by Jesse Grey
“We have no proof yet. Just a secret passage that we don’t know what it contains.” Mercer explained.
Once they finished descending the stairs, Abram pulled out his phone and turned on his flashlight function, which his friends were quick to mimic.
“Why would Sumner’s grandfather even want this built? Why would he want to connect Shadows Manor and the asylum?”
“Who knows, to escape work, to escape home. It doesn’t matter why it’s here, only that it is.” Abram answered Bridge’s question.
“Why does anyone with the last name Shadows do anything?” Alex added, a question that all of them had heard in their heads ever since Sumner had entered their lives. “Wait, look up there.”
Alex took to leading the group as he shined his phone’s flashlight on their problem of the night. The light illuminated the start of a passageway, which split into two, leading down two presumably dif-ferent locations.
“This just keeps getting better.” Bridge huffed.
“Damn it.” Abram swore. “There’s no guarantee that we have enough time to search both paths before our parents find out or something worse.”
“We can if we split up.” Mercer suggested.
“That’s what people say in horror films right before the antago-nist chops them up into tiny minuscule pieces and hides all evidence under the floorboards.” Alex panicked.
“But shouldn’t we know where both of them go? We need to know absolutely everything that’s going on down here.”
“Bridge—”
“And we’ll take the left passage. Sound good?”
Mercer grabbed Bridge’s hand and dragged him down the left passage before Abram or Alex could tell them how bad of an idea it was to split up, leaving them to look at each other awkwardly.
After a deep chasm of a breath, Alex cracked his knuckles, a clear sign that he was a bundle of nerves.
“We should get a move on.”
Alex started down the right passage, Abram sighed and started af-ter him.
“Alex, I’m sorry about earlier.” he called up to him.
“We don’t have to talk about it, Abram.”
“Since when did you start calling me Abram?”
“Since you decided to so eloquently reiterate that we aren’t Lex and Abe anymore. We’re just Abram and Alex now, remember?”
Abram stopped walking as Alex went on, continuing down the passage while Abram took in his words and dwelled on their subtext.
Back over in the left passage, Bridge was still laughing at how fast Mercer had leapt at the opportunity to make Abram and Alex inves-tigate one of the passages together.
“Totally hilarious, Merce. I love you for that.”
Mercer laughed too as they made their way down the passage.
“They’re gonna have to face each other eventually. What better way than during a crisis?”
“This is weird, right? Two passages? We never expected some-thing like this.”
“I guess Arclan Shadows had more secrets than we thought.”
Their walk was cut short when their lights fell on a door that completely ended the passage up ahead.
“Well this is something.” Bridge said as they came up to the blood red painted door.
They stood outside the door, gauging each other’s expressions be-fore Mercer cleared his throat.
“Bridge, there’s no way of knowing what’s behind this door. Sumner could be two feet from us.”
“The only way we’ll know is if we open it.” Bridge nodded. “So let’s just rip this band-aid off.”
“And hope we won’t need any band-aids after we open this door.” Mercer sighed. “Alright, on three.”
Bridge grabbed the doorknob confidently. “One.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
He threw the door open, both of them holding up their phones like they were weapons, the door banging against something within the room as they stood still. For a moment, they both expected for Sumner to come running out at them. But nothing happened beside the door creaking back towards them.
Mercer gave him a nod and Bridge slowly shined his light inside as he and Mercer entered what looked like a small room. As they shed their lights, they found a light switch and quickly flipped it. The room was like a lone bedroom and bathroom combination, complete with a twin-sized mattress lying on the floor and desk in the corner, the tiny bathroom tucked into the other side of the room.
“Holy…” Bridge couldn’t finish his sentence as they took in the room.
The bed was messy, no frame or even a set of bed springs to support it. Empty soda cans and junk food wrappers and bags lined the floor, trash gathering on the carpet. Clothes were piling up in the open closet, the rod and clothes hangers going unused. And the desk was rife with papers scattered all over its surface.
Both of them stepped further into the room, trying to take in all that assaulted them. Mercer went over to the pile of food sitting in a corner on top of a small table, seeing that there was a bag of food from a nearby burger joint. Searching the bag, Mercer found the re-ceipt pinned to the side and scoffed, uneasy at its contents.
“This food is recent,” Mercer gawked. “This was bought today.”
Bridge would have responded, but he was scouring the desk rid-dled with papers for answers, but only starting skimming the begin-ning of what looked to be a mass of psychosis induced babble.
“Mercer,” Bridge caught his friends’ blue eyes with his own brown ones. “I think we found where Sumner’s been hiding.”
Just then, interrupting Mercer’s response, was a loud ear-splitting scream from somewhere within their location.
“Was that a girl’s scream?”
Mercer ignored Bridge’s inquiry as he felt fear consuming his every emotion. “Kirby.”
He went running out of the room without regarding Bridge in the slightest. Thinking quickly, Bridge grabbed the closest papers on the desk that his fingertips could clutch as he pulled out his phone and quickly dialed Dagger’s number, running out of the room and down the hall after Mercer.
“Mercer!” Bridge heard the screamer bellow loudly again.
He heard Dagger answer the phone as he ran as fast as his legs would carry him.
“This is Detective Dagger.”
“It’s Bridge Mathison,” he heaved while he ran sloppily, his foot-steps echoing around him. “Get to Arclan. We’ve found where Sumner’s been hiding.”
In the right passage, Abram and Alex were finally seeing something besides just slate flooring.
“Hey, I found something.”
Abram ran up to see what Alex was seeing, which happened to be a bike leaning against a wall.
“Really?” he exhausted sarcastically.
“Do you remember how far it was from Shadows Manor to Ar-clan?”
Abram nodded. “About half a mile.”
“Hop on, I’ll steer.”
“And if this doesn’t end at Shadows Manor and Sumner is wait-ing to kill us at the end?”
“We have to know where this ends. This path is all at a downhill slant. It’ll take three minutes, tops.”
Inhaling harshly, Abram watched as Alex mounted the bike and prepared to head down the path. All too reluctantly given their cur-rent state of communication, he climbed onto the back of the bicy-cle, barely sitting on the bike seat as Alex kicked off and started off toward their hopeful destination of Shadows Manor.
The downhill slope helped them achieve great time. They were beginning to think the path would keep going on when they saw that the path was not only coming to an end but also narrowing.
“Alex, stop.”
The brakes screeched as they came to a stop, Abram jumping off the bicycle and went towards the end of the passage. Alex followed his actions, throwing the bike down roughly. Shining their phones precisely, the light uncovered what looked like a small door.
“This is it.” Abram pronounced, looking back at Alex. “If this door opens up
into Shadows Manor, we were right.”
“Do you think his parents have been helping him?”
Abram nodded. “Maybe. Opening this door might answer that.”
Alex joined Abram at the door, taking in a deep breath. “Open it.”
In a blur of action, Abram pulled at the door, but when it opened they were met with visible darkness.
“What the hell?”
Alex’s eyes widened as a thought struck him like a bolt of light-ning. “The refrigerator.”
“What?”
“Help me push.”
He pressed against the mass, straining with the object as he tried to move it. Abram shoved hard against the obstruction, struggling to get it out of the way. Finally, they managed to move it just enough to see into the room, moonlight coming in from a nearby window.
“Oh God.” Abram gasped.
They stepped into the room through the small opening they made, realizing that their earlier suspicions were correct.
“Sumner’s room.”
There was a faint but unmistakable sound of someone screaming somewhere down the passage. They shared a quick glance of horror before they left Shadows Manor and went back into the under-ground passage.
Alex gestured toward their earlier transportation. “What about the bike? The uphill slant is going to take longer.”
“Leave it, come on!”
Abram started running, with Alex close behind him, running to an unknown scream caused by an unknown source.
Kirby was lurking around outside Arclan Asylum, mere minutes be-fore her mother was supposed to get off work. She hadn’t originally intended to sneak over to the asylum, but she couldn’t just go to sleep while her friends possibly faced Sumner.
She was lurking near the front entrance of the building, hoping she could catch the door as someone was leaving. But when she saw them coming from around the back of the building, Kirby had to hide in the bushes to keep from being seen. She watched as her mother and her co-workers got into their respective vehicles.
Kirby swore into the wind. She had no idea how she was going to get into the building now. She was ready to pull out her phone and try and call Mercer when she saw someone standing in the trees watching the employees vacate the parking lot.
Squinting, she tried to make out the figure as the last person left the parking lot, but the shadows of the night draped them perfectly from her vision. As the last person’s car lights faded from view, the dark shadow strode to the back of the building. Against all the warn-ing signs and alarms ringing inside of her head, Kirby got out of the bushes and started to follow them beyond all the logic that told her to run back home.
Keeping close to the building, Kirby kept her distance from the all-black attired stranger. Once they got to the back door that the employees had left out of, she watched as the anonymous figure swiped a badge and flung open the back door wide, practically run-ning into the asylum with heavy interest.
She ran up to the door just as it closed, crushing her hand slight-ly. Wincing, Kirby pried open the door and quickly got inside. She realized that she was in the kitchen of the asylum, seeing a couple wayward overnight nurses wandering in the halls, luckily not paying attention to her standing in the middle of the kitchen.
Snapping back to the situation, Kirby saw that the kitchen closet was wide open. Investigating, she took in the view of a secret stair-case embedded behind a wall. Racing down the stairs, she had no idea where she was going to end up once she reached the end of the stairs. But when her feet found the bottom of the stairs, all she saw was black. Fumbling with her phone, she turned on her phone’s flashlight and screamed a hefty shrill of a yell when she illuminated the space around her and the dark figure was suddenly staring into her eyes.
It was Sumner.
“Well if it isn’t my paparazzo,” he smiled at her devilishly.
She was speechless. Even more speechless when Sumner grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her hard against the cement wall, pain shooting up and down her back like a sputtering firework of agony. A scream elicited from her, operating on fear alone.
“You weren’t supposed to be here.” he growled, coming over to her quickly.
“Mercer!” she screamed as loud as she could, getting to her feet only to have Sumner push her back down harshly.
“You’re ruining everything!”
Kirby heard footsteps as Sumner lifted his leg, assumingly to kick her when he was tackled and sent skidding down on the ground, see-ing that Sumner was taken down by Mercer.
Bridge came running over to her immediately. “Are you okay?” he offered her a hand, one she took eagerly as she gave him a nod.
Mercer and Sumner wrestled on the floor as they exchanged punches. But then Sumner kicked Mercer off of him, far enough to allow him to reveal a small pistol that he had been concealing inside of his jacket.
“No!” Kirby shrieked, moving to Mercer but Bridge held on to her tight enough so she wouldn’t be threatening her life even more.
Slowly, Mercer got to his feet as he stared down at Sumner and his shiny gun, the barrel staring him down like dark dangerous eyes filled with lead and lacerations.
“Sumner—”
“Shut up!”
They all remained silent as sirens sounded from outside Arclan. The police wails drowned out the sound of Abram and Alex running from their passage as they saw a gun wielding Sumner, who was clearly startled by their sudden appearance.
“This isn’t how tonight was supposed to go!” Sumner shouted, pointing the gun at each of them.
“Come to finish us off?” Abram berated.
“Shut up.”
“Sumner, don’t—” Alex started but was cut off by another howl from Sumner.
“Shut up!”
“You psycho son of a bitch, put the gun do—”
Abram would have finished his squall, but he was restricted by the sound of a gunshot, one of them falling to the floor unexpectedly with a loud deafening thud.
10
ECHOES
Abram sat down at the table nervous, his mind still foggy from all the meds but otherwise, he was in pretty good spirits. He had to be. Today was the day he was finally seeing his friends again.
“When are they gonna be here?” he asked eagerly, looking up at the nurse standing by.
He gave him a small smile, placing a comforting hand on Abram’s shoulder. “They’ll be here any minute, just be patient.”
“I haven’t seen them in a month. I don’t have any patience left.” Abram heaved. “It’s been too long for us. Ever since—” he stopped, trying to calm his wits. “I just need to see them.”
An elevator ding brought Abram out of his head, looking over and seeing his friends being escorted to him from down the hall.
“It’s them.” he beamed, smiling at his nurse, who just grinned along with him.
An orderly brought his friends over to him, standing in front of him, giving Abram weak smiles. “We’ll give you some time.” the or-derly said, nodding at the nurse so they could talk freely amongst themselves.
Abram grinned vibrantly at them while the three of them took a seat across the table from him, gawking at their steady and unreada-ble faces. Mercer gave him a feeble, very uneven smile. Bridge shift-ed in place, looking as if he were totally weirded out to be back in-side the asylum. And Lissa had cut her hair, rocking a pixie cut that had Abram smiling even more.
“I love your hair,” he told her with a pearly white grin, stirring a small copycat leer from her, running a hand over her fresh do. “You look great.” He gave them all a wide regard. “You all do.”
Mercer coughed. “How are you feeling?”
“Oh, I’m fine.” Abram reassured him. “I just want to know what’s going on with you guys, what I’m missing out there beyond those doors.”
“They’re letting us do our schoolwork at home until school ends.” Bridge shrugged.
“Harley and I broke up.” Mercer prompted.
“You broke up with Harley?” Lissa jumped in. “She didn’t tell me about it.”
“Because it’s not a big deal. We agreed that now just isn’t the time for us, especially with us being out of school.”
“Did you at least get to sleep with her before you broke up?”
“Bridge.”
“You’re too cute to still be a virgin, Merce. Harley’s cute. You’re cute. What’s the big deal?”
“Just because you give it up to anyone with a male identity and a pulse doesn’t mean I have to. I mean you even slept with Thomas Fletcher.”
“You slept with Thomas Fletcher? That super genius freshman in our trigonometry class?” Lissa said, stunned, letting out a couple chuckles slip out of her mouth.
“He has a really nice ass.” Bridge shrugged again.
“You’re out of control.”
“I’m seventeen and I’m charming.” Bridge scoffed at Mercer. “I can’t help it that everyone wants to cross my bridge.”
“Ew.” Lissa laughed.
They all turned to hysterics as they began to laugh collectively, even Abram. But when his friends’ laughter began to fade among them, Abram’s became boisterous and louder, becoming a fit of blind hilarity that caused his friends to exchange phobia knotted glances.
“Abe?” Lissa tried to grasp his attention, but his guffawing con-tinued.
“It’s just so funny.” he managed to say between laughing breaths that ultimately seemed to be settling. “You guys are dealing with ro-mantic woes and school work at home and I’m trying to find the right balance of meds.” His cackling resumed, not helping to cease the fear filled facades of his friends. “The contrast in our lives now are hilarious!” he snickered. “We all get attacked and you guys are fine while I’m basically in psycho prison.”
“Abe!” Lissa cried.
“Sumner’s been here!” His laughter died on his simmering tongue, his eyes turning dark and full of panic, brimmed by the circles that told them that sleep was something he couldn’t quite discover here inside the asylum. “He’s here, hiding in the walls, waiting and watching.” Tears cascaded forth from his blue irises. “He visits my room.”