“Well,” I hear Ten’s voice mumble at my side, “that’s creepy.”
“What?” I ask, tearing my eyes away from the rest of the poem and turning my head to look at him.
But he’s not watching me. I follow to where his flashlight is shining, and I finally see the wall. Dropping the notebook to the bed, I peer up as Ten runs the light over the entire surface.
ALONE.
It’s written in large black letters, spray-painted and jagged, each letter nearly as tall as me.
“Real creepy,” Ten repeats.
I inch backward, glancing around the room and taking it all in.
Yeah. Photos on the wall with faces scratched out, ambiguous poetry, mysterious, depressing words written on the wall…
Not to mention someone is sleeping in here. In this abandoned, dark tunnel.
The distant whine suddenly catches my attention again, and I follow it, leaning down closer to the bed. I pick up the headphones and hold them to my ear, hearing “Bleed It Out” playing.
Shit. I immediately drop the headphones, a breath catching in my throat.
“The iPod’s on,” I say, shooting up straight. “Whoever he is, he was just here. We need to go. Now.”
Ten moves for the doorway, and I turn away from the bed, but then I stop.
Spinning back around, I dip down and rip the page out of the notebook. I have no idea why I want it, but I do.
If it is a guy living here, he probably won’t miss it, anyway, and if he does, he won’t know where it went.
“Go,” I tell Ten, nudging his back.
And I fold up the page and stuff it in my back pocket.
Holding up our phones, we step out of the room and turn left. But just then someone catches me in their arms, and I yelp as I’m squeezed until I can’t breathe.
“Gotch-ya!” a male voice boasts. “So how about that ride now?”
Trey.
Squirming, I pull out of his hold and twist around. Lyla, J.D., and Bryce stand behind him, laughing.
“Damn!” Ten shouts, breathing hard. He was obviously caught off guard by their sudden appearance, too.
“You might’ve turned off the flashlights,” Lyla scolds with a smirk on her face. “We could see them as soon as we came down.”
I move past them, back toward the stairs, ignoring her. If we hadn’t been investigating that room, the flashlights on our phones would’ve been off.
“What are you guys doing down here anyway?” J.D. asks.
“Just go,” I order, losing patience. “Let’s get out of here.”
Everyone moves ahead, back down the tunnel, and I glance over my shoulder, scanning the nearly pitch blackness and the doorway to the room where we’d just been.
Nothing.
Dark corners, shadows, dank glimmers from the fluorescent light hitting the puddles of water… I see nothing.
But I breathe hard, unable to shake the creepy feeling. Someone is there.