It was low at first, then it curled up through the wall, growing louder until it dragged across the air like a blade. In that moment, I knew I was in the presence of true evil.
My hand slapped over my mouth and clamped down hard, trying to muffle the sound of my breathing. I stood there, too terrified to move.
What if he heard me and came over here? I didn’t want to meet whatever fate that poor woman had, even if I deserved it.
Then the room went quiet, and that was so much worse.
All I could hear now was my own heart thundering in my chest.
The quiet pressed in on me until it buzzed in my ears. It wasn’t the sound of safety or sleep. It was the deafening silence of trepidation. I’d heard it before. That deceptive moment of quiet right before one realized the horrifying truth of theirsituation. There was nothing heavier than that moment. It had been pressing down on me for three years.
“Come play with me, Mazie.”
No. I wasn’t going to do this again.
I threw my coat over my shoulders and stumbled for the door.
The storm was a safer gamble than whatever was happening here.
My fingers stumbled with the lock, twisting the key this way and that while the brass tag clinked against the doorknob. Time ticked by while I fought to unlock the damn thing. Eventually, I managed to clumsily throw open the door.
Ignoring the shadows crawling up the warped wallpaper, I stepped out into the sconce-lit hallway. Air gushed past me as wind whistled through the cracks in the windows at the other end.
I turned to head for the stairs and stopped.
What the…
A figure stood in the corridor.A large man wearing a fedora. His size alone was intimidating, but it was white paint smeared over his face and dripping black circles around his eyes that sent a chill up my spine. The only color on him was the piercing blue eyes that seemed to glow in the dark.
He looked like a mime. I hated mimes. They were the Alfred Hitchcock version of clowns.
I looked down at the gloved hands hanging at his side and up to the black-and-white striped shirt stretched over his solid chest. Maybe he was seeking refuge from the storm as well? If he was, then he had some high-quality makeup. There wasn’t a single smear. The rain was coming down so hard that the few steps from the parking lot to the building would’ve been enough to wash it away. He had not been outside.
Was that better or worse? I didn’t know.
He stood there, staring at me, not saying a thing. All I wanted to do was get out of here, but I didn’t want to walk past him. A mime alone in a hall seemed more dangerous than the possible murder room next door.
Maybe he was lost? “Do you need help finding your room?”
His lips curled into a grin that had no right being on any living mouth as lightning flashed through the hall, causing his shadow to stretch across the floor.
I took a step back to avoid the twisted grip of his shadow’s hand.
He didn’t move.
He didn’t speak.
He only watched.
My pulse hammered in my throat. Every instinct told me to hide in my room and slam the door. Pretend I hadn’t seen him. But my bodywouldn’t obey. It was as if his gaze alone had me pinned in place.
We stayed where we were, watching each other while I tried to figure out what to do. Seconds turned into minutes, and still, he had yet to move. He didn’t even blink. He just stared down the hall with that sinister grin frozen in place.
“Well, I’m gonna?—”
I choked on my words when he tilted his head. Slow and precise. Just like a doll nudged off balance. The motion shouldn’t have been frightening, but I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe.
Then his gloved hand rose, showing me the knife in his grip. The blade was slick with something dark. I didn’t need light to know what it was.
