Darkhouse (Experiment in Terror #1) (34 page)

It was like she was walking toward me.

What the fuck?

Heel. Toe.

And then it stopped, just as the round toes of the red Mary Janes were visible beneath my stall door, facing directly towards me.

This crazy bitch was standing right outside my fucking door!

I didn’t know what to say or do. I didn’t want to move, but I was on the fucking toilet seat. This was the most vulnerable position ever.

I kept my eyes on the toes, thinking at some point they’d move or maybe the woman would say something. But neither of those things happened.

There was a large enough crack between the stall doors, though, usually the bane of every public washroom.

I slowly moved my head over so that I was looking through the crack. Maybe I could get an idea of what she was doing.

And through the crack I saw an eye. A heavily made up, aging eye staring right back at me, face pressed up to the door.

I screamed. I couldn’t help it.

I screamed and jumped off of the toilet, yanking up my pants far enough and flung myself out of the bathroom stall, fully ready to confront whoever the fuck was out there.

But as I stumbled out of the stall, the door banging loudly, I didn’t see anyone. There was no one there. I was alone in the washroom, and the woman at the end of the aisle was gone.

I put my hand to my neck to feel how fast my pulse was racing. I closed my eyes and took in a few deep breaths. After counting to ten, I opened them, expecting the worst.

I was still alone in the bathroom, my bag hanging on the door, which slowly moved back and forth.

I grabbed it off the hook and hustled myself over to the sink. I could deal with peeing on the plane. At least I knew I wouldn’t be alone there.

I placed the bag on the part of the counter that wasn’t wet and quickly splashed cold water on my face, avoiding my eye makeup.

I looked up in the mirror and saw nothing but my reflection.

I turned for the paper towels.

Creepy Clown Lady was standing there beside the dispenser.

I screamed again, but it was caught in my throat and came out as a breathless gurgle.

It was her, as clear as day. Her wrinkled, pancaked face, and violet-tinted coif. The bizarre taffeta gown with sewn-on pom pons. Her stockinged legs and red vintage shoes.

She kept her glassy cataract eyes on me, almost willing me to calm down and stop screaming, as silently as I was trying.

I don’t know how long we stood there just eyeing each other, only a few feet apart. But at some point I found strength returning to my throat, a life force rushing around my heart.

“Who the hell are you?!?” I yelled at her.

She didn’t say anything. Her expression didn’t change. She kept staring at me with her knowing eyes that were vaguely inquisitive and strangely patient.

I wasn’t even afraid at this point. I just wanted to know what the fuck was going on.

I took a tentative step toward her.

“Please, tell me, who are you?”

She smiled, slowly. Her mouth spread, her yellow teeth showed and the bad lipstick job became more glaring. As before, her eyes never smiled along with it. Whatever I had just said about not being afraid, forget it.

I was very afraid.

“You’re just starting,” the woman said with her slight accent. Her voice sounded disembodied. I was immediately reminded of a scene with Robert Blake in
Lost Highway
.

“You need to keep going,” she continued.

“Who are you?” I repeated.

“You need each other. You need to set this right.”

“Set what right?” I asked. “What? What are you talking about? We did set it right.”

She shook her head very slowly. As she did, flakes of makeup fell off her face and flittered to the ground like pixie dust. I watched this, dumbfounded.

“It’s not over yet. You and Dex need each other. We need you. It’s not over yet.”

I wanted to strangle her, whoever she was.

“Why, why?” I asked frantically. “Please just tell me why so I can know.”

“You’ll find out. It’s not over yet. You’re just discovering. You’re just starting.”

“You keep saying that! What do you mean I’m just starting?” I yelled at her just as I heard the bathroom door close. I turned to see a business woman walk in wheeling a carry-on behind her. She gave me a concerned look and walked past us down the aisle. I followed her walk and saw her give me one last fearful look before she walked into a stall.

I looked back at Creepy Clown Lady but she was gone.

I quickly spun around and after seeing no one, I picked up my bag and ran out the door and into the terminal. It was full of passengers going to and fro. The lady had vanished.

And then my flight was boarding. I had no choice but to scuttle back to my gate and slink on board as the guilty party who was holding up everyone else.

It was only till I sat down in my seat, after squeezing past the angry fat man on the aisle, that I had a chance to mull over what had happened.

The lady had been there. She had spoken to me. I interacted with her.

But where did she come from and what did she want? I couldn’t have seen her. My imagination was good but it wasn’t
that
good. I had to keep going? I was just getting started?

And most intriguing of all—Dex and I needed each other? What could Dex ever need
me
for?

I was pondering that as the plane pulled away from the gate. All the feelings of excitement I had earlier about the show, about my future, were now compounded with an increasing sense of urgency and trepidation. I had so many questions now that needed to be answered. And quickly.

To get a handle on my thoughts, I looked out the window at the sunshine that was coming through the dark afternoon clouds. And as if fate knew exactly what I was thinking, I caught a glimpse of a figure standing by one of the windows.

It was Dex. Waving goodbye.

FOR A PREVIEW OF
RED FOX
,
BOOK #2 OF THE EXPERIMENT IN TERROR SERIES,
PLEASE KEEP READING…

RED FOX

My eyes flickered open. Something had woken me. I froze and let my eyes adjust to the darkness. I was still on my side, facing the wall. I wasn’t sure what time it was, or how long I had been asleep, but it must have been the middle of the night. I listened and heard Dex snoring lightly beside me. His back was to mine, his butt square against me. Good thing he was wearing pants after all.

Despite that warmth and contact, I felt scared. I often did when I woke up for no reason. I tried to remember the dreams I just had but they were flitting away from my memory. Something about an owl…Dex…rocks.

The rocks! I remembered what had happened earlier downstairs. Could the sound of rocks have woken me up? I listened again, harder. I couldn’t hear anything hitting the window or the roof.

But I felt something brush up against my foot.

My feet were underneath the covers but far away from Dex’s feet. It couldn’t have been him. My heart stopped. I felt icky. I had to roll over and see what it was but every instinct told me not to.

I took a deep breath and slowly turned over.

I felt the life being sucked out of me.

There was an animal sitting at the foot of the bed on top of my feet. As they turned over with the rest of me, I could feel my toes jabbing up into its soft bottom.

It was a fox. I couldn’t see it clearly but I knew that’s what it was. A fox about the size of a collie, sitting on its hindquarters, ears creating a pointy silhouette. It was looking right at me. Its eyes were a hazel color. They didn’t glow like most animal’s eyes did; instead they locked with mine with feverish intensity. It was like looking into the eyes of someone I knew.

Was this for real? Was this actually happening? I wanted to look at Dex but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it. The more I stared into those knowing, harmful pupils, the more I felt entranced. My legs and arms were replaced by lead pipes. But I still felt the animal’s weight on my feet, which had to mean that what I was experiencing was real.

I don’t even know if I was breathing, I didn’t think I was. My heart was thumping away loudly in my chest, but even that was starting to slow down. It wasn’t like I was calming down in any way – in fact I could feel the terror slowly taking hold of my body – but my heart was slowing until the thumps were further and further apart. My thoughts became sluggish. All I could think about was how I needed to look away from those eyes.

Then the fox shifted onto its front feet, perfectly positioned between my calves. It was closer now and our eye contact had not been broken. I began to feel like I was drowning internally, my lungs were without air and I was too weak to gasp for it. The room started to spin, with the fox still front and center.

It took a step forward, mouth open. Was it smiling at me? Its eyes said the opposite. They said I was dead.

I tried to talk, to scream but nothing came out. Either I was going to wake up in a second or something horrifying was about to happen. And I couldn’t do anything about it.

It took another step, its tail waving subtly in the background. The eyes narrowed, as if it was glaring at me.

I felt Dex shift and a smattering of hope rushed through me. The fox didn’t break its stare but it paused at that.

Dex stirred again and rolled over. I couldn’t turn to look at him but I prayed for him to open his eyes.

I felt him shuffle back a bit in the bed and then stop. Pause. He saw.

“What the fuck?!” he yelled.

The fox leaped off of the bed and ran out the door. The door had been open the whole time.

Dex sprang out of the sheets and yelled for Will, “Will! There’s an animal in here!”

He followed the fox out the door, leaving me alone for a sickening second, then ran back to me. I still couldn’t move, I still couldn’t breathe. My eyes and body were locked down.

“Hey!” He jumped on the bed and shook both my shoulders. “Perry, are you OK?”

I tried to answer but couldn’t.

“Answer me! Perry, what happened? Perry?”

He kept shaking me, then took my head in his hands and physically moved my face until it faced his. His eyes – as crazy and worried as they were – brought me to a sense of reality. I felt my limbs coming back, hot flashes of nerves climbing up and down them.

Then my breath. I gasped loudly as if I had been underwater for the last five minutes. He held my face steady. “You’re going to be OK.”

There was a commotion in the hallway and a panicked-looking Will appeared at the door. “What happened, is she all right?”

“She’s fine,” Dex said quickly and gestured with his head, “the animal went downstairs.”

Will nodded and took off down the hall, the walls shaking from his lumbering run.

Dex looked back at me, my wide eyes searching his as all the fear came rushing in.

“Hey, you’re fine,” he said. I started to shake and he brought his hands to my arms and held me sternly. “You’re going to be OK. But we need to go find out what that was.”

I shook my head violently, still unable to speak.

“We have to,” he implored. “And I am not leaving you here by yourself.”

He was right. I wouldn’t be able to sleep not knowing what was going on but going downstairs didn’t seem like a good option either.

“Will has his baseball bat, whatever it was, was small, we’ll be OK.”

He climbed out of the bed and walked around to my side. He looked down at me, smiled, and proceeded to pick me up in his arms.

I tried to protest but couldn’t. Despite his slight frame and my rather dumpy one, he picked me up with ease. He carried me past the bed, stooping down to pick up his camera from the dresser and then we were out of the room and into the hall. Will’s door was open, as was Sarah’s. They must have been downstairs.

We made it to the bottom of the stairs when I felt fine enough to walk.

“Please put me down,” I croaked in a pathetic whisper.

He stopped and lowered me. My legs felt like jelly but at least they felt like my own again. He held the camera with one hand and gripped my hand with the other. We walked slowly through the downstairs area. The lights were still all off, the shadows more deceptive.

“It was a fox,” I said thickly as we peeked around into the empty living room.

“What the fuck was it doing?” he asked.

I shook my head.

We flicked on the lights and saw neither a fox, nor Will or Sarah in the living room, dining room or kitchen. A breeze rustled in through the holes in the glass. The clock on the microwave said three a.m.

The front door was wide open, so we walked over to it and peeked outside. I couldn’t see them but I could hear Will, Sarah and Miguel all talking excitedly about the animal. I didn’t want to step outside into the cold New Mexico night so I stuck my neck out further and peered around the doorframe to see where they were.

WHOOSH!

A huge white owl flapped in front of me, mere inches from my face.

I screamed and ducked as Dex stuck his arm out and thwacked it. He hit the owl square in the chest.

I peered up, my hands around my head. The owl squawked and flew off into the night. I looked up at Dex. He took back his clenched fist and let out a low breath. He was just as freaked out as I was. He looked down at me and offered his hand.

“What a hoot,” he joked but his voice was pinched with nerves.

Seconds later, Will, Sarah and Miguel came around the corner to see what happened. I explained as much as I could. The owl part of the story paled in comparison to the fox. It turns out that they hadn’t seen either creature. Out of all three of them, I knew Will was the one who believed me whole-heartedly. Sarah had only a few choice words and a couple of poignant sighs but for the most part she didn’t argue with what I said too much. I knew she didn’t want us there at all but I saw that she did (finally) believe something was going on. And Miguel, well Miguel was a sneering, sniveling son of a bitch. But even he walked back to his quarters looking more wary than before.