesn’t want to see you cry.”
And with those words, Kenn headed over to the ping pong table where Amanda was impatiently awaiting him, somehow instantly converting his wicked smile into a pleasant one and his shadowy face into a bright one.
Nauseated over Kenn’s cruelty and deceitfulness, Ian dashed up the basement stairs, not wanting to spend another moment here. Fortunately, everyone was so absorbed in the ping pong game that they failed to notice his departure. That, however, offered him little consolation.
Reaching the top of the stairs, rage swirling through his heart, Ian passed through a large kitchen, and, not seeing anyone else around him, took a long drink from the faucet. Thirst quenched, he then hurried into the foyer and decided that the best way to recover from this humiliating experience was to head upstairs to check out the exercise room that Hazel had suggested he explore, and to stay there until he regained his composure.
Without any further thoughts, he glanced around him, noticing no one, and then made his move and began to climb the stairs at a brisk pace, passing by the angel statue and the potted plants, his heart still racing. He felt mortified. When he’d lost against Darien, he’d lost a part of himself. Kenn rubbing it in afterwards had only made things far worse. Now he was certain that Kenn not only held a grudge against him, but also utterly hated him. And the worst thing about it was he still couldn’t figure out why.
Climbing up higher, forcing Kenn’s demeaning words out of his mind, Ian reflected back to his conversation earlier that day with Coach Sandler and knew one thing … there was no way he could help him out now. If he did badly in front of all those spectators, he would rather die. Far better to never join than to lose and embarrass the whole team. He could only imagine Kenn’s words for him then, and Kenn would definitely have words for him, as Kenn was one of the seven runners on the coach’s team.
Embittered, he opened the door to the exercise room, and, once safely inside, closed the door for privacy, somewhat surprised that the lights were already on. It was a spacious place, a full-fledged workout room. There were treadmills, weight sets, benches, jump ropes, exercise bikes, dumbbells, and weights of different sizes stacked on racks next to the wall to the right of him. Hazel’s dad sure must be in shape, as he couldn’t imagine Hazel spending much time in here, at least not on the weight benches. Not that she was weak; it just seemed strange to picture her lifting weights. If she did anything in here, it was probably the exercise bike or the various jump ropes that took up her time.
Curling a ten-pound weight with ease and then setting it back down onto its appropriate rack, he saw a small skateboard ramp in an adjacent room through a pair of sliding glass doors. The room branched off into several hallways and likely lead to many other rooms.
But Ian wasn’t interested; seeing the skateboard ramp rekindled his bad feelings for Skyler, working his emotions into a whirlwind.
Though it was clearly Skyler’s own fault for breaking his ankle, Skyler had blamed Eddy for his foolish accident. And then, as if that weren’t enough, Skyler had further decided to punish Eddy by even going so far as to give him the silent treatment.
Just about to become infuriated with Skyler, he abruptly stopped himself and wisely reflected over the situation. Though Skyler was definitely in the wrong and had been unusually cruel to his friend, nothing good could come from dwelling on his bad attitude--he was sure of that--for if he kept thinking negatively, he’d be up here for the rest of the party trying to snap out of his bad mood. Besides, with Eddy’s shameful action towards Alan earlier, it seemed that Eddy deserved having Skyler mad at him.
With those thoughts in mind, his rage towards Skyler rapidly declining, Ian moved deeper into the weight room, scanning for anything interesting, anything unusual, when he spotted a small hallway in the very back of the room that had an old stone staircase on its right.
Curiosity penetrating into his heart, he suddenly felt a deep urge to find out where it led.
Before he’d even gone two feet though, Hazel’s words rushed into his mind like a Mercedes Benz, answering his question, as he realized that the staircase undoubtedly led to the attic, the place that Hazel had said was supposedly haunted.
Gripped with a sudden burning interest, Ian was determined to either prove the previous owner of this house wrong or else have an exciting story to tell Hazel. Either way though, he couldn’t lose--this was going to be a fun experience.
Smiling, as he imagined how amusing it would be if he actually did heard a noise in the attic, he bolted through the hallway, his adrenaline rising, and then turned right, climbing quickly up the dimly lit staircase.
After climbing up nearly fifteen steps, brushing his way through large cobwebs, he finally reached the top and gazed at the old wooden door in front of him. So this was it. This was the attic.
Feeling strangely unsettled, he reached out his hand and gripped the doorknob rather confidently, just wanting to get a glimpse inside so as to get rid of his anxiety. However, what he felt only intensified his fear. Not only was the doorknob unnaturally cold to his touch, it was also very dirty from the dust that had accumulated on it. It felt like something out of a murder mystery.
Shuddering at that last thought, Ian hesitated to open the door, intimidation creeping through him like a spider, as he questioned whether this was really such a great idea after all. One thing was sure, though--nobody had been in this room for a long time, and that definitely made him uncomfortable.
Putting his ear up to the door to listen for any noises, he waited in silence for something, anything ghost-like, morbid, or bone-chilling. When he’d been listening for over a minute though, and had heard nothing, he chastised himself, feeling extremely foolish. For somebody who wasn’t superstitious, he sure wasn’t living up to his title.
Annoyed by his childish fear, he wasted no more time and pushed open the creaky wooden door, wiping his left hand on his jeans to get off the dust, while anxiously peering inside the room. His eyes immediately fastened themselves onto the many large towering bookshelves scattered throughout the room as a damp, musty smell swept into his nostrils.
As his nose twitched at the unpleasant odor, he breathed a sigh of relief. Though it looked as if nobody had been in here for decades, the place looked just like an old private library. It was nothing like the horrid image he’d had in his mind of dangling nooses, rattling skeletons, werewolf statues, and grotesque paintings.
Confidence awakened, he cautiously took one step into the room. Then another. Before long, he found himself gazing outside of the only window in the old library, a wooden-framed circular opening that shed the faintest light into this dark place, the only other light coming into this room being the dim lights from the staircase. And the lighting wasn’t likely going to change, as there were no light switches anywhere in the room, at least from what he could see.
Peering out the window, only slightly unnerved by the dull lighting, he saw many lit-up pine trees shimmering with white and orange lights below him. Fascinated, he stared at them through the pouring rain; they were beautiful.
After half a minute, he eventually took his eyes off the dazzling lights and scanned further, his eyes falling on Kenn’s shiny black Ford Fusion. Instantly his mind spun back into a state of wrath, Kenn being at the focal point of his vengeful thoughts.
Lost in a wild state of imagining various ways of getting even with Kenn, he was suddenly thrown back to reality, as a purple lightning bolt tore across the night sky like a jaguar on a hunt, causing him to jump back reflexively and crash into a writing table, knocking over a rusty metal jar of pens and pencils.
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nbsp; Frantic, completely unsettled by the flash that seemed to have come out of nowhere, Ian instinctively scrambled to pick up the writing instruments as they spilled onto the floor and rolled into various areas, some of which were nearly inaccessible to him.
As he stretched out his arm and grabbed a couple of short stubby pencils, a deafening boom shook the house to its foundation, rattling the bookshelves, causing various books to slide out of their places and plunge down from as high as eight feet, thumping noisily as they struck the wooden floor.
Terror-stricken, as he deftly evaded a falling tome that nearly landed on his head, Ian flung the pencils away from him as if they were cursed and darted towards the door, no longer caring about cleaning up the mess or about proving the previous homeowner wrong. Ghosts or not, this attic was definitely not a place he wanted to spend any more time in, especially not during a fierce thunderstorm that had developed so swiftly and unexpectedly.
Racing towards the door, his heart like molten wax, Ian abruptly halted as an even brighter flash of lightning blazed across the sky, lighting up the whole room, making it appear as if somebody had just flicked on a light switch.
Because of the unnatural light, Ian could see various tools of all shapes and sizes hanging from pegs on a distant wall in front of him. One tool in particular caught his eye--a curved sickle with an old, deteriorated wooden handle. It was just the sort of weapon the grim reaper would use to carry out his evil will.
Dread clawing into his heart over both the rusty sickle and the bright light that still wasn’t fading away, Ian shut his eyes tightly and waited for things to return to normal. This, however, didn’t happen as the light only intensified, growing more radiant and dazzling by the second.
By now, Ian was thoroughly terrified. Nightmarish thoughts flooding his mind like rats swarming a sewer, he opened his eyes, and, through the blinding haze, hurried towards what he thought was the door to the staircase. But being disoriented, he stumbled over a book instead and tripped, slamming his knees into the rough wooden floor.
Grimacing in pain, his kneecaps absorbing their second injury today, the first being when he’d scraped them up after plowing into Coach Sandler, Ian slowly arose and frantically searched again for the staircase. Only this time, he proceeded carefully so he wouldn’t stumble again, as it was still too bright to see anything. However, as he groped for the wooden door, his fingers only touched cold stone plastered with cobwebs and dust.
Brushing the sticky webs onto his jeans, disheartened by his vain attempts to get out of this awful place, he sat down on the floor, trembling, as he desperately struggled to make sense of the bright light.
After a few moments had passed though, he finally came to a conclusion, and when he did, he just sunk his head in embarrassment, his fear quickly dissipating: the blinding light was more than likely an ingenious Halloween prank concocted by Hazel to try to scare him, as she’d been the one to give him the idea to check out the attic in the first place. Sadly, to his utter shame, he’d completely fallen for her ridiculous antics, not even sensing the obvious trap. How could he be so stupid?
Feeling terribly ashamed, expecting any moment to hear Hazel’s cheerful laugh, Ian molded his mouth into somewhat of a smile as he regained his composure. He wouldn’t let Hazel have the satisfaction of seeing him afraid of a little light. She already had enough to be satisfied with today.
As he waited nervously for Hazel to come through the attic door, turn off whatever was causing the brilliant light, and lightheartedly tease him for falling for her prank, a blast of thunder suddenly jolted the room, sending deep echoes throughout the large dusty library, and causing the attic door to slowly creak shut.
As he heard the door shut, his optimism shattered into tiny fragments, panic sweeping into his heart as he leapt to his feet. This wasn’t just a practical joke; this was something out of a horror movie.
Alarmed, hunched over, a dark feeling of foreboding in his mind, Ian hurried towards the place where he’d thought he’d heard the door close, only to end up ramming his forehead into one of the gigantic bookshelves.
Dismayed and nearly hysterical with fear, he rubbed his sore temple and backed away from the bookshelf as if it were an evil phantom. Thrusting his hand into his pocket with hands shaking and fingers trembling, he yanked out his cell phone and flipped it open.
Fumbling around for the #5 button, the speed dial for Eddy’s number, he heard another burst of thunder, which shook the house and knocked the cell phone right out of his hands, sending it crashing moments later onto the floor.
Stooping down, panic-stricken, as if he were trying to disarm a bomb that would blow up in mere seconds, Ian swept his hands across the ground, groping around to try to find his phone. After only a short while, he brushed against it with his cold, clammy fingers and picked it up, his fingers immediately searching again for the #5 button.
Fortunately, within only seconds, he located it, instantly pressing it and then the send button. Somehow, he told himself, if he could just get a hold of Eddy, everything would be alright.
Putting the phone to his ear, anxiously waiting to hear Eddy’s voice, he heard a few rings, and then he lost reception. Agitated, he called Eddy again, but still got nothing.
Severely flustered by now, he tried yet a third time; but as he did so, he felt the hard pinewood floor beneath his shoes become softer, feeling more like dirt than wood.
Entirely shaken up by this bizarre transmutation, not having a clue what was going on, Ian held his cell phone close to his ear and squinted, the light still blinding him, when he suddenly heard a clicking noise. His phone went black.
Chapter 4
What’s going on? He held his cell phone in his trembling hands, as a thick woody smell like that from a dense forest filled his nostrils, a heavy thumping sound like a giant jump-roping struck his ears, and a myriad of yellow and white afterimages clouded his vision. Though the light kept growing brighter and brighter, he didn’t dare close his eyes for fear that he would slip away and be lost, lost forever in a state of unconsciousness.
His breaths coming rapidly and unevenly, he watched in a daze as the blinding light suddenly vanished at exactly the same time as the pounding noise.
Relieved, though a bit hesitant, he felt around for the smooth door of the library--but instead of the door, he felt the sharp point of a spike.
His hand drew blood. He bit his tongue sharply. “Yikes!” he yelled, accidentally dropping his cell phone onto the bluish-gray dirt. Searching for the culprit of his pain, he saw a reddish brown tree towering right in front of him with eight-inch-long needles protruding from its bark.
Stunned with fear and astonishment, he stared blankly at the unearthly tree, trying in vain to rationalize his experience. He could only come up with one thing. He had to be hallucinating. Nothing else made any sense, as this was definitely not a prank by Hazel.
Heart buzzing like a chainsaw, he shook himself around, closed and reopened his eyes, even pinched himself, but nothing changed. The tree was still there, the ground was still dirt, and the heavy woody smell still remained.
Picking up his cell phone with his good hand, he flipped it open revealing a black screen. Great, so his phone really had died. How convenient. Still breathing sharply, he put the dead phone into a side pocket in his blue jeans and surveyed his surroundings with uneasy suspense, becoming more unsettled by the moment.
Reddish brown spike trees, graveyard-like and sinister, rose around him in all directions; prickly thorn bushes stood like short sentinels behind him as if watching his every movement; a flowering plant with bright red berries sat two feet in front of him, practically screaming poisonous; a mole-like critter, a yard from him, swatted its paws back and forth through the air like a cat sharpening its claws on a post before plunging underground with a squeal.
How he could even see these things was due to several rays of light, which pierced through the trees’ canopy, illuminating the forest in a hazy dimness. Stil
l, not much could be seen past thirty feet, and what he did see, he didn’t like at all.
Weak, depressed, a fearful pounding in his chest, Ian backed away from where he’d last seen the overweight mole and wrapped his hands around the back of his neck, shaking his head around in disbelief. This was insanity. How could this possibly be real? How could he possibly teleport to such a dream world, a place which should only exist inside people’s minds?
As he fought the urge to storm through the forest, wrecking everything in his path, his thoughts were distracted by the faint rustling of leaves behind him. Turning around warily, he heard stealthy footsteps speeding towards him at an ethereal pace.
He panicked. Attempting to bolt away from the approaching noise, he instead ran straight into the arms of a gray-cloaked man, who grabbed onto his arms with strong-gloved hands and clutched them tightly, while muttering fiercely to him in a bizarre language, the rough syllables clashing together like sharpened axes.
Horrid thoughts of death dancing through his mind like corpses reanimated by an ancient curse, Ian cried out in terror, using all his strength to try to writhe himself from the man’s grasp. Finally, after an intense struggle, he flung himself free, running a few steps before glancing back at them in fearful curiosity, catching a burning image of three tall gray-cloaked, hooded figures, with a yellow lightning symbol embroidered on their tunics underneath. Hatred emanated from their voices as they shouted at him in their harsh language.
Terrified, Ian froze. His legs locked up. His brown eyes grew numb with dread. The hooded figures seized the opportunity and lunged at him with murderous intent, their war cries nearly deafening him.
Before they’d reached him though, Ian broke himself out of their hypnotizing trance and quickly sidestepped, their strong hands coming within mere inches of grasping his shirt, and then fled for his life.