The game is not over,
It has only begun.
If you want to save Jina,
Then you’d better run.
There’s a house out on 6th Street,
Like its neighbors, condemned.
Stand in front of five-twelve,
And wait for your friend.
Yet there’s just enough time,
Put yourself to the trial,
That you might pack a bag first…
You’ll be gone for a while.
S.A.
The card fluttered to the floor as Sandy turned white.
“No,” she whispered. “I don’t want to play anymore!”
Thoughts tumbled through her mind. She snatched up the phone and dialed Jina’s number. It rang through to voicemail.
Fine then, if she couldn’t call Jina, she would try Jina’s apartment. She was not about step into S.A.’s turf based on a little note. With wet hair, she snatched up her purse and ran to her car.
It didn’t start.
The key turned again. The car merely sputtered and then wound down. A dead battery.
Damn! Sandy slammed her hands against the wheel.
Jina had arrived at her apartment, taken a shower, and packed some things in an old, torn up gym bag. Her good gym bag and all of her travel things were still at Sandy’s house. She wasn’t about to go back for them, especially since Sandy had the only keys to Sandy’s front door.
While digging through her back closet for a spare stick of deodorant, the doorbell buzzed. In light of the week’s events, she decided not to get it.
The elusive deodorant was hiding behind a stack of wadded towels. Her hand wrapped around it and she heard, “Jina, it’s for you.”
She groaned. Her roommate came walking back holding something in her hand.
“It was a delivery for you. I took it. Why didn’t you get it? I was studying.”
“Look, Megan, I don’t want it. Whatever it is.”
“But it’s a rose. And there’s a note. It looks important.”
Megan walked just close enough that she could see it. A single rose. Black. The word “Urgent” was spelled out in bright red letters on a small envelope.
Jina took the rose and opened the note.
I’m enjoying the game.
There are two now to be had.
Sandy’s still playing,
Which makes me quite glad.
If you’d like to join her,
And I know that you will,
Meet her on 6th Street,
She’s standing there still.
S.A.
“Uh, I gotta run Megan.” She grabbed her half-packed bag and darted for the door.
“What’s going on?”
“Sandy’s in trouble.” The door slammed.
Sandy jumped out of her dead car, and yelled up at the sky.
“If I can’t drive to Jina’s, I’ll walk! You can’t manipulate me anymore!”
She slammed her car door, and strode down the street. Two blocks later, her gait slowed. For the first time she noticed her surroundings.
The early morning sun beat down hot in a neighborhood with too much concrete and not enough trees. A row of dilapidated houses squeezed together, each with a tiny lawn and empty gravel driveway. Most appeared vacant, but a few showed signs of life. Three days’ worth of uncollected newspapers piled on a few narrow porches. A sprinkler had been running in one yard a little too long. Some of the trashcans were full to overflowing.
On the opposite side of the street lay an empty lot that ran the length of the block.
Sandy never remembered passing here on the way to Jina’s before. Had she gone the wrong way? Coming from a motel in a strange part of town must have disoriented her.
The street did look a little familiar. She realized that Fifth Street lay parallel to this one. She was on Sixth.
Sandy stopped walking. She looked up. Unpainted numbers hung loosely from the tattered old house before her. Five-twelve.
Somehow she had ended up here despite her attempt to avoid it.
Much like the other houses on the block, a small front yard filled with brittle overgrown grass threatened to overtake the rusty chain-link fence. A neglected wisteria vine grew partially up the cracked front wall. What little paint remained on the house peeled free in generous patches. The concrete steps leading up to the door crumbled at the corners. Surprisingly, only one window was broken, and that was way up on the third story.
The mood of the area, especially this house, oppressed her, and Jina was nowhere to be seen. Of course S.A. had lied. She was about to turn and run back the way she had come, when Jina came dashing up, an old gym bag bouncing around on her shoulder.
“Oh, thank god you’re still here,” she huffed. “The bus would have been too slow, so I had to run the entire way.”
“Jina! What the hell are you doing here?”
“I got a note saying you’re in trouble. You ok?”
Sandy rolled her eyes. “Of course I’m ok. I got a note too, saying you were in trouble. It’s the old, ‘Susan’s mommy said she could go’ trick. Why did you fall for it?”
“You obviously fell for it, too.”
“No, actually I accidentally wandered here. It sounds crazy, I know, but…”
“So we’re both just fine. I say we leave before that changes. This has reached the point of being more than a sick practical joke.”
A bell jingled from down the street, and they both turned to see a bicyclist peddling toward them.
“Sandy Windham and Jina Harper?” the rider asked.
They simultaneously answered, “Yes?”
The bike stopped, and the man shoved a red, heart-shaped box decorated with plastic flowers into Sandy’s hand. Then he rode away.
“I’m not even going to open this. Come on Jina, let’s just get out of here.” She reared back to toss the box into the small yard of five-twelve, but she felt a sharp pain on her thumb.
“Ouch!” She looked at the box and turned it slightly to see what had stung her. A folded bit of paper on the bottom caught her eye.
Poison kills, but not too quickly.
You must enter the house if you’re feeling sickly.
S.A.
“What the—” She examined the box a little closer, and found a small, silver needle among the flowers.
“What’s going on, Sandy? You said we were leaving.”
Sandy felt suddenly very warm. Sweat began bead up on her face. “I’m sorry to say this, Jina, but I have to go into the house.”
“What are you talking about? Are you crazy??”
“I don’t know. I might be. Read this. Don’t touch the box.”
Jina read the note and her tan lighted a shade or two.
“There’s a needle, right there.” Sandy pointed it out.
“We’re screwed, aren’t we?”
“You aren’t, but I am.”
“No way. If you go in there, I’m going too.”
“I’m not going to let you. There is nothing that says you have to follow me into this any further than you have.”
“Yes there is. I’m your friend, damn it. And besides, if I don’t go in there, he’ll just find a way to make me go in.”
“Surely you don’t believe that. He can’t be omniscient. I won’t—” A bead of perspiration fell from Sandy’s forehead. She wavered.
“Sandy?”
“I’m ok. I’m just dizzy.”
“Dizzy my ass! Get in there now! I’m coming with you.”
Sandy felt weak and confused. She nodded and opened the little chain link gate. She tried to open it quietly, but it screeched loudly anyway. Jina followed her up the brittle steps to the front door. The doorknob turned with a squeak, and the door opened easily.
They were greeted with the smell that all old buildings have: a mixture of mildew, rotting wood, forgotten lives and mothballs. Sandy stepped cautiously into the long dark hallway. Two doorways marred the wall at each end of the hallwa
y on the right. The only light came from the door Jina held open and the window at the end of the hall. The pale tattered rug that ran the length of the hall did little to hide the water-stained wood floor. Wispy curtains billowed over a small round table. The rest of the hall lay bare of furnishings.
The table had something on it.
She stared, and slowly walked towards the end of the hall.
“Sandy!” Jina whispered. “Where are you going?”
“Stay right there.”
Jina stepped inside, and lightly allowed the door to close.
Sandy stood on the dirty rug looking at the clean and polished little table, noting its contrast with the rest of the room. Twelve black roses in a maroon vase were backlit with sunlight falling through the curtains. On the table was a black velvet box, the kind jewelry comes in. There was no note, as she would have expected.
She slowly stepped forward and tensed as she picked up the box. It creaked slightly upon opening, and a glint of light reflected on the wall.
It was a diamond ring.
Sandy trembled. A message like that needed no note.
A sudden sound of cathedral bells caused Jina to jump and Sandy to throw the ring back onto the table. The roses bobbed a little as the box hit the vase and snapped shut with the force.
“Sorry, Sand. It’s just my phone.” Jina still stood near the entrance and hadn’t seen the ring. She unzipped the gym bag and started digging through it. By the time she found the phone, it had stopped ringing.
“I don’t recognize the number. I’ll call them back. Find anything over there?”
Sandy just hugged herself and tried to relax. She turned back to the table and examined the roses closely, looking for the antidote or some kind of clue as to where she would find it. She had played her part in the game; it was time for relief.
“Huh, I can’t get a signal. Someone just called me and I can’t get a signal. Can you get a signal?”
Sandy felt her pocket. “Oh no… I left my phone back at the hotel.”
“Screw it. I’m changing carriers next week.”
Sandy ignored her, and began looking under the table.
Jina stuffed the phone in her pocket and walked over to Sandy. “Any luck? Any pills, syringes, potions, cures?”
“Nothing. No clues.”
“What’s this?” Jina picked up the box. “Ohhh. This looks bad.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“What about in here?” Jina put the ring back on the table and walked through the doorway into the next room.
Sandy cautiously peered through.
The room was much more dimly lit and even more sparsely furnished. Directly across from her lay a door to what appeared to be a kitchen. Sandy walked into the middle of the room and could see that it opened out into a larger room at the front of the house. Which would make this a dining room, and that a living room. The second doorway to the hall lay at the other end of the room, and a stairway sat between the doors, leading up. The walls were covered in vertically stripped wallpaper that appeared to once have been red and white, but now barely managed a faded mauve and off-white.
“Look! A phone!” Jina had found an old-style wooden telephone mounted on the wall opposite the stairs. It had a round dial, like Jina’s grandpa’s phone had when she was a kid.
Sandy wandered into the next room. She had never seen a kitchen so small. Linoleum curled up from the corners of the counters, and grime caked around the sink. She started opening the cupboards one by one.
“Hey Sandy, this thing still works! I’ve got a dial tone!” Jina pulled out her cellphone, which still had no signal, so she could dial the number from the missed call.
The phone rang twice. Then she heard, “The number you have dialed is on your party line. Please hang up and allow sufficient time for the party you are calling to answer before you return to the line.” The message started to repeat and she stared at the receiver as if it had grown horns.
“Jina! Quit messing around and help me find the antidote so we can get out of here.”
“Hey Sand, remember that call a minute ago? I think it came from this house.” She hung up the phone and it started ringing.
Sandy poked her head out of the kitchen. “What are you doing?” she asked in a dim voice.
“Maybe S.A. will pick up the phone.”
“That’s crazy! We don’t want to talk to S.A. He’s some kind of psycho, and the last thing I want is for him to know we’re here!”
“S.A. already knows we’re here. And if he’d pick up the damn phone, I could give him a piece of my mind and make him get the hell down here and give you the antidote!”
Sandy shut up. She felt too weak to fight with Jina.
Jina let it ring ten times. “The jerk is too afraid to talk to me.”
She snatched up the receiver and listened to the recording say, “Someone on your line is calling you. Please wait for a moment for them to return to the line.”
Silence.
“Helloooooooo…” she said. She hung up and looked at Sandy. “So now what?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t feel so good.”
“If I get my hands on that—”
“Jina, please don’t be like that right now.”
“But he—”
Jina’s phone chirped twice.
“A text.” Sandy read over her shoulder:
The game has started
in full swing
To save her life
go do this thing.
Climb the stairs
if you won’t, you will,
The game will go on
till I’ve had my fill.
S.A.
“God, I’ve had enough of these corny poems.”
“Jina,” Sandy whispered, “I think we should leave. Right now. While we still can.”
“What?” she whispered back, turning to look at Sandy.
“We never should have come in here. I’m feeling a little stronger now. Maybe we can make it to the hospital in time still. Don’t you see? It’s not going to get any better. We’ve chosen to play along, and look where we are. Let’s not get any deeper into this.”
“Sandy, that’s BS. Look at you. You’re sweating gallons. We’ve got to—”
She stopped at a noise.
A coin rolled across the floor towards the center of the room. As it slowed, Sandy saw that it was a silver dollar, one of the old Liberty Head dollars from the 1920s. When it reached the middle of the floor, turned a little, fell, rattled and stopped.
They stood and stared. It had come from the kitchen.
“There was nothing in there,” Sandy whispered. Jina walked over and cautiously peered through the doorway. She saw no one. She did see movement out of the corner of her eye. Sandy squealed and Jina turned to look.
A crow alighted on the floor, picked up the silver dollar with its claws. It flew up the staircase.
“Let’s just run,” Jina suggested. Sandy nodded.
Jina took the lead, but two feet from the hall door, she stopped. Sandy collided with her.
“Wha—?”
Jina pointed.
Praying mantises crowded each other, completely covering the door frame. Some light green, some tan, they snatched at one another with clawed forearms. Some turned their little triangle alien-eyed heads to watch the two young girls.
“Jina, don’t worry. They can’t hurt us. They’re only on the frame, so we can run between them.”
Two mantises in the center had been fighting while several more crawled over them. At that moment, one lost its footing. They fell, a clawing, clinging mess, dangling in the doorway.
One jumped off of the door frame and flew across the room making a fluttering buzz. Another flew in the other direction, and for some reason, Sandy thought of her old picture books depicting fairies flitting between flowers.
Backing away, they saw that the other hall door was in a similar condition. The stairs lay immediately to the right. J
ina panicked and ran up them. Sandy called up at her, “No, we can just… Damn it, Jina!” Sandy raced up after her into the unknown.
Jina didn’t stop until she reached the top, past the landing, and into another room. When Sandy caught up to her, she looked back, gasping for breath.
Between breaths, she turned on Jina.
“For fuck’s sake, Jean! They’re only four inches long! They can’t hurt! The worst they can do is bite, and peeling off a Band-Aid hurts worse! We could have just run through them! But now we are on the third story of this decrepit old building, with a psycho after us, and I’ve had a good workout to pump all that poison through my body!”
“The third story? I didn’t think we’d climbed that many flights.” Jina peered down. “Besides, I never took biology. I don’t know anything about bugs.”
Sandy sobered a little. “Look Jina, I’m sorry. I’m on edge.”
Jina shrugged. “Fine. Since we’re up here, we might as well look for that antidote, like over there in that bunch of flowers.”
They were in a small room. The walls were either light brown or just dirty. A heavy clock leaned against the wall, like an old grandfather resting his back. The tarnished brass pendulum ticked out the time audibly.
A vase full of perfect white roses and baby’s breath sat on a medium-sized mahogany table next to the clock, with a red heart-shaped box of chocolates next to the flowers.
Sandy approached the table and counted, just to be sure. Twelve. Not thirteen.
Not that it mattered. S.A. had already proven himself to be insane and of ill-intent.
The clock stuck. Noon? She checked her watch. It read the same. How could it be so late already? The clock stopped chiming when she looked back at it. But it had only rung five times.
Sandy discovered that it had stopped with five because it no longer read twelve. Ten past eight? She conferred with her watch. It also read ten past eight.
She shook her head vigorously. It had to be the poison. It was affecting her sense of reality. Jina, behind her, pulled out her phone.
“Hey, Sand. What’s your watch say?”
“Ten past— No, now it’s three-thirty!”
The hands of her watch spun. The pendulum hung in mid-swing as the hands of the clock spun in sync. Jina held her phone near Sandy’s wrist. The numbers cycled back and forth, as if she was setting the time in high speed.
Make Willing the Prey (Dreams by Streetlight) Page 4