Alexandra Sokoloff - The Harrowing

Robin tried to copy Lisa’s moves as Cain lifted her and the two boys boosted her up. She felt Lisa’s hand grab her wrist, and Patrick’s hands gripping her ankles, pushing up.

Adrenaline flooded through her as Lisa hauled her up over the side of the platform. Robin scrambled, grabbing at the metal screen of the platform until somehow her whole body was lying flat against the metal. She was trembling all over. Lisa was crouched against the wall, panting, but she managed a ghost of a smile.

Robin got to her feet, brushing herself off. She pulled the flashlight from her pocket, wrapped her scarf around the flashlight and her hand. Lisa backed up against the railing. Robin smashed the flashlight through the window.

She used the flashlight to push the jagged glass out of the frame, then cautiously stuck her head through the opening. She turned her flashlight on and shone the beam down one side of the corridor, then the other. She stared into the darkness, her pulse racing—but there was no movement. The Hall was dark and utterly silent.

She looked back at Lisa, who was hovering behind her on the fire escape, and slung a leg over the windowsill.

Inside, the Hall was pitch-black compared to outside. Glass crunched under Robin’s feet. She turned to the window and helped Lisa through.

Lisa straightened and the girls looked at each other, faces pale in the dark.

Robin felt along the wall, found the light switch, flicked it. Nothing.

“Electricity’s off,” she said uneasily, then remembered they couldn’t turn the lights on anyway, not with police patrols out there.

Lisa shivered. “Let’s go fast.”

Robin turned her flashlight on, keeping the beam low, below the window level, as Cain had instructed earlier. Lisa took Robin’s hand and they ran together down the dark hallway.

The hallway opened onto the landing above the main staircase. Below them, the well of the staircase gaped open like an enormous black cave.

Lisa and Robin crossed the landing and hurried down the sweeping stairs, Robin’s flashlight bobbing wildly. At the bottom, they turned into the shadowy front hall.

In front of her, Lisa pulled up short, gasping in terror. Robin froze.

A hooded figure stood by the door in the hall.

Robin felt herself screaming in her mind, her sanity wobbling.

Then something clicked in her head as her eyes adjusted to the dark. She choked out, “Coat rack.” She shined her flashlight beam over the figure.

Someone had left a heavy coat draped over the human-size rack. A hat perched on the top completed the illusion of a shadowy stalker.

Lisa exhaled shakily, leaning limply against Robin.

“Back door,” Robin managed.

They turned away from the front door, moved slowly down the murky hall, gingerly passing by the open bathroom, the curtained fire door, the narrow kitchenette. Everything seemed animate, ominous. Lisa was clutching Robin’s hand so hard her bones hurt

The open archway of the lounge was next. Lisa slowed as they approached, reluctant.

A muffled thud came from inside the room.

Both girls stopped dead.

Robin swallowed, spoke quaveringly into the dark. “Martin?”

They were still, not breathing, just listening.

A tapping sound began somewhere in the building, faint, rhythmic mocking. Robin tried to focus through her terror. Where was it coming from? From the lounge? Or somewhere else in the house?

Lisa grabbed Robin’s hand and they both ran, past the lounge doorway, toward the back of the house. Robin couldn’t help glancing into the lounge as they pounded past. In that one glimpse, the big room seemed empty, dark, still.

The girls dashed through a doorway into the narrow back entry hall. They halted at the back door, panting. Robin’s blood was pounding in her ears, but the tapping had stopped.

Robin shot the inner bolts and used her house key in the dead bolt, swung the door open.

Cain and Patrick hustled inside, carrying the duffels.

Outside, wind shivered through the dark trees, whipped the branches into a frenzy. For a moment, Robin stood in the doorway, grateful for the air on her hot face. The wind pushed at her, and Robin slammed the door shut.

The darkness was immediate, intimate.

With the door closed, Robin could barely see anyone—just the glistening of people’s eyes. But she could feel Cain’s wiry tension and Patrick’s warm bulk beside her, could smell the cold outdoors on them, and she was momentarily comforted.

Patrick turned on the flashlight; the sudden strong beam startled them all.

“Stay away from the windows with that,” Cain warned him.

“Dude, I lay you money I’ve broken into more houses than you have,” Patrick retorted. He took a dark sock from his pocket and pulled it over the flashlight, muting the beam.

Cain turned to the girls. “Everything okay?”

Robin nodded briefly, though of course it wasn’t okay; she had no idea if anything would ever be okay again. It didn’t feel like breaking into a building. It felt like landing on another planet. The Hall seemed completely cut off from the rest of the world, as if they’d entered another dimension or a parallel universe and were lost to anyone from the real world.

Is it here? In the air? In the walls? What does it look like?

Cain squeezed her hand, as if he’d heard her thoughts. “Any sign of Martin?”

Robin bit her lip, looked at Lisa. “We heard something. In the lounge.”

Patrick reached into an inside pocket of the heavy jacket he wore and pulled out a .38-caliber handgun. The others stared at him, shocked.

“Hey—” Cain started to protest.

“This shell thing killed Waverly,” Patrick said flatly. He cocked the gun, held it at his shoulder, then flashed Cain a crooked grin. “Southern gun culture.”

Cain smiled grimly back.

Patrick turned, and the three of them followed him through the narrow doorway into the main hall.

They stood in a block, looking warily down the dark corridor toward the lounge; Patrick and Cain in front, Lisa and Robin pushed in behind them, so close that they could feel one another breathe. Robin felt life and comfort in their warm bodies, and she was seized with a sudden fierce affection for the people around her. They were hers, she realized; they were like blood.

Patrick looked at Cain, then took a step forward, and they moved in a clump toward the arched entrance of the lounge.

At the doorway, they all paused, looked in warily.

A dark shape flashed on the other side of the room, opposite them.

They all jumped back, jostling into one another.

“Shit,” Patrick muttered, sounding annoyed at himself.

Robin realized they were staring into their own reflections in the mirror.

They all relaxed at the same time, sheepish. Robin looked around the dark cavern of the lounge. Rain beat against the outside of the arched windows. The dark shapes of trees swished and swirled in the wind.

They all jumped again at a sudden fast banging, like the report of a gun, pounding through the ceiling and walls. Robin felt the sound reverberate through her whole body, like someone touching her from inside. Lisa’s revolted gasp beside Robin told her Lisa was feeling the same thing.

Patrick and Cain spun almost angrily, looking up and around them at the molded ceiling.

The banging abruptly stopped. The silence seemed even more ominous.

“Upstairs,” Cain said tightly, moving toward the door.

The four stepped out of the lounge. Robin heard Cain’s intake of breath when Patrick’s flashlight skimmed the coat rack, then felt him relax as he recognized the shape.

They crossed the wood floor to the staircase and started up the stairs, dimmed flashlights bobbing in the dark, eyes darting nervously into every corner. The carpet was spongy beneath their feet, a slightly loathsome sensation. Robin flinched at a creak.