It was with a quiet voice that she told me that no one knew the details.Mr Devall had only taken a skeleton staff with him, as he wanted Noa to have the rest she deserved.But something happened with the baby, and because the place was so remote, they couldn’t get her to a hospital in time.
I didn’t ask any more questions about her because I knew the ending.Noa died.The baby died.
But there was one thing I did want to know.
I asked her which holiday house.
I’ll never forget the way she raised her head and stared at me, clutching her cloth as she said, “Belial House.”
So, you can imagine my horror when, after five months of marriage, Barrett announced we were to take a holiday to Belial House.Why would he bring me here?Why would he want to return to the very house where he lost his second wife and unborn child?It’s ghoulish.I just hope my reproductive system is in full working order and I can give him what he wants and quickly.Because I don’t want to be in this house any longer than I have to.
A woman and a child died here.I don’t know how or why, but I feel as if the house is trying to tell me exactly what happened.
Junko’s words have me in a chokehold, but something tugs at me.The stillness of the screen.The emptiness of Hayami’s room.
I stare at the screen in silence, waiting for the door to the en suite to open.
Twenty minutes.
She’s been in there for twenty minutes, and there’s still no sign of her.
Last night’s vision of her plays out: the gaping mouth, the way she’d thrust her fingers into the side of her cheeks and stretched them, the blood oozing from behind her teeth.
Twenty-one minutes.
Maybe I should take a stroll up there.
I open the small drawer in the desk and place the journal inside.I don’t want Hayami to find it, not until I’ve read it and know what kind of content is in there.
Padding out of the security room, I make my way to the stairs.
A dull thudding noise resonates through the house.
My eyes scan the stairs, my ears straining, trying to work out where the noise is coming from.
As I climb, it gets louder.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
It sounds like….
Fuck.
I run, leaping up the stairs, and fling open the bedroom door just as her scream rings out from the other side of the en suite.
My pulse pounds in my ears.
The door is locked.
“Stand away from the door!”I shout, bracing my full weight against it.“Stand away from the door!”I repeat before slamming my body against it.
It doesn’t budge.
“Please, get me out of here!”Hayami’s high-pitched screech travels from the other side of the door, panicked and raw, as if her voice is scraping the back of her throat.
This time, I back up so I can run at the door, throwing myself at it, but it won’t open.
Fuck!
