BANG!
The lights above me suddenly came on with the sound of snapping wires and the low hum of a generator kicking in. The area just in front of me was illuminated, hurting my eyes. I could see again.
And there was nothing there.
The same went for the rest of the hallway. As each light went back on, it showed how empty the place was. And the laughter stopped along with it.
Until the end.
The last light went on.
There was a woman standing beneath the waxy light bulb. In the middle of the hall. Facing me. She was far enough away that I couldn’t make out her face. But I knew from the snakelike angle of her head that I didn’t want to.
She stood as still as night, not moving. Just facing me like a gunslinger during a standoff.
This…wasn’t good.
I slowly lifted up my hand that had the phone and dialed Dex while keeping my eyes on her.
She still hadn’t moved. But I knew it was misleading.
I put the phone to my ear and after a few rings (I could almost hear it ringing on the floor above) he answered.
“Perry? You OK?”
“I’m locked on the second floor,” I whispered. “Please come and let me out right now.”
“OK, one sec,” he said. I heard him hang up, a few footsteps from above and then the sound of the third-level door opening onto the stairwell. I breathed a sigh of relief, not taking my eyes off the figure at the end.
Which was good. Because she twitched. And now, she was moving, walking toward me, twice as fast as a normal person, almost gliding down the hall as if she were on skates.
Her arms were outstretched, her head wobbled back and forth with each quick stride, and a thick flow of blood flowed off of her, falling to the floor behind her like a red bridal train.
It happened so fast.
She was there.
And then she was in my face.
Her grey, decaying hands around my neck. Her hands felt ice cold. She smelled like gin. She buzzed like bees. And her mouth opened wide, wider than any mouth should ever open, like a steel trap on loose hinges, with brown, rotting teeth as a horrific frame. A single wasp crawled to the edge of her bloated, black tongue. The whole hallway vibrated with an incredibly loud drone that was deafening and debilitating. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t live.
“Perry!”
The door swung open and before Dex could enter, the girl was suddenly gone. Vanished into thin air and taking her dead hands, split face and infernal noise with her.
Dex looked around the empty hallway wildly and then focused on me. “What just happened to you?”
I shook my head, placing my fingers at my throat where the icy feeling wasn’t going away. I pointed at the floor above. “Need to get out of here,” I croaked.
He nodded, got me through the door and up the steps. Halfway up, I stopped on the landing and motioned for him to stay. I leaned over on my knees and tried to get my breath and my bearings.
Dex had the small camera on him and brought it up to my level, aiming it on me. “What happened?”
He was filming but I didn’t care. I was having a hard time gathering my thoughts, almost like someone else was sucking them out of my head.
I raised my finger in the air for him to give me a second and slowly breathed in through my nose. I felt at my neck again and gestured for him to touch it.
He did. His hand was hot.
“It’s freezing. You’re ice cold, Perry,” he said. He removed his hand and put it up to my forehead. “You’re hot here though. What happened? Did you see something? Did something…hurt you?”
He stammered through those last words in a way I would have normally found touching except I didn’t know how I felt.
I nodded. “I went…I went to use the bathroom here. I got halfway down the hall and all the lights started going out…one by one. Then there was this laughter. I think it was the patients. From behind their doors. They were all laughing. And then they stopped. The lights slowly came back on. And when they hit the very end…I saw her.”
“Saw…her? The girl you saw in the apartment?”
“Yes. It was her. I saw her earlier today too.”
He nodded, not looking very impressed. He nibbled on his lip for a few seconds and then said, “In the bathroom. At the restaurant. I wanted to ask you about that but…I didn’t want to pry.”
That was an odd thing for him to say. Dex liked to pry about everything and anything, especially when it had something to do with me. It was almost like a hobby to him, just as bugging him for information was a hobby to me. But I let it slide. For now.
“Yeah. It was her. And her again now. She ran after me. And suddenly she was right here.” I waved my hand in front of my face. “I could smell her…the gin.”
Dex turned a wicked shade of pale. All expression left his face and the camera lowered an inch. I watched him carefully, not expecting that reaction.
“What is it? Dex? Have you seen her too?”
He shook his head, blinking hard, seeming to come out of what mini-episode he just had. “No. It just…reminded me of something.”
“What?”
“Did she hurt you?” he peered at my cold neck inquisitively.
“She wanted to kill me. I don’t know if she hurt me. But she would have if you had not shown up. Then she just…” I snapped my fingers.
I put my hands back to my throat and felt around again. My skin temperature was returning to normal but my heart was still racing, the beat popping out my jugular like a drum. “I’m OK.”
He nodded, not looking too convinced, and then turned off the camera. “We’ve got 20 minutes left. Care to do the rest of the third floor with me? I’ll understand if you say no.”
I didn’t actually want to do anything but go back in the car and return to their apartment with Jenn and Fat Rabbit, as funny as that sounded. But at the same time, I felt like as long as I was with Dex, I would be OK. For whatever reasons, this ghost was not showing herself to Dex. Only to me. As long as I was with him, I would be safe. At least, that’s what I was counting on.
“That’s OK, let’s do it,” I said and stepped onto the first step.
Dex reached out and put his arm around my shoulder and gave me a squeeze. “Are you sure, kiddo? You’re my most precious equipment here.”
I gave him a brief smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. At least if she comes back now, maybe we can get her on film.”